IN THE LION COUNTRY. 617 



would add twenty cents to the above cost, and give them an average 

 durability of fourteen years. 



Twenty-eight hundred ties at seventy cents = $1,960, which would 

 be the cost for seven years, and, for fourteen years, twice this $3,9*20. 

 Twenty-eight hundred ties at ninety cents = $2,520, and these would 

 last fourteen years. 



The difference in first cost is $560, and the simple interest on this 

 at five per cent for fourteen years is $392, and this added to the $2,520 

 makes $2,912, a difference of $1,008 for the treated ties per mile for 

 fourteen years. Local conditions would vary the results, but not the 

 principle. 



In the present extensive use of timber and lumber, only the rough- 

 est approximate estimate is possible of the annual loss by fungi ; and 

 the amount of loss can be indicated in only a few items. The cost of 

 replacing decayed ties by the railways of the United States for 1885 

 exceeded $30,000,000. Repairs of station-buildings and road-cross- 

 ings, $19,500,000. Repairs of wooden and wood parts of bridges, 

 $6,250,000 (estimated). Repairs of freight-cars, $22,500,000 (esti- 

 mated). Repairs of passenger-cars, $7,500,000 (estimated). The re- 

 newal of telegraph poles and fixtures on 160,000 miles of line consti- 

 tutes a large item. The loss to the agricultural interests is much 

 greater. The tenth census reports the cost of fencing in 1879 at 

 $77,763,473, the most of which was for repairs. The loss caused by 

 fungi on the 9,000,000 dwellings, with their accompanying buildings, 

 and the $406,520,055 worth of agricultural implements which appear 

 in the census reports, and that on the 6,654,997 tons of marine, and on 

 wharves above water, form other large items. The lumber interests 

 are also a great loser through the quantities of timber that are de- 

 stroyed in store. The mere mention of these facts makes it evident 

 that the regular annual loss from this source must be rated at many 

 million dollars. 



-- 



IN THE LION COUNTRY. 



By PAEKEK GILLMOEE. 



THE majority of people have possessed pets of some description or 

 other, but few are able to say that they have owned a couple of 

 tame lions, for tame they were when I owned Leo and Juno, and I can 

 vouch that more interesting pets were never the property of any indi- 

 vidual. How I became their possessor I will endeavor to the best of 

 my ability to inform my readers. 



In those happy days, now some years past, when war had not broken 

 out between the Boers of the Transvaal and Great Britain, I was huut- 

 ing large game to the north of the Crocodile River, where the country 

 of Lubengulo, King of the Matebeles, abuts on that of Kama, King of 



