ANOTHER SEARCH FOR THE NORTH POLE.-Commander Robert E. Peary has received a three years' leave of absence from the Navy Department, from April first, next, and will make another attempt to reach the North Pole. Both President Roosevelt and Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Chas. H. Darling, have assured him of their hearty sympathy. Peary expects to start next July, establish a base of supplies at Cape Sabine, winter quarters at Grant Land, and start with a sledge party over the polar pack in February, 1905, as soon as light returns, this party to be followed by a large main party. He expects to accomplish the distance to the pole and return in one hundred days, making an average of ten miles a day, get his ship out late in the season and return home. He will use individual sledges, drawn by dogs, and manned by Eskimos; his plan gives him the advantage of a fixed landbase one hundred miles nearer the pole than any other route, and a wider landbase on which to retreat. In his letter granting the leave of absence Secretary Darling says: * * * * The attainment of the pole should be your main object. Nothing short will suffice. The discovery of the pole is all that remains to complete the map of the world. That map should be completed in our generation and by our countrymen. Our national pride is involved in the undertaking and this department expects that you will accomplish your purpose and bring further distinction to a service of illustrious traditions. October, 1903. SILVER ADVANCED.-Owing to purchases by the United States for the Philippine account, and the demand from India, silver advanced to 60%, on the thirteenth, the highest point established in years. HEAVY AND DESTRUCTIVE RAINSTORM.-Between 3 a. m. on the eighth and 4 p. m. on the ninth, 10.4 inches of rain fell in New York City, and the north Atlantic coast generally suffered from the extraordinary downpour. In New York thousands of cellars were flooded, and much injury done to parks and cemeteries. Paterson and Pasaic on the river of the latter name suffered a loss of two million dollars; thousands were driven from their homes, and many bridges and buildings were carried away by the river which rose three feet above its record for forty years. The Mowhawk, rose twenty-one feet above its normal level, closing the works of the General Electric and American Locomotive companies which employ eighteen thousand persons. The streams began receding on Sunday eleventh. Foreign.-September, 1903. POPE PIUS'S PRAYER.-The first official document of Pius X for the occasion of the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, issued on the eighth' is a prayer to the Virgin, and to those who will recite it once a day, the Pope accords an indulence for three hundred days. The prayer as translated by The Independent from the Italian text, Virgine Santissima, reads: Most Holy Virgin, who pleased Our Lord and became his Mother, immaculate in body and soul, in faith and love; in this solemn Jue of the proclamation of the Dogma, which announced Thee to the universal world as conceived without sin, mayst thou benevolently regard those miserable ones who implore thy patronage! The malevolent Serpent, against which was hurled the first curse, continues, unfortunately, to combat and insinuate itself among the suffering children of Eve; mayst Thou, O! our blessed Mother, our Queen and Advocate, who since the first instant of thy conception crushed the head of the enemy, gather the prayers which, united with Thee in only one heart, we implore thee to present at the throne of God, that we may never yield to the insinuations which assail us, so that we shall all arrive at the harbor of everlasting life, and in the midst of many dangers the Church and Christian society shall sing once more the hymn of liberation, victory and peace. Amen. October, 1903. RUSSIA'S CONTEMPT FOR PROMISE.-Our state department has Russia's written promise to evacuate Manchuria Oct. 8. The day has come and gone, and Russia has taken no step to comply with her promise. On the tenth Christian Russia sent ninety vessels of all sorts to the East to protect herself against the "indignation of Japan which continues in the old Pagan notion that international promises should be sacred." There is great indignation in this country at Russia's action. IMPROVEMENT ERA. VOL. VII. DECEMBER, 1903. No. 2. JOSEPH SMITH AS SCIENTIST. BY DR. JOHN A. WIDTSOE, DIRECTOR OF THE AGRICULTURAL II. THE PERSISTENCE OF MATTER AND FORCE. Men It was believed by the philosophers of ancient and mediæval times, especially by those devoted to the study of alchemy, that it was possible through mystical powers, often of a supernatural order, to annihilate matter or to create it from nothing. with such powers transcended all known laws of nature, and became objects of fear, often of worship to the masses of mankind. Naturally enough, systems of religion became colored with philosophical doctrines of the times; and it was held to be a fundamental religious truth that God created the world from nothing. Certainly God could do what his creatures, the magicians, were able to do that part of the reasoning was sound. In support of this doctrine, attention was called to some of the experiences of daily life. A piece of coal is placed in a stove, and in a short time disappears-it is annihilated. From the clear air of a summer's day raindrops frequently start-created out of nothing. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, facts and laws of |