lattering picture of our new possessions is drawn in McClure's
Magazine, by Mr. George B. Waldron.

"Here, then, are Cuba and Porto Rico in the Atlantic, and the
Hawaiian and Philippine groups in the Pacific, whose destiny has
become intertwined with our own. Their combined area is 168,000
square miles, equaling New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and New
Jersey. Their population is about 10,000,000, or perhaps one-half of
that of these nine home States. The Philippines, with three-quarters
of the entire population, and Porto Rico, with 800,000 people, alone
approach our own Eastern States in density. Cuba, prior to the war,
was about as well populated as Virginia, and the Hawaiian group is
as well peopled as Kansas. What, then, can these islands do for us?

"Americans use more sugar in proportion to population than any other
nation of the world. The total consumption last year was not less than
2,500,000 tons. This is enough to make a pyramid that would overtop the
tallest pyramid of Egyptian fame. Of this total, 2,200,000 tons came
from foreign countries, the Spanish possessions and Hawaii sending
about twenty-five per cent. Five years earlier, when our imports
were less by half a million tons, these islands supplied double
this quantity, or nearly two-thirds of the nation's entire sugar
import. But that was before Cuba had been devastated by war and when
she was exporting 1,100,000 tons of sugar to other countries. Restore
Cuba to her former fertility, and the total sugar crop of these islands
will reach 1,500,000 tons, or two-thirds our present foreign demand."

There is much more in Mr. Waldron's summary of the vast addition that
has been made to our resources, by the occupation and possession of the
islands that have recently been gathered under our wings by the force
of our arms. It is enough to know that with the tropical islands we
have gained, we have in our hands the potentialities, the luxuries,
the boundless resources including, as we may, and must, Alaska, of
all the zones of the great globe that we inhabit in such ample measure.

The following notes were compiled for the information of the army,
and embody all reliable information available.

The notes were intended to supplement the military map of Porto
Rico. The following books and works were consulted and matter from them
freely used in the preparation of the notes: Guia Geografico Militar
de Espana y Provincias Ultramarinas, 1879; Espana, sus Mo