Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-02-20

poor hand at statistics. The country
Just growed' in Topsy.
Canal Zone like m Ter. and no
doubt the marked pro-
oSAooAS' pensity to eXaggerate
that foreigners profess to see as uni
versal trait of Americana arose from
| the fact that in the early days every
one had a perfect right to guess at
| wildly as he liked-there were no fig.
! ures to check him UP. Now. however
| Uncle Sam has mended his ways sta.
| tistically, and there is scarcely a ques-
! ton involving a matter of figures or
| which even the most whimsically curl
Gus Of his citizens can battle him.
One Of the recent bits of out-of the
| way information that has been gath
cred in connection with the figuring OF
government costs relates to the un-
| usual service Of carrying pupils by
| railroad to and from school In the
Panama Canal Zone. On the thirty
| hauled an aggregate of 2.40o miles a
day or a distance equal to twice around
| the world each month of twenty school
days.
There are seventeen stations on the
| line of the Panama railroad in the
zone. but In only seven of them are
the child populations sufficiently large
to warrant the maintenance of schools
The schools are so well adjusted to
| the centers of population. however
that only one in ten Of the govern
| ment's 1.240 white pupils and only one
| in sixty-three of the $40 colored pupils
need to be carried to school by rail-
The school branch Of the zone gov
| eminent has secured a rate from the
| railroad branch that II accorded to
| commuters in the states would make
| that long suffering group of persons
| supremely happy lot The rate is
| exactly five-eighths of a cent a mile.
Fogs have been one Of the greatest
enemies of mariners all over the world
| 1 in all ages since
Direction Finder men began to navi-
| WV, gate the waters:
Aoi "Ie1ess. but along the
coasts of the United States, thanks to
the work over many years of various
government departments. they are be-
ing robbed steadily of their dangers.
The definite conditions that produce
| these low-lying clouds, that come APP
parently from nowhere to blot out
great areas of land and sea for a space,
have been determined by close studies
carried on by the weather bureau, SO
that regions most affected and times OF
| greatest prevalence are well known.
During the same period the bureau
of lighthouses of the Commerce De-
partment has been installing improved
sounding apparatus to warn ships OF
danger points hidden by the blankets
of fog. Now a third bureau-that OF
standards-has developed an invention
| that promises to make navigation under
foggy conditions still less dangerous.
| The new device has already been an
nounced to the world in quite another
capacity-as a direction finder for
wireless stations. invaluable in naval
warfare and in maintaining govern
ment supervision over radio stations
both in times of peace and war. But
the mechanism has deeply interested
navigation. lighthouse and weather ex-
perts because of the epoch making
possibilities for its application in MAX
ing sea travel safer.
Experts of the bureau of standards
who have been working on the direc-
| ton finder have already suggested a
system for its use in safeguarding
shipping that is simplicity itself now
that the direction finder is availabl
Their idea Ia first to bring about the
Installation of the new detecting appa-
| ratus on ships. The second and final
step would be to set up in lighthous 6
marking danger points special wire
less sending equipment that would
fash out every SO often a definite sig