the provinces would be postponed rather than hastened thereby. Not force, but the convocation of a people's constitutional assembly, is the solution of the problem of reunification."

It was thus apparent that Wu Pei-fu was interested in wider issues than the suzerainty of the Wuhan region. When Wang Chan-yuan fled, and the advancing Hunanese (and Szechuanese, who also thought to capitalize the situation) were repulsed by Wu's merciless strategy (for, like all good generals, he is ruthless in war), Wu found himself in possession of China's richest section. But this did not, as politicians and militarists in the North hoped, satisfy and occupy him. Leaving Hupeh in the control of a henchman, Hsiao Yao-nan, he returned to Honan and resumed the training of a model army.

When I visited him there, General Wu assured me that he remained as enthusiastic regarding the convocation of the constitutional assembly as at the close of his campaign against the Anfu Government. "The country cannot be fought together," he said, using a forceful Chinese idiom. "This method has been tried in vain for eleven years, and promises no more success in the future than in the past. The only hope lies in talking it together."

Yet General Wu is not unaware of the necessity of a powerful armed force to guarantee freedom of action to the delegates who do the talking, as well as to the people in their selection. "My suggestion was ignored last summer," he said, "because at that time I lacked the military prestige to protect it from the attacks of selfish chieftains whose advantage lay in other directions." Vice-Inspecting-General inferred that, if his plans did not miscarry, his military prestige would soon be sufficient to warrant his undertaking the guardianship of his constitutional scheme.

The

"But what about the inevitable opposition from Manchuria?" I questioned. General Wu's face took on a wistful look. "Everything I have been for," he said, "Chang Tso-lin seems to have been against. Still," his face brightened, "Manchuria is not vital to the life of China proper. If Chang Tso-lin must have his little kingdom, the Chinese Republic can for the time being do with out the territory of the Three Eastern Provinces. And there is no reason why the Three Eastern Provinces should any longer dictate to us of China proper regarding our political changes, or why our political aspirations should lie at the mercy of the Fengtien lord."

This policy clashed directly with the ambition of Chang Tso-lin, who, from his Manchurian seat, hoped to spread his dominion over the intramural provinces.

Wu Pei-fu is a man of one idea-of one scheme. It is founded upon the one bit of American history which he has studied carefully. That idea is the redrafting of the Constitution and the reunion of the nation through a national

convention, such as that which sat at Philadelphia and created the American Nation in 1787. Wu Pei-fu is obsessed with the idea that a new national convention can produce as much improvement over the Nanking Provisional Constitution of 1911 as the Convention which created the United States and its constitution in 1787 produced over the Confederation of six years earlier.

With this ambition for his country has undoubtedly become mixed a per sonal ambition bred by conceptions in Wu's imagination as to the part he himself is to play in the new régime.

What comprise his motives and whether or not they lead in the direc tion of a constructive, or even definite, plan is of prime importance to the Chinese nation to-day, inasmuch as upon Wu now rests the burden of political action involving the territory south as well as north of the Yangtze.

Although a sympathetic understanding exists between Sun Yat-sen's military commander, General Chen Chungming, and Wu Pei-fu, it will be seen that for the time being the theories of Wu Pei-fu are in direct conflict with those of Dr. Sun. The Cantonese agitator's

fundamental doctrine is that the Chinese revolution has never been completed; that the overthrow of the men who are the heirs of the Manchu autocracy must, and can, be accomplished only by violence. Wu Pei-fu's position, on the other hand, is that violent methods cannot be decisive, and that the only hope is in a convocation of provincial leaders under the protection and, we might infer, spur of a benevolent military force.

History seems to be with Sun Yat-sen. China's frequent past periods of disruption have been brought to their close not by talking but by the ruthless military conquest of one individual or faction. At least according to the records. But, knowing Chinese traits, we are prone to suspect that there was much compromise and palaver mixed with the fighting.

In comparing the present with past periods of disruption we find also many new elements affecting the situation. It has often been said that the foreign settlements and Legations, providing oases for political. refugees, are the greatest obstacle in the way of political stability. Foreign interests in China refuse to undergo the loss occasioned by prolonged internecine strife. Again, there

Snap-shot by the author

A CRACK GUARD OF WU PEI-FU'S TROOPS SEEING HIM OFF IN HIS FORD CAR The General is proud of his men and specially requested that this photograph of them be taken

are no definite lines along which an issue can be fought out. Wu Pei-fu may just as truly claim to be the exponent of progressivism as Sun Yat-sen-yet the two may easily find themselves in armed conflict. As Wu Pei-fu sees it, there are too many chieftains and too many factions to allow of "fighting the revolution out to its finish." The only real issue upon which any chieftain or faction could push a pan-China campaign would be that of individual supremacy. And democracy in China, although still an infant in mind, is too strong in body to allow the career of the uncamouflaged conqueror to culminate. Yuan Shih-kai's failure is conclusive evidence of this.

Under such circumstances, Wu Pei-fu is justified in his statement that the prospect of fighting China into unity is not hopeful. His trustfulness in palaver may appear ingenuous, but let him be given credit for maintaining some degree of faith in his country's political future. There are too many Chinese who, when they turn occasional attention from private ambition to their nation's predicament, are prone to shake their heads in utter helplessness, and, let it also be said, unhelpfulness.

General Wu, although uttering no word which might be interpreted as treason against Peking, has shown a true conception of the inconsequence of Peking in the life of the people of the provinces. If his suggestions of last year remain unchanged, his constitutional assembly would invite the recognition of the present de facto Government at Peking, but would not be discouraged by refusal. It would take upon itself the liberty of reshaping the entire administration of the nation, from the Constitution to the seat of Government. All present arrangements and precedents would simply be swept aside. Wu realizes that he would require a tremen

dous military prestige to enforce the decisions of such a conference. If his own views and the decisions of the assembly should coincide, the results might be really democratic in trend. If the assembly could agree, as the writer fears, only under coercion from him, the resultant Government would be a camouflaged military dictatorship. This is, indeed, the form of government which those familiar with inland China consider the most practical. That it would be far superior in progressivism and benevolence to the score of dictatorships existing in China to-day is undoubted. The danger is that it would contain within itself the seeds of redisunion.

Strangely enough, the national assembly has been a favorite idea of Dr. Sun. Some discouraging experiences have, however, inclined the pioneer of republican ideas to rely upon the imposition of new ideas through military force. Paradoxically, Wu Pei-fu, a man of purely military antecedents, concludes that nothing decisive can be accomplished by military force, and turns with hope to the Chinese aptitude for discussion and compromise. In the opinion of the writer, Wu's hope comes to this: If a group of men who can dominate their respective provinces can be brought together and protected in the course of their discussion from outside threat and in a measure from bribe, they should be able to determine the lines of some sort of interprovincial confederacy taking the place of a central government, and intrust to their powerful patron their execution and perpetuation.

The first requisite of a unified and peaceful China under this scheme must be the absolute prohibition of interprovincial alliance outside of the confederation and the abolition of nationally supported provincial armies. Wu Pei-fu

has set the precedent for the immediate squelching of interprovincial strife.

The plan, following the precedent of the selection of provincial delegates, would allow a great deal of freedom within the provinces themselves. The important thing is to get a hold upon those factors which can dominate in their respective provinces, whether for the time being they be democratic or not. If the dominating factor in a particular province be military, it must be accepted as the representative of that province in the confederation, being at the same time well curbed within the lines of its own province. When capitalistic or democratic elements within the province become able to overawe the military, they should succeed to the national representation. The fact that military power is curbed within provincial lines will militate against its downfall. There is hardly a Tuchun to-day who holds his position without the aid of outside-province troops. Again, a military chief dependent for revenues upon his own province will become gradually subservient to the powerful guilds and growing financial interests.

General Wu realizes that he is working against time-that outside nations whose industries demand China's natural resources will not indefinitely let China alone to work out her own salvation.

"Is the idea of foreign intervention virile?" he asked.

"It is dormant, but will not remain so if China continues to disappoint the world," I replied.

"Then we must hasten," the little General concluded.

That Wu Pei-fu will prove a positive factor in the establishment of stable and popular government in China is open to doubt. Although unquestionably the greatest soldier which his country has produced in modern times, he has little political and diplomatic ability.

It is of course well-nigh impossible for a leader in China to do anything for his country, and this is one reason why salvation must come through a general leavening of the people rather than through leadership. The Chinese people, possibly in part as a result of some thousands of years of disappointing experience, but more because of their intense individualism, do not want leadership. Nothing has been more evident in the past ten years of chaos in China than the tendency of the crowd to combine to lop off any head which gets itself above the others. Not only do the tactics of the rising figure's political enemies force him into the traditional paths of Tuchunism, but the very attitude of the common people, who psychologically mistrust any lord of the ascendant and regard power as synonoymous with corruptness, bears in the same direction. After all, the Tuchun is the product of his people.

F

OR centuries gold has stood for

value. From the beginnings of

history to the present time, with the exception of food, the glittering yellow metal has been more sought after than any commodity in the entire category of human desire. Wars have been fought for its possession; innumerable lives have been lost in its pursuit; honor has been sacrificed for it; and the lure is still as compelling as in the days of Solomon, Pizarro, or Bret Harte.

But platinum is worth more than five times as much as gold, although Solomon, Pizarro, and the California Fortyniners and Klondike-rushers knew it not. Indeed, nobody knew it, for its value was negligible until modern metallurgy and chemistry discovered its usefulness in the arts, till the war demonstrated it to be indispensable in the manufacture of modern munitions, and until fashion set its stamp of approval on this metal in competition with gold as a perfect setting for precious stones.

In the young days of the New World gold-crazed Spaniards, gold-crazed Portuguese, Hollanders, and Englishmen embarked on expedition after expedition in search of the "Golden One." Their heroism and hardihood almost beggars description. Tradition had it that, deep in the Andean mountains, was the "Golden City"-the seat of the opulent Peruvian Government of the Incas. Fantastic and romantic stories fanned the flame of the imaginative mind of the gold-crazed men who were ready and willing to believe anything of the incredible gold hoard of the famous mythical city-this El Dorado.

Although the "Golden City" was never found, the Spaniards obtained much gold, and they found platinum also. Not knowing what else to do with the latter,

PLATINUM NUGGET FOUND IN THE CHOCO DISTRICT, COLOMBIA Natural size of the nugget; one of the largest ever found on this side of the Atlantic. It weighs about one and three-quarter pounds and is worth at to-day's prices about $1,890. A similar nugget weighing slightly more was stolen from the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1913, where it was on exhibition. It was never recovered and has probably been melted down and sold. The world's largest platinum nugget was found in the Ural Mountains and is said to have weighed eighteen pounds

they threw it away, calling it a nuisance. For centuries natives and aliens who have washed out the sands of the Atrato, the San Juan, and other Colombian and Peruvian rivers for gold have thrown back the platinum as worthless. They, too, called it a nuisance.

The modern picture thrown upon the screen shows bands of explorers in the valleys and beds of the same rivers where once the Spaniards sought in vain for the source of all gold; but they are searching for platinum now, and the gold which is always found in connection with its associate is of secondary consequence. Other remote parts of the earth also are being intensively searched for platinum-Alaska; the beds of the

rivers flowing into the Pacific in Oregon and northern California; in Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Tasmania, New South Wales, and Canada. But the laborious placer pan-washing methods of olden days have been supplanted and the precious metal is now mined by big steel dredges with immense buckets that scoop up the bottoms of the rivers known to contain platinum-virgin platinum nuggets that have been swept down from the "mother lode" that is "somewhere" up in the mountains. Unlike the case of gold, however, no "mother lode" of platinum has yet been found and worked.

What is it that started these big dredges at work digging up the bottoms of the Colombian and other rivers for platinum? It is this. The world's supply is threatened. Russia, up to the beginning of the war, furnished ninetyfive per cent of it from deposits in the beds of the rivers flowing down from the Ural Mountains. The war and the anarchy which followed closed this source of supply. Colombia came next as a producer of platinum, and big speculation turned its attention to this premier source.

A short generation has seen platinum emerge from the neglected class of metals of lesser value into the lime-light of prominence. One of the two "noblest of metals" it is now called by Dr. George F. Kunz, of Tiffany's, who is an authority on the subject. It has supplanted its consort, gold, on the throne of popularity in some respects because of its high intrinsic value as a metal. Gold, however, for the mere reason of its being the money standard of the

world will continue to dispute the aspirations of its new rival.and will do so successfully so long as gold and money are inseparably associated.

A hundred years ago platinum was worth but half the present price of silver. By the beginning of the present century the price had advanced by very slow degrees to $14 an ounce, and it is within the last decade that it has reached the level of its associate, gold, in price-$20.67 an ounce. Since that time, however, its price advance has been spectacular, mounting as high as $170 an ounce during the war. At the present time it is worth about $115.

The uses of platinum are innumerable. It is valuable in making sulphuric acid and is an essential in the manufacture

of explosives-indeed, modern warfare would be impossible without a certain amount of this metal in making guns, nitrogen, pyrometers, and other war material. This is why Uncle Sam found it necessary to call upon his patriotic citizens during the war to turn in their platinum jewelry and other ornaments -a call to which enthusiastic response was made. Lightning-rod tips are made of platinum, and for the coloring of pottery and in the manufacture of certain photographic papers and for the preservation of standards of measurements it is the only metal usable and reliable. In the archives of France there is a carefully guarded standard meter preserved in a bar of platinum. A meter is just one-ten-millionth part of the earth's

quadrant measured at the equator, and its determination was made with the greatest of care by Don Antonio de Ulloa in Ecuador early in the eighteenth century. The meter, according to this standard, is that universally adopted. It matters not, so the story goes, that it has long since been found out that Señor de Ulloa made a mistake in his calculations-his meter stands, just the

same.

Platinum may be made into the hardest or the most ductile of metals. Combined with ten or twenty per cent of iridium it is the hardest. It is said that one cubic inch of platinum can be drawn to such fineness that a single web of the wire would extend twice around the earth! Platinum is one of the heaviest things in nature, being passed only by iridium, with which that metal is always associated, and by tungsten and molybdenum. Associated with platinum are nearly always found palladium, rhodium, and ruthenium, all precious metals, although the volume of platinum always predominates.

Platinum jewelry began to make its appearance about twenty-five or thirty years ago, when it was discovered that the color and luster of a diamond were materially improved when set in this white metal. As such settings grew in popular favor and as jewelers and refiners learned the art of handling platinum and of hardening it by an alloy of iridium, its use began to spread into the broader field of jewelry of all kinds and designs and into the manufacture of small ornaments and trinkets.

Platinum jewelry carries on its face a guaranty of genuineness and that it has been hand-wrought in that it cannot readily be cast, like gold. This gives it a mark of distinction, and there is no known metal which imparts the appearance of quality as well as platinum. It carries the stamp of "class" on its face. Platinum jewelry will retain its chaste and virgin look indefinitely and it does not oxidize or discolor, like gold, which will tarnish in time. With the proper admixture of iridium platinum forms a metal of such intense hardness and toughness that gossamer webs, scarcely visible to the naked eye, can be drawn from it and subjected to rough usage without serious injury. For this reason the most intricate designs may be carried out in jewelry by the use of an astonishingly small amount of platinum, which fact largely overcomes its high cost per weight.

The statement has frequently been made that the use of platinum in jewelry is a fad-a fad because it is high in price-and it has been pointed out that so long as it was cheap the beau monde had little use for it. This statement is vehemently denied by most jewelers. Almost with one voice they declare that the platinum fashion is here on its merits and not because the metal is rare or expensive, strongly asserting that it will stay and increase in popularity. One jeweler was heard to

say when discussing the relative merits of the two "noble" metals: "Recall the parade of nurses in their spotless white gowns and hats as they marched down Fifth Avenue when the war was on; then visualize, if you can, the effect had all these women been gowned and hatted in yellow, and you will have the difference between platinum and gold."

Among other uses to which platinum has been put in the past, it has served as a basis for money. It has also figured conspicuously as a base for counterfeit gold coins of various denominations and values in many lands. This was at times when the price was below that of the yellow metal. Some of these counterfeit coins are still extant in'museums. A hundred years ago rubles of platinum were coined and circulated in Russia, but when the intrinsic worth of the metal in the ruble became more valuable than the face value of the coin itself these pieces were gradually retired to the melting-pot.

In view of the varied uses to which platinum now lends itself, it is to be

wondered at that the chemists and metallurgists of Europe were so slow in appreciating its value, for it was not until the eighteenth century that it seems to have attracted any attention. This was when de Ulloa visited what is now Colombia. Ages ago, SO the archæologists tell us, the aborigines of South America-the Incas and their predecessors-worked the metal into ornaments for their priests and kings. In the Museum of Natural History in New York there is a collection of platinum jewels and ornaments taken from tombs in Ecuador supposed to be not less than two thousand years old. But the art of working the metal was lost and not rediscovered till three hundred years after Pizarro's time, and another hundred years elapsed before it was recognized as having unusual qualities, and not until the World War descended upon us did scientists become fully acquainted with it.

What is the future of this remarkable metal? Nobody has any exact knowledge of what is going on inside the do

There

main of Lenine and Trotsky. may, and there may not, be large quantities of platinum stored in that country awaiting a favorable opportunity to strengthen its position with the outside world by using it as a trading base; in deed, it has been recently stated on a semblance of authority that Soviet Rus sia is about to begin again the coinage of platinum rubles and to adopt that metal as its money standard. The fact remains, however, that the world produces to-day but about twenty per cent of the platinum of pre-war times, and it is pointed out that under the best of conditions Russia cannot again enter the field in a large way for several years —indeed, it was well known even before the war that the existing Ural deposits were becoming depleted.

So long as fashion demands platinum and until some adequate substitute is discovered for its use in the arts a supply must be found "somewhere," and the situation clearly points to Colombiaknown before the war to be the second largest producer, now the largest.

HE wealth of the Indies was the objective of Columbus and the early explorers in their search for a westward passage to the Orient.

The Portuguese navigator Antonio Galvao in 1550, in the belief that no channelway existed between the Atlantic and Pacific, recommended that an isthmian canal be built-the precursor of the present Panama Canal.

Hernando de Soto in 1541, or possibly de Pineda in 1519, discovered the Mississippi; Jacques Cartier in 1534 discovered the St. Lawrence, and reported to his master, Francis I, "It is the greatest river that ever has been."

These two great rivers have their sources close to each other near the head of Lake Superior. The Mississippi flows southward through the Great Plains and empties into the Gulf of Mexico; the St. Lawrence, the broadest and deepest river on the continent, flows from its source by way of the Great Lakes, down the valley of the St. Lawrence in a volume of a quarter million cubic feet each second, to the northern Atlantic, a distance of more than two thousand miles.

The Rocky Mountains to the west, the Laurentians to the north, and the Appalachian ranges from Alabama curving north and eastward to Nova Scotia, form the sides of a great trough which runs from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of St. Lawrence by way of the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, and the St. Lawrence Valley.

Robert Cavelier de La Salle, in quest of a passage to China in 1669, voyaged

BY GILBERT H. GILBERT

180 miles from Montreal up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, thence across the lakes to the foot of Lake Michigan, and southward by the Ohio and Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, thus establishing the connection between the discoveries of De Soto in the South with the discoveries of Père Marquette, Joliet, des Groseilliers, Radisson, and the other explorers in the North, whose names are still preserved in the nomenclature of the localities and waters about the Great Lakes.

The discovery and establishment of water routes from the ocean by way of the Mississippi and by the St. Lawrence with the rich midland areas about the Great Lakes brought with them a recognition that the potential natural wealth of the vast territory tributary to the lakes was far greater and more real than the fabled riches of El Dorado or the Great Khan. Trading posts were established at the site of Duluth in 1678 by the Sieur de Luht, at the site of Detroit in 1701 by Cadillac, and throughout the region of the lakes and St. Lawrence by the contemporaries and successors of these pioneers.

To-day these regions are productive of greater wealth from manufactures, mines, and agriculture than any other region in the world.

The Panama Canal provides passageway to the East for vessels of the largest type, but the vastly greater trade and commerce of the tributary areas of the lakes still remains landlocked to vessels of a size that could profitably engage in ocean carriage. The tonnage passing

through the Panama Canal is not onetenth of the volume of tonnage passing in and out of the ports of the lakes and the St. Lawrence.

Of the white population of this hemisphere more than one-half inhabit New England and the States and provinces that border on or are tributary to the Great Lakes or the St. Lawrence Valley. Two-thirds of the railway tonnage of North America is carried in this region. Iron, coal, and grain are the essential elements of the material predominance of a nation; eighty-five per cent of the iron, seventy per cent of the coal reserve, and seventy-five per cent of the grain are of the resources of this region, and copper, zinc, lead, timber, pork, and wool are of its main products.

The manufactures and distribution of the products of the United States have resulted in a commerce that excels the total international commerce of the rest of the world. The industries produced $63,000,000,000 of wealth in 1920, three times that of 1910 and five times that of 1900. The Nation's business has outrun its transportation facilities; the transport of an ever-increasing volume of products must be provided for if development is to continue.

Transportation is a link in the chain of costs from producer to consumer. It is an economic maxim that "The total cost is the cost of production plus the cost of transportation."

Judge Gary stated, in commenting on the business of United States Steel for 1921: "Railroad transportation, on the basis of existing rate conditions, a