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  Established by Edward L. Youmans

              APPLETONS'
           POPULAR SCIENCE
               MONTHLY

              EDITED BY
         WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS

              VOL. LIV

    NOVEMBER, 1898, TO APRIL, 1899

              NEW YORK
       D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
                1899




          COPYRIGHT, 1899,
     BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.




VOL. LIV.    ESTABLISHED BY EDWARD L. YOUMANS.    NO. 2.

APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

DECEMBER, 1898.

_EDITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS._




CONTENTS.


                                                                   PAGE

       I. Wheat-growing Capacity of the United States. By E.
            ATKINSON,                                               145

      II. The Racial Geography of Europe. The Jews. By Prof.
            WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY. (Illustrated.),                      163

     III. The Playgrounds of Rural and Suburban Schools. By
            I. G. OAKLEY,                                           176

      IV. Up the Skeena River. By GEORGE A. DORSEY, Ph. D.
           (Illus.),                                                181

       V. Light and Vegetation. By Prof. D. T. MACDOUGAL,           193

      VI. The Stone Age in Egypt. By J. DE MORGAN,                  202

     VII. Superstition and Crime. By Prof. E. P. EVANS,             206

    VIII. A Geological Romance. By Prof. J. A. UDDEN.
           (Illustrated.),                                          222

      IX. The Season of the Year. By GRANT ALLEN,                   230

       X. Brain Weights and Intellectual Capacity. By JOSEPH
            SIMMS, M. D.,                                           243

      XI. Speleology, or Cave Exploration. By M. E. A. MARTEL,      255

     XII. Sketch of Charles Henry Hitchcock. (With Portrait.),      260

    XIII. Editor's Table: Evolution and Education.--David Ames
            Wells.--A Borrowed Foundation,                          269

     XIV. Scientific Literature,                                    274

      XV. Fragments of Science,                                     282


                  NEW YORK:
           D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
               72 FIFTH AVENUE.

     SINGLE NUMBER, 50 CENTS.      YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION, $5.00.

     COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
     Entered at the Post Office at New York, and admitted for
     transmission through the mails at second-class rates.




[Illustration: CHARLES H. HITCHCOCK.]




APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

DECEMBER, 1898.




THE WHEAT-GROWING CAPACITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

BY EDWARD ATKINSON.


In 1880 it happened to fall to me to make a forecast of the very
great reduction in the price of wheat in Great Britain, which could
then be predicated on the lessening cost of transportation from
Chicago to the seaboard, thence to British ports, which was then
sure to be soon followed by a large reduction in the railway charges
for bringing the wheat to Chicago from the other Western centers of
distribution. I then alleged that the time was not far off when,
even if the price of wheat in Mark Lane were reduced from the then
existing rate of fifty-two shillings per quarter to thirty-four
shillings, it would still yield as full a return to the Western
farmer as it had yielded in previous years at fifty shillings and
upward. This forecast attracted great attention, and has since been
made the subject of very much