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 Rh grown from twenty-five million to a hundred and twenty-five million, and there is no prospect of anycheck to its increasing triumph. WITH the completing of the Chicago Drainage Canal one of the greatest engineering feats of modern times will have been successfully performed. The work would have been comparatively simple if drain age alone had been considered, but the eventual welfare of the nation was thought of, and it was recog nized that a ship-canal between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes would be of great advantage to the entire nation. Within a year from the present time, there will be a river, formed by the hand of man, diverting from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi system 300,000 cubic feet of water per minute, this amount to be doubled when the growth of the popu lation requires it. It is seriously believed by some people that the flow through the canal will permanently lower the level of the Great Lakes. On this account there is a possibility that the canal will be made the subject of international diplomatic correspondence.

LITERARY NOTES. THE March CENTURY is an " Inauguration Num ber," devoted especially to articles on life in the White House and at the Capitol, illustrated with a great number of interesting pictures.

THE public seems never to grow weary of hearing about Rudyard Kipling and his achievements, and it will find in the February REVIEW OF REVIEWS a can did and unpretentious, but not the less exhaustive, critique of Kipling by Mr. Charles D. Lanier. He has given us an interpretation of Kipling which is frankly sympathetic and at the same time irresistibly attractive. This number also contains a most complete ac count of the many-sided career and public services of the late Gen. Francis A. Walker who died so sud denly, early in January. It reviews General Walker's life as a student, lawyer, soldier, adjutant-general on Hancock's staff, journalist, teacher, government stat istician, census commissioner, writer on economics, historian and educational administrator. LATE issues of THE LIVING AGE have been en riched by many valuable productions, selected not from the British press alone, but embracing transla tions from leading Continental authorities, including Emilio Castelar in a review of the Spanish-Cuban relations, a paper on De Goncourt, and a discussion of " Political Ideals and Realties in Spain"; Jules Lemaitre on a " Modern Morality"; Alfred Fouille in "As Others See Us;" and Anatole le Braz in "All Soul's Eve in Lower Brittany."

WHAT SHALL WE READ? THE February number of CURRENT LITERATURE has in addition to its well-filled and interesting regular departments a signed article by Hamilton W. Mabie; a page of verse, the work of Johanna Ambrosius, Germany's Peasant-Poet; and a reading from Paul Leicester Ford's new book. Mr. Geo. W. Cable has become the editor of this periodical.

IN HARPER'S MAGAZINE for March there is a sig nificant and timely paper, " Preparedness for War," by Capt. A. T. Mahan, U. S. X., the leading writer on American naval topics, which outlines a scheme fo'r defense by sea. Other interesting articles are «• The Decadence of the New England Deep-Sea Fisheries," by Joseph William Collins, and "Henry E. Marquand," by E. A. Alexander, which chronicles the bequests of the most intelligent and liberal American patron of Art, and describes the Marquand collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The short stories are " Separ's Vigilante," by Owen Wister; •' La Gommeuse,"a character sketch by Charles Belmont Davis; and " Perdita," by Hildegarde Haw thorne, a story with a supernatural implication.

This column is devoted to brief notices of recent pub lications. H'i /tope to tnake it a ready-reference column for those of our readers who desire to in form themselves as to the latest and best nnu books. (Legal publications are noticed elsewhere.) ALL the horrors of the Indian mutiny are most thrillingly set forth in On the Face of the ll'aters,* the latest novel by Mrs. Steel. The story is of absorb ing interest and is written by one who has lived where the exciting events depicted took place, and who is well informed as to both sides of the question. The book as a whole is the best which has come from Mrs. Steel's pen. Students of political history will find much of interest in the selections of orations delivered by our ablest American statesmen which are being published in a series of volumes entitled American Orators.* The selections have been made not only as examples of eloquence, but with reference to their historical value. The series will be completed in four volumes. We are in doubt as to whether " The fíeginning of the End,"3 is intended to be taken seriously. The ION THE FACE OF THE WATERS. By Florence Annie Stee!. The Macmillan Co., New York. 2 AMERTCAN ORATORS. Edited by Alexander Johnson. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 8 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. Cloth.