The Philippine Islands which had been for several centuries a Spanish possession, passed in 1898 by conquest to the United States of America.
The chief defect in the Spanish Philippine policy was that while it made converts it did not make citizens.
A southern extension of the Mexican Central, via Cuernavaca, has reached the Balsas river and will be extended to Acapulco, once the chief Pacific port of Mexico and the depot for the rich Philippine trade.
Finally, the Philippine Rhynchornys is represented by a rat with two pairs of molars and a long shrew-like nose, the zygomatic arch of the skull being also placed unusually far backward.
The treaty of peace between the United States and Spain, by which the Philippine Islands passed into the hands of the former, was signed in Paris on the 10th of December 1898, but it was not confirmed by the Senate until the 6th of February 1899.
