The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-04-13

ing for the most part on English soil 1 alone. In fact, with the recent comple- ton of the second line from England
 to South Africa the earth is glrdled with cables which touch land nowhere save where the English flag flies.
 Several French writers have recently viewed with alarm the tremendous ad- vantage this would give Great Britain
 in 8 war waged with one of the few nations that are approximately near England in naval strength. It would mean for one thing that whereas Eng land would be able to keep very accu- 1 rate tab on the movements of her ene- ,my's fleets, the whereabouts of her own
 would not be an easy matter for her
 enemy to follow. For that reason these
 French writers have been urging their
 government to wake up and go to cable
 laying for the benefit of France.
 Germany is already aroused to the
 situation and has stretched wire, with
 wide notifications, to this country.
 So that instead of cable laying being
 nearly a completed job, it may very
 well be that it is a job only just fairly
 begun.
 l That being the case and gutta-percha
 being indispensable to submarine ca
 bles, the tree which yields the precious
 milky gum from which gutta-percha is made has become an object of very great interna tional interest Commer- cial concerns as well as governments
 themselves have in the past few years
 been giving close attention to the gut ta-percha problem. Tropical forests
 have been ransacked for the tree or for one so nearly akin to it that cable covering product may be had from it, and there are various attempts at crea- ing plantations of the original tree in regions where heretofore it has not grown. The forest ransacking has re- suited in failure and the plantations have not yet got beyond the experi- mental stage.
 The area in which the gutta-percha tree thrives is extremely limited. It is confined exclusively to portion of the Malay archipelago and the Malacca pe- ninsula. Where there is an even tenn perature of an average of from eighty to eighty two degrees Fahrenheit and the soil is favorable the tree grows with great vigor. But with only slight variation of these conditions and par ticularly where there are sudden changes of temperature. even if those changes are not extreme, it languishes and dies.
 The Philippines touch closely upon the gutta-percha belt, yet the tree does not grow here indigenously and it is at least very problematical whether it can be cultivated there. It will not grow in Cochin China, likewise near the gutta- percha belt, because the average tenl- perature is too low and the changes too sudden.
 Gutta-percha trees have been trans planted to score or more places where i they have failed, although the Dutch ! have succeeded in establishing several | plantations in their East Indian possess | sions which give promise of success. The experiment is by no means com- plete as yet.
 In 1898 the French explorer Raoul col lected about fifteen hundred plants gathered at the foot of the trees. where they had sprung up from seeds that had been dropped. These he put out in the at Marseilles, and after a time one- third of them were taken to the Congo and put out in plantations and another third were distributed among the planters of the West Indies and in French Guiana. In 1897 M. Jac- quet, inspector of agriculture in Cochin China, carried away seven hundred plants from Singapore, one hundred of which in 1899 were in fair condition.
 It remains for the future to determine what the results in he Congo, the West Indies and in French Guiana will be, al- though those who have studied the tree and know the very exacting nature of s demands in regard to soil and cli- mate are by no means hopeful.-New York Sun