by Barkham Burroughs
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Prince of Wales: 40,000 Princess of Wales: 10,000 Crown Princess of Prussia: 8,000 Duke of Edinburgh: 25,000 Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein: 6,000 Princess Louise (Marchioness of Lome): 6,000 Duke of Connaught: 25,000 Duke of Albany: 25,000 Duchess of Cambridge: 6,000 Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz: 3,000 Duke of Cambridge: 12,000 Duchess of Teck: 5,000
SOME GREAT RIVERS.--From Haswell's little work for engineers and mechanics the following figures are taken, showing the lengths of the largest rivers on the various continents:
Name: Miles.
EUROPE. Volga, Russia: 2,500 Danube: 1,800 Rhine: 840 Vistula: 700
ASIA. Yeneisy and Selenga: 3,580 Kiang: 3,290 Hoang Ho: 3,040 Amoor: 2,500 Euphrates: 1,900 Ganges: 1,850 Tigris: 1,160
AFRICA. Nile: 3,240 Niger: 2,400 Gambia: 1,000
SOUTH AMERICA. Amazon and Beni: 4,000 Platte: 2,700 Rio Madeira: 2,300 Rio Negro: 1,650 Orinoco: 1,600 Uruguay: 1,100 Magdalena: 900
NORTH AMERICA. Mississippi and Missouri: 4,300 Mackenzie: 2,800 Rio Bravo: 2,300 Arkansas: 2,070 Red River: 1,520 Ohio and Alleghany: 1,480 St. Lawrence: 1,450
The figures as to the length of the Nile are estimated. The Amazon, with its tributaries (including the Rio Negro and Madeira), drains an area of 2,330,000 square miles; the Mississippi and Missouri, 1,726,000 square miles; the Yeneisy (or Yenisei, as it is often written) drains about 1,000,000 square miles; the Volga, about 500,000. In this group of great rivers the St. Lawrence is the most remarkable. It constitutes by far the largest body of fresh water in the world. Including the lakes and streams, which it comprises in its widest acceptation, the St. Lawrence covers about 73,000 square miles; the aggregate, it is estimated, represents not less than 9,000 solid miles--a mass of water which would have taken upward of forty years to pour over Niagara at the computed rate of 1,000,000 cubic feet in a second. As the entire basin of this water system falls short of 300,000 square miles, the surface of the land is only three times that of the water.
HOW THE UNITED STATES GOT ITS LANDS.--The United States bought Louisiana, the vast region between the Mississippi River, the eastern and northern boundary of Texas (then belonging to Spain), and the dividing ridge of the Rocky Mountains, together with what is now Oregon, Washington Territory, and the western parts of Montana and Idaho, from France for $11,250,000. This was in 1803. Before the principal, interest, and claims of one sort and another assumed by the United States were settled, the total cost of this "Louisiana purchase," comprising, according to French construction and our understanding, 1,171,931 square miles, swelled to $23,500,000, or almost $25 per section--a fact not stated in cyclopedias and school histories, and therefore not generally understood. Spain still held Florida and claimed a part of what we understood to be included in the Louisiana purchase--a strip up to north latitude 31--and disputed our boundary along the south and west, and even claimed Oregon. We bought Florida and all the disputed land east of the Mississippi and her claim to Oregon, and settled our southwestern boundary dispute for the sum of $6,500,000. Texas smilingly proposed annexation to the United States, and this great government was "taken in" December 29, 1845, Texas keeping her public lands and giving us all her State debts and a three-year war (costing us $66,000,000) with Mexico, who claimed her for a runaway from Mexican jurisdiction. This was a bargain that out-yankeed the Yankees, but the South insisted on it and the North submitted. After conquering all the territory now embraced in New Mexico, a part of Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California, we paid Mexico $25,000,000 for it--$15,000,000 for the greater part of it and $10,000,000 for another slice, known as the "Gadsden purchase." In 1867 we bought Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000. All the several amounts above named were paid long ago. As for all the rest of our landed possessions, we took them with us when we cut loose from mother Britain's apron string, but did not get a clear title until we had fought ten years for it--first in the Revolutionary War, costing us in killed 7,343 reported--besides the unreported killed--and over 15,000 wounded, and $135,193,103 in money; afterward in the War of 1812-15,
