Notes

Fisher Body of General Motors.

At last General Motors, which for seven years has owned 60% of Fisher Body stock (TIME, May 10), will have full possession of the latter. Last week Fisher Body minority stockholders decided to trade in on the basis of one and a half of their shares for one G. M. share.

5,000,000. Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, Oakland, Pontiac,* Oldsmobile, G.M.C. Truck-- General Motors makes them all. Last week this corporation sold its 5,000,000th motor vehicle and simultaneously marked the 1,002,285th car sale during the last twelvemonth. It took them nine years to sell their first 1,000,000, nine years to sell the last 4,000,000.

Limestone. Indiana limestone, Vermont granite, Georgia marble --these trade names have become practically colloquial phrases for builders. Of all limestone quarried in the U. S., the Bedford-Bloomington district of southern Indiana furnishes three-fourths. Here 24 companies, owning 1,652 acres of quarry lands with a probable production over the next 70 years, have just merged themselves into the $45,000,000 Indiana Limestone Co. Last week the new corporation mortgaged its property for a $15,000,000 bond issue.

A Railroad. Last week the directors of the Northern Pacific Railway prepared this table of their earnings for the past ten years, and let it speak hopefully to their 37,322 stockholders and ominously to political monkeys who would tamper with railroading:

Year ending Railway Net Railway Return on Dec. 31 Property Operating Investment Investment Income Per cent 1916 $521,303,308 $33,446,012 6.416

1917 526,294,063 30,491,140 5.794

1918 533,605,992 24,217,342 4.538

1919 534,450,449 14,368,479 2.688

1920 549,775,317 7,949,458 1.446

1921 561,436,950 10,843,826 1.931

1922 560,271,172 19,450,515 3.472

1923 583,882,752 17,100,557 2.929

1924 588,886,578 9,861,077 3.373

1925 598,746,382 22,227,319 3.712

German Steel. Last week the largest trust in Germany was formed (TIME, April 12)-- the United Steel Works, combination of the Thyssen, the Phoenix, the Rheinstal and the Deutsch Luxembourg. Dillon, Read & Co. financed the merger with $30,000,000 to $50,000,000. Fritz Thyssen, son of August who was the great German coal and iron magnate, is chairman of the new company, which will have an annual capacity output of 3,700,000 tons of steel, 2,500,000 tons of pig iron, 8,000,000 tons of coke and 30,000,000 of coal.

* This six-cylander car was first offered for sale the beginning of the year. Now its production has reached 10,000.