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Figure 3.—Summer Sea Fog pouring over Sausalito Hills and through Golden Gate.

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View from U. S. Weather Bureau Observatory, Mount Tamalpais.

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View from U. S. Weather Bureau Observatory, Mount Tamalpais.

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mean relative humidity at the station on Mt. Tamalpais was 59 per cent, while that at San Francisco was as high as 83 per cent. The average hourly wind velocity for the higher station is also much greater than that of the lower station, the maximum velocities recorded being respectively 91 and 47, and about this proportion is maintained throughout the year.

The Weather Bureau officials in the city receive frequent reports from Point Reyes and Mt. Tamalpais, and thus are able to issue a daily chart showing the extent and character of the sea fog over Drakes Bay, the roadstead, and the Golden Gate.

From Mt. Tamalpais Mr. McAdie has made a special study of fog conditions. His method of obtaining a cross-section of the fog is very ingenious. A descent from the station to sea-level can be made by the train in about fifty minutes, a distance of eight miles. A kite meteoro

graph is attached near the top of an open-canopied car, insuring good circulation, and carried through the fog in this way a number of times. From the data thus obtained, a rough crosssection is made. section is made. A typical pressure distribution accompanying sea fogs has been recognized. In general, a movement southward along the coast of an area of high pressure in summer means fresh northerly winds and high temperatures in the interior of the State, with brisk westerly winds laden with fog on the coast.

The illustrations that accompany this paper depict very graphically the splendor of fog effects. Figure 1 shows the morning fog covering the valleys-the most common type of fog. Figure 2 shows a mass of lifted sea fog in a state of comparative rest. Figure 3 shows the summer sea fog pouring in a mighty torrent through the Golden Gate and submerging the neighboring hills. Figures 4 and 5 show the great billows of the wind-driven sea of fog.

To Prof. Cleveland Abbe, editor of the Monthly Weather Review, and to Mr. Alexander G. McAdie, of San Francisco, the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE is indebted for the photographs.

GEOGRAPHIC FACTS FROM REPORT OF THE TAFT PHILIPPINE COMMISSION

T

HE total amount of land in the Philippine Islands is approximately 73,345,415 acres. Of this amount it is estimated that about 4,940,000 acres are owned by individuals, leaving in public lands 68,405,415 acres. The land has not been surveyed, and these are merely estimates. Of the

* The religious orders own about 400,000 acres.

public lands, there is about twice or three times as much forest land as there is waste land. The land is most fertile and for the greater part naturally irrigated. There was a very great demand for this land, but owing to the irregularities, frauds, and delays in the Spanish system, the natives generally abandoned efforts to secure a good title, and contented themselves with remaining

on the land as simple squatters, subject to eviction by the State. In 1894 the Minister for the Colonies reported to the Queen of Spain that there were about 200,000 squatters on the public lands, but it is thought by employees in the forestry bureau, who have been in a position to know, that there are fully double that number. In the various islands of the archipelago the proportion of private land to public land is about as stated above, except in Mindanao, Mindoro, and Palawan, where the proportion of public land is far greater.

The insufficient character of the public-land system under the Spanish Government in these islands makes it unnecessary to refer in detail to what that system was. As there were no surveys of any importance whatever, the first thing to be done in establishing a public-land system is to have the public lands accurately surveyed. This is a work of years, but it is thought that a system of the laws of public lands can be inaugurated without waiting until the survey is completed. Large amounts of American capital are only awaiting the opportunity to invest in the rich agricultural field which may here be developed. In view of the decision that the military government has no power to part with the public land belonging to the United States, and that that power rests alone in Congress, it becomes very essential, to assist the development of these islands and their prosperity, that Congressional authority be vested in the government of the islands to adopt a proper public-land system, and to sell the land upon proper terms.

MINERAL WEALTH AND THE MINING INDUSTRY.

It is difficult at the present time to make any accurate general statement as regards the mineral resources of the Philippine Islands. There has never

been any mining, properly so called, in this archipelago up to the present time. The mining fields have never been thoroughly prospected, and even where very valuable deposits were known to exist they were worked, if at all, in a haphazard and intermittent fashion.

Present indications are that the near future will bring a great change in the mining industry. According to the chief of the mining bureau there are now some twelve hundred prospectors and practical miners scattered through the different islands of the archipelago. Of these probably 90 per cent are Americans. They are for the most part men of good character. They are pushing their way into the more inaccessible regions, furnishing their own protection, and doing prospecting of a sort and to an extent never before paralleled in the history of the Philippine Islands. The result is that our knowledge of the mineral resources of the group is rapidly increasing. When all due allowance is made for prospectors' exaggerations, it is not too much to say that the work thus far done has demonstrated the existence of many valuable mineral fields. The provinces of Benguet, Lepanto, and Bontoc in particular form a district of very great

richness.

In the province of Lepanto, at Mancayan and Suyoc, there are immense deposits of gray copper and copper sulphide, and running through this ore are veins of gold-bearing quartz, which is more or less disintegrated and in places is extremely rich. This copper ore has been assayed, and the claim is made that it runs on the average 8 per cent copper, while gold is often present in considerable quantities. The deposits are so extensive as to seem almost inexhaustible.

The Commission has been unable to verify the statements as to the extent and richness of these copper deposits through its own agents, but the authority for them is such that they are believed to be substantially correct.

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