ut the lengthy monster lying in a vast curve is not at
peace, for on the jagged ridge of his mighty back a puffing, snorting,
smoking plague perpetually runs up and down. The apparent plague,
however, is really increasing the size of the saurian. Every day
hundreds of tons of stone are carried over his back-ridge and tipped
into the water at the end of him, while scores of raftloads are flung
into the water on the line staked and flagged out by the officials of
the Government. Within a few weeks the growth of the saurian will not
cease by day or night, until, as in the case of his kindred ophidian,
his two extremities are brought together. For Mr. Drinkwater has
contracted with the British Electric Lighting Company to supply him
with the electric light. The motive power is all ready, and no sooner
is the apparatus fixed than county Clare will be astonished by the
sight of work going on perpetually till it is completed, and amazement
will reach its highest pitch. The people, gentle and simple, already
confess themselves astonished at what can and has been done, and those
who at first laughed are now seeking how they may best imitate.

As the tail of the saurian may be said to stretch into the water high
above Islandavanna, so may his head be said to project from that
pretty patch of verdure. Islandavanna is already a peninsula being
connected with the mainland by a massive stone causeway, traversed
every half-hour by a locomotive, hauling a train of trucks laden with
stone, which, passing over the end of the island, runs out into the
water to the "tip end," as it is called.

So the work is carried on, like modern railway tunnelling, from both
ends simultaneously, and when head and tail of the saurian meet the
first 1,500 acres will be reclaimed. The "slob" will be easy to drain,
and it is tolerably certain that within twelve months the first
instalment will be ready for cropping. It is a sight to make a
Dutchman's mouth water--a "polder" of surpassing excellence, but it
is viewed in a different light by enthusiastic wild duck shooters,
who, like the owner of a grouse moor, look upon drainage and
reclamation as the visible work of the devil. I do not think they need
be alarmed for some time to come, for, without exaggeration, I have
seen so many duck on the Fergus and the lower Shannon that I hesitate
to speak of figures and incur the fate of Messer Marco Polo, who, when
he spoke of the vast population of China, was nick