and estuarine deposits, the Grand Gulf, representing, as he claimed, all geological time between the Vicksburg and the Lafayette.

3. The recognition of the Cretaceous Ridge or backbone of Louisiana, and the determination of the Cretaceous age of the rock-salt and sulphur deposits of Calcasieu parish.

4. Study of the exceptional features of the Lower Mississippi delta and of the mudlumps and their origin, and the definite correlation of the Port Hudson formation.

Probably no work has done more for the correlation of the scattered accounts of the geology of the Southern States than the Cotton Culture reports of the Tenth Census (1880) prepared under the direction of Doctor Hilgard. Besides having general direction of the whole and preparing the general discussions of cotton production in the United States, including soil investigations, the cotton-seed industries, and measurements of cotton fibres, Doctor Hilgard wrote the special description of Mississippi, Louisiana, and California.

In these reports a summary of the physical and geological features of each state is first given. Then follow accounts of the agricultural features and capabilities of the Cotton States, such as should be of interest to immigrants and investors, along with special descriptions of each county, with soil maps and maps showing the relation between the areas cultivated in cotton and the total area of each state.

In a recent letter Doctor Hilgard comments on these reports as follows: "The Census Cotton Report, for all the hard work it cost, has found little appreciation because of the medium of publication, quarto at that. Don't let us do it again." But all was not lost in the quarto volumes, for in Alabama and South Carolina at least the Cotton Culture Reports were republished as State Geological Survey Reports, and have been very thoroughly appreciated and have furnished the meat for numerous subsequent handbooks.

Personally Doctor Hilgard was one of the most lovable of men. His extraordinary fund of general as well as of special information, along with his cheerfulness and vivacity, notwithstanding the handicap of a rather frail constitution, made him a delightful companion, and his letters, even on technical or scientific matters, were always enlivened by humorous and witty remarks, so that they were truly good reading.

A FABLE

LEON J. RICHARDSON

King Croesus, mounted on a snowy steed,

By chance drew rein where round a mountain mead
Of asphodel the cool Meander flow'd.

"My realm" he briefly said, as on he rode.

Presently came a minstrel by-a look!
And straight he fell to marveling nor took
His homeward way till evening's crimson light
Had sunder'd golden day from sable night.

The king that eve, surrounded by his guard,
Was ruler of the feast. The aged bard
Had sung of life-down went the royal gage:
"Pray tell me, ye who turn the labor'd page

Of lore, what boon of life the poor possess. At last outspoke the sage in bold address: "This truth, great king, the poor man's smart doth salve: To see, to know, to be, are greater than to have."

EXPERIENCES WITH THE FORD PEACE
EXPEDITION

PAUL L. FUSSELL '16

So much newspaper and magazine publicity has been given to the Ford expedition that it may seem wholly unnecessary to add to what has already been said. And yet, when I returned to America, after the expedition was over, it seemed that the expedition which I read about in the press was a very different one from the expedition which I accompanied. So much was being said about squirrels and squirrel-food, and Ford cranks, and reverend gentlemen playing leap-frog, that it seemed to me that the essential features of the expedition were being neglected. So it may not be wholly without purpose, if I speak very briefly on what seemed to me to be the essentials of the trip.

I remember that when we sailed from New York many misconceptions were current about the expedition's plans. Nearly everyone thought that the expedition expected to bring the war to an immediate conclusion. The public took that unfortunate slogan, "Out of the trenches by Christmas," as the literal expectation of the party. As to just how we intended to accomplish this impossible task, opinion was divided. Some thought that Ford expected to call a strike of the soldiers in the trenches. Others thought that there was no plan at all, but that we would do as the Pilgrims did on the Mayflower: draw up a scheme of action before reaching the farther shore.

None of these conceptions had any basis in fact. The party did not expect to bring the war to an immediate close; no strike of the soldiers was ever dreamed of; and far from having no plan at all, the scheme of action, though hastily and imperfectly executed, was the result of long planning and careful thought.

The plan, in brief, was as follows. We were to travel through the four accessible neutral nations of EuropeNorway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands-enlisting the support of prominent citizens from each country, and adding them to our party. When the conclusion of the 'peace pilgrimage" was reached at The Hague, the delegates from each nation were to elect five representatives of their own nationality to sit as an unofficial neutral conference until the close of the war. The establishment of this unofficial, permanent, neutral conference was the sole purpose and the end of the expedition. In spite of ridicule and mistakes, in spite of dissension and desertion, in spite of disease and death, the expedition traveled from Norway to Sweden, from Sweden to Denmark, from Denmark through Germany to Holland, and before the party disbanded at The Hague it fulfilled its sole purpose by the creation of this permanent, unofficial, neutral conference.

This neutral conference, made up of twenty-five wellknown citizens of the five most prominent neutral states, is now meeting in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. The conference is being advised by experts in international law and current European conditions from the belligerent states. When the members of this conference have studied the problems of the war, they expect to frame and to submit simultaneously to all belligerents a possible basis for peace. It is the hope of the conference that a solution may be proposed which will recognize international justice, and which will at the same time prove acceptable to the belligerent states.

Personally, it seems incredible to me that twenty-five private individuals, unknown in international affairs, should