rains require it, they can receive a greater volume; the rest of the canal communicates with Lake Texcoco, and will be utilized in controlling its waters, the lowest in the valley,-which can be made to flow into the canal from all parts. Hence the canal has been built to carry the largest flow that can pass through the tunnel, or 17.5 cubic metres, 618 cubic feet, per second. The cutting is through a strictly clay formation, comprising occasional thin strata of sand and sandstone. For accommodation of railroads, wagon roads, and water-courses, it was necessary to construct five aqueducts of iron to carry rivers, four iron bridges for the passage of railroads, and seven bridges for vehicular traffic.

The sewage. The sewers of the City of Mexico form a network of covered channels, located sometimes in the middle and sometimes on the sides of the streets, these being almost always gorges, communicating with a system of secondary sewers that empty into a collecting sewer discharging into the canal of San Lázaro, which transports the sewage to Lake Texcoco. If the water is high in the lake, water backs up into the sewers and saturates the soil under the houses and streets. As this has been the condition for several centuries, the state of the subsoil under the city can be better imagined than described. The death-rate touches 40 per 1000-the highest in the civilized world. Mexico's elevation of over 7000 feet is all that saves it from a pestilence. Malarial and gastric fevers are almost continually epidemic.

For a century the problem has been settling into one of pure sanitation. The plans which the Government has been working since about 1883, though called plans for draining the valley, really seek to get a fall sufficient to dispose of the sewage. In fact, in the original plan, from considerations of economy, care was to be taken to keep out of the projected canal all water both from the surface of the valley and from the rivers. The Consulado and the Guadalupe rivers were to be carried over the new canal in iron aqueducts. The drainage system was thus to be simply a part of the sewage system of the city.

The excavated materials have been tipped on each side of the canal at their natural slopes, and a towpath near the canal level provided. Sluice gates will direct the city drainage either to the canal or to Lake Texcoco. A sluice gate at the junction of the smaller with the larger part of the canal will control the flow of Lake Texcoco, and another sluice gate will be placed at the entrance of the tunnel.

Completion of the work.-As this paper goes to press, the drainage works of the Valley of Mexico are practically finished, as the waters of the valley have been for several years passing through the canal and the tunnel to their outlet in the river which takes them to the Gulf of Mexico, and the company with whom the canal was contracted is now giving the finishing touches to the sides and bottom of the canal and

will deliver it to the Government Board of the Drainage Directors in January, 1898. It was agreed with the contractors that the portion of the canal between the City of Mexico and the 20th kilometre, which is comparatively difficult, because the ground is very loose, and the excavations to be made yet do not exceed 200,000 cubic metres, will be made directly by the Board as soon as the other portion of the canal has been finished; this last section of the work is expected to be finished in June, 1898, when the waters of the City of Mexico will leave the valley by the drainage works here mentioned.

The canal and six-mile tunnel through the mountain range have a total length approaching thirty-seven miles. The present works will take rank with the great achievements of modern times, just as the immense "cut" of Nochistongo, their unsuccessful predecessor, was the leader among ancient earthworks in all the world. The completed system will have cost $20,000,000.

I have dwelt on these works at some length, because their importance to the City of Mexico can hardly be overestimated. Instead of being one of the healthiest cities in the world, as it should be with its magnificent climate and situation, Mexico, unfortunately, has a terribly heavy death-rate, due principally to want of drainage and generally bad sanitary condition. When the existing danger of floods is removed, and the sanitary evils are remedied by a proper system of drainage, the increased security that will be enjoyed by life and property will certainly have its effect on the prosperity of the city. Property will rise in value, the population will grow with rapidity, not to mention the tide of tourists that will set in from the United States, and this will mean larger revenues for the municipality.

I could not well finish this paper without paying General Diaz, President of Mexico, a just tribute for the great interest he has taken in having this gigantic work brought to a close during his administration. To his exertions in this regard, and to his commanding position in Mexico, more than to anything else, this happy result, now in sight, is due. So after a weary search of centuries for relief, the beautiful Valley of Mexico will gain its deliverance not only from the engulfing floods, but from the sanitary evils which have long resulted from defective drainage.

Contract for the Sewage System of the City of Mexico.-The complement of the drainage works is the construction of a proper sewage system in the City of Mexico, which will carry all its refuse out of the Valley of Mexico, and on June 8, 1898, a contract was signed at the City of Mexico by the Drainage Board with Messrs. Vezin & Co., of Paris, to do such work.

HISTORICAL NOTES ON MEXICO.

Mr. Walter S. Logan, a prominent lawyer of New York, with business interests in Mexico, chiefly in the State of Sonora, and a personal friend of mine, read a paper entitled "A Mexican Lawsuit" before the Law Department of the American Social Science Association, at their annual meeting at Saratoga, on the 5th of September, 1895, and requested me to be present at the same. I received at the same time an invitation to attend that meeting, which I suppose I owed to Mr. Logan, from Professor Francis Wayland, President of the Law Department of that Association. Wishing to oblige Mr. Logan, and at the same time to hear his paper read, for I had no doubt that it would do justice to Mexico, as Mr. Logan is friendly to that country, I determined to attend the meeting, and I reached Saratoga late on the afternoon of the day on which it was to be held. I found at the hotel at which Mr. Logan and most of the other gentlemen of the Association were stopping, and where I myself lodged, a printed notice that Mr. Logan would read his paper that evening, and that I would make some remarks afterwards. I was considerably disturbed by this, as it is always difficult for a diplomatic representative of a foreign country to speak in public, and I was not prepared to speak before so enlightened an audience.

At the appointed time we went to the meeting, and Mr. Logan read his paper. While he was reading it I noted certain incorrect statements made, in good faith, no doubt, by Mr. Logan, but which presented Mexico in a rather unfavorable light. I found myself in a very difficult position, because, considering myself as Mr. Logan's guest, I did not think it would be proper for me to criticise his paper; but, at the same time, being the official representative of Mexico, I could hardly permit his mistakes to pass unnoticed. I was placed in the same position as the guest who, while present at a dinner to which he had been invited, should hear his host make incorrect and even uncomplimentary remarks about his house or his family, although made unintentionally. No matter how bad taste such conduct showed if made intentionally, it would be still worse taste for the guest to notice

such remarks. After some consideration, however, I concluded to avail myself of the opportunity which was given me to speak after Mr. Logan's paper was read, for the purpose of correcting some of the principal mistakes which he had made. When my turn came I embraced the opportunity to correct, in as careful, considerate, and polite a manner towards Mr. Logan, as was possible for me to do, what I considered were his chief mistakes.

At Mr. Logan's request, made to me just before he read his paper, I made some general remarks about the philosophy of the revolutions in Mexico, for the purpose of showing that the Mexican people were not actually inclined to revolt, that there had been ample cause for revolutions in the past; but that such causes had now disappeared, and it was not likely that any more disturbances would take place.

On all suitable opportunities which have been presented to me during my official residence in this country, I have tried to impress the same views in as concise and clear a manner as it was possible for me to do. On several occasions, and in different addresses delivered before distinguished audiences at public banquets and other places, I have presented these same views in the shape that it was possible to do in ten or fifteen minutes' time. I append to this paper a few of the addresses I have made with that purpose, beginning with one delivered in New York in 1864, and ending with another delivered in 1892 in the same city.

Some time after the Saratoga meeting had taken place I received from the American Social Science Association the stenographic notes of my remarks, accompanied by the request-made also by Mr. Logan, who published his remarks and mine in a special pamphlet-that I should correct mine for publication. With some reluctance I consented to revise them, but after they were published I saw that I had not done justice to the two subjects on which I had spoken, and that it would be expedient to revise my remarks and amplify them, so as to make two separate papers, one on the "Philosophy of the Mexican Revolutions," and the other on the "Criminal Jurisprudence of Mexico." I therefore prepared two articles, and they were published, the former in the January, and the latter in the July, 1895, number of the North American Review. Even after the publication in that Review I thought it advisable to further amplify and revise both articles, finally assuming the form in which they now appear.

In the meanwhile, Dr. Ricardo Becerra, a very distinguished man of letters from Colombia, South America, who for several years represented his country at Washington, and who is now living at Caracas, Venezuela, wrote recently a biography of General Don Francisco de ← Miranda, the principal promoter of the independence of the Spanish colonies of South America. I found in Dr. Becerra's book valuable information, that had not come to my knowledge before, about the