THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



257 



ton. On the assumption that the burned 

 areas contained on an average as much 

 timber as the untouched portion, 40,000 

 million feet have been destroyed since 

 lumbering began. This amount would 

 supply all the sawmills of the United 

 States for two years, and at a value rf only 

 75 cents a thousand, means a dead loss to 

 the State of $30,000,000. The amount 

 actually lodged in the same period has 

 been 36,000 million feet, making the esti- 

 mate by the same comparison of areas. 

 Oregon has suffered less from both fire 

 and lumbering, owing to the smaller facili 

 ties for marketing the product. 



NATIONAL SYSTEM FIRST. 

 -Sara Diego Vidette: There seems to be 

 a conflict between those in favor of na- 

 tional control of irrigation and those who 

 favor State control. The Vidette is heart- 

 ily in favor of either or both, but we hope 

 the advocates of each will not foolishly 

 antagonize the other, as such antagonism 

 will injure both. There can be no doubt 

 in the mind of any sane man as to the 

 general benefit to be derived by irrigating 

 the arid western lands. The vast empire, 

 a part of which is in California still owned 

 by the national government, should and 

 must be reclaimed and developed by the 

 general government. The State lands 

 might be irrigated by the State, but when 

 the great result is shown by government it 

 will be easier to enlist the States in doing 

 something for themselves. Let us work 

 for a national system first. 



AMONG OUR EXCHANGES. 



SCRIBNEB'S. 



Among the features of Scrilmer's Mag- 

 azine for April, the animal story by Er- 

 nest Seton-Thompson, illustrated by him, 

 will attract the large audience which has 

 been fascinated by "Wild Animals I have 

 Known.'' In this story is given the life 

 and adventure? of a curious little animal 

 of the southwest known as the kangaroo 

 rat. Henry van Dyke has another out- 

 door story, the scene of which is laid in 



a light-house on the St. Lawrence. The 

 title is "The Light that Failed Not. " It 

 contains several dramatic situations. The 

 illustrations by Mr. Clark have the dis- 

 tinction which all who admire his work 

 expect from that young artist. Mr. H. J. 

 Whigham contributes the account of the 

 British defeat at Magersfontein, thus 

 bringing the narrative up to the time when 

 Gen. Lord Roberts took command of the 

 column. 



MCCLUBJB'S. 



In sureness and variety of attraction it 

 would be hard to surpass McClures Maga- 

 zine for April. The account of the inte- 

 rior of China, especially with reference to 

 its rich promises as a market for America, 

 written by Mr. W. B. Parsons, Chief En- 

 gineer of the American-China Develop- 

 ment Company, from observations made 

 on his own journeys and illustrated very 

 fully from photographs taken by him; the 

 account of Professor Huxley's life in Lon- 

 don between his twenty-sixth and thirtieth 

 year, when he was having a terrific strug- 

 gle to maintain himself by purely scientific 

 work, with its self-revealing passages from 

 his unpublished correspondence and its 

 new portrait of him; and the account of 

 the Russian ship "Ermack," the marvel- 

 ous new ice-breaker that gives promise of 

 being able to cut a passage for herself to 

 the pole these are all, in their several 

 ways, articles of the strongest interest and 

 the highest value. And just as much may 

 be said for Mr. Wellman's "An Arctic Day 

 and Night," a chapter from his own expe- 

 rience in house-building, house-keeping, 

 and daily work and sport, including some 

 thrilling bear-hunting up near the north 

 pole. In addition the number offers, on 

 the more strictly literary side, two excel- 

 lent poems, a heroic story of railroading 

 and Indian fighting on the plains, a story 

 of English prison life, a story of American 

 newspaper and political life, a love story 

 having to do with a Pacific coast "boom" 

 and an Atlantic coast maiden, and a hu- 

 morous story by Robert Barr of "a scien- 

 tific miscalculation," that involves, especi- 



