Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/231

Rh a means of preserving the head-waters of important rivers."

lines of work by the Federal Government along the line of forest preservation are especially worth comment. One is the attempt to get an exact estimate of just what forests the country possesses and just what conditions they are in. This knowledge is required as a basis for all theoretical deductions, and as a starting point for all practical measures. This work is now being extensively carried out by the United States Geological Survey. The other is the attempt definitely to assist land-owners to develop wisely their forest lands and thus to spread over the country practical acquaintance with the principles of forest management. This work is in the hands of the Division of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture. In the nineteenth and twentieth reports of the Geological Survey, Mr. Gannett gives the following statistics concerning the area of woodland in the United States. Of the whole country 37 per cent, is wooded; along the Atlantic border the percentage varies from 40 to 80 per cent.; in Ohio, it is 23 per cent.; in Illinois, 18 per cent.; in Kansas, 7 per cent.; in North Dakota, 1 per cent.; in California, 22 per cent., and in Washington, 71 per cent. The areas reserved and their percentage of the total area of the State and of the wooded area of the State are as follows:

of the most interesting questions concerning human nature is the degree to which special aptitudes may appear as the result of innate organic conditions quite apart from experience. It is well enough known that general mental ability is born in us if we have it at all, but we do not know so well how far any special ability, for instance in mathematics, music or sculpture, is due to inborn structural or functional peculiarities. The 'prodigies' in special fields may be instanced as evidence that such highly specialized gifts are inborn, but in some cases interest in the facts concerned and the habit of thinking about them seem to be sufficient to account for the prodigy's success. The latest mathematical prodigy, a boy who has been carefully studied by Professor Bryan and Dr. Lindley of Indiana University, seemed to owe his success to the habit of constantly thinking about numbers. Any intelligent person who would be as much engaged in the pursuit might do as well. It is hard, however, to explain in this way the cass of the musical prodigy exhibited before the International Congress of Psychologists by M. Charles Richet. The boy, then three years, seven months and seven days old, played the piano with at times remarkable skill in both technique and expression, but especially in the latter. He knows a score of pieces by heart, all of which he has learned by ear. If twenty or thirty measures are played before him he can then play them. He also, though with more difficulty, plays on the piano tunes he has heard sung. Of his inventiveness Professor Richet said: "It is certain that when Pepito starts to improvise, he is almost never at a loss, and he often finds extremely interesting melodies which appear more or less new to all those present. There is a variety and richness of tone which would perhaps be astonishing if he were a professional musician, but which in a child three years and a half old are absolutely overwhelming." In all else than music he seems to be an ordinary child. Pepito, according to his mother's narrative, was a good player from the start. His first performance was to play throughout a