.80 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



of this popular magazine is out of print, 

 with nearly 15,000 unsupplied subscribers, 

 while their February edition is 70,000 

 copies larger than that of last year. 



SCKIBNER'S. 



A writer new to American magazine 

 readers is William Charles Scully, who 

 appears in the February Scribver's with a 

 tale of South Africa entitled "The 

 Lepers." Mr. Scully is a magistrate of 

 Pondoland, whose work has attracted the 

 favorable attention of Rudyard Kipling, 

 who says of him, "He has been practical- 

 ly brought up among South African races, 

 and has no small reputation of his own, as 

 the author of 'Between Sea and Sand,' 

 and several other books." 



Joel Chandler Harris has created a new 

 character, "Aunt Minervy Ann," who is 

 destined to take a permanent place along- 

 side of "Uncle Remus." The first story 

 about her appears in the February num- 

 ber, with Frost's inimitable pictures. 



Senator Hoar's article on "Four Nation- 

 al Conventions," tells the story of how 

 Elaine lost his chance of being nominated 

 for the presidency and also defends Gar- 

 field from the charge of being untrue to 

 the interests of John Sherman when he 

 accepted the nomination for the presi- 

 dency. Senator Hoar presided over the 

 convention when Gartield accepted the 

 nomination. 



THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS FOR FEBRUARY. 



"The Progress of the World," the edi- 

 torial department o f the Jfe-view of Ifcvieics, 

 deals this month with the new problems 

 of colonial administration now confronting 

 the country, with the senatorial cam- 

 paigns in the different states, with the 

 polygamy question, with the question of 

 army beef in its bearings on the reorgani- 

 zation of the War Department, with our 

 recent industrial progress, protective 

 tariffs, and the "trusts," and with the 

 month's developments in foreign politics. 



The subject of the character sketch is 

 Aguinaldo, the Filipino insurgent leader, 

 and a very interesting career is outlined 

 by one who has known the young leader 

 intimately. Mr. Crittenden Marriott 

 writes in defense of the Cuban character 



and Mr. Henry Macfarland describes the 

 admirable work of Ihe Signal Corps in the 

 war with Spain. An article advocating 

 the federal taxation of interstate com- 

 merce is contributed by Prof. Henry C. 

 Adams, Statistician of the Interstate Com- 

 merce Commission. An interesting study 

 of the Dutch rule in Java is given by 

 Sylvester Baxter. 



A RANCH THAT PASTURES 120,000 CATTLE 



The X. I. T. ranch, in the extreme 

 north-west corner of the Panhandle of 

 Texas, the largest ranch in the world, has 

 an area of five thousand square miles. 

 Its herds of cattle aggregate 120,OCO head, 

 beside 1,500 horses, and the calf crop 

 branded in 1897 exceeded 31,000. Sur- 

 prising as it may seem, all the work on 

 the ranch is done by 125 men, one man to 

 every 24,000 acres. February Ladies' 

 Home Journal. 



INDIAN ENGINEERING. 



This journal, published by Pat Doyle, 

 at Calcutta, India, is one of the recent 

 additions to our exchange list, and is a 

 very acceptable one indeed. It is issued 

 weekly and gives the irrigation and engi- 

 neering news of India and the east. In 

 one of the recent numbers was a poem, 

 "Died on the Line," by Rudyard Kipling, 

 which was written expressly for this 

 journal and appeared in the February 

 issue, 1887, years before Kipling achieved 

 his world-wide fame. It was reprinted in 

 the December number this year, and the 

 following verse will show what it is like: 



"Their headlamps drove a nation's dark- 

 ness back, 

 Their whistles bade a hundred hatreds 



cease 



Their engines thundered down the echo- 

 ing track: 

 'Prosperity and Peace. ' ' 



Another issue contains an interesting 

 account of the proposed Assuan dam across 

 the river Nile. 



