Bucharest has over 300,000 inhabitants, with many fine public buildings. It is one of the gayest capitals that I know, and in proportion to its size rivals Vienna and Paris in animation, for at midnight it is as lively and gay in the centre of the city as at midday, and some of the cafes never close, day or night. Bucharest claims that she has got the finest post office in the world, and there is some foundation for her claim. Her streets are being widened and embellished on every hand. The railway system of the country is being reorganized, no expense is being spared, the immense bridge over the Danube being a remarkable engineering achievement. She is exploiting her vast stores of natural oil, and if she has given concessions to foreign companies, they are hedged round with restrictions for the benefit of the country. But, as in many another new country, corruption and bribery are rampant in official circles; the taxes are very onerous, and press heavily upon all classes. However, under the enlightened sway of King Carol, Roumania is working out her own redemption, and with her immense natural resources of oil and magnificent steppes for the cultivation of corn, maize, etc., will undoubtedly occupy a leading place in the Balkan States. Montenegro was an independent State in the fourteenth century, from which time to the nineteenth, its history has been a record of battles and raids against its neighbours, and at a time when the whole of south-eastern Europe, to the very gates of Vienna was trembling before the Turks, the Montenegrins managed to vindicate and maintain their independence. A new era began with the reign of Peter II., from 1830-51, and the present ruler, now a King, waged successful wars against the Turks, and by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, obtained full recognition of his sovereignty. Mediaeval and modern Greece affords the student of history one of the most remarkable romances he can desire. The great Byzantine Empire dwindled away, especially under the inrush of the Ottomans, and in the later middle ages she became subject to the Venetians and other foreign rulers, eventually seeming to lose all national character and spirit under the Turkish subjection. But her national soul woke in the War of Independence in 1821, and success followed the uprising. King Otho was elected in 1832, and henceforth Greece has existed as a recognized independent kingdom. About the Turks I need not say much. When they came to Europe they were a great people-a great military people. In manners and customs they were probably not more cruel or barbarous than the peoples they conquered; in the middle ages everywhere folk were cruel beyond belief. In point of power and organization and military skill, however, they were greatly superior, and they were led by Sultans who, in many cases, had a genius for generalship. But beyond conquest they had no ideas. They camped on vanquished territory, and forced the people to feed them, and this policy they have pursued right to our time. RECENT PUBLICATIONS RUSSIA OF THE RUSSIANS. By Harold Whitmore Williams. 430 pages: 32 plates and a map in colors. Charles Scribners Sons, N. Y., 1914. This is the latest or 13th volume in the "Countries and Peoples Series." It is an excellent book, written with full knowledge of the things with which it deals, and is notably free from bias. In chapter I, "The Growth of Russia," the author lays strong emphasis upon the geographical factors. He says, "The fundamental difference between Russian and English History is the difference between the great plain and the island." The bureaucracy, the constitution and the position of the press are treated in a way which enables the American to understand some of the most fundamental differences between the Russian government and the liberal western governments. Of the press, he says, "It is still subjected to a variety of harrassing restrictions, but is freer than it was eight or nine years ago. *** Public opinion does not find expression to any considerable degree in the Press." The intimate interaction of church and state are treated. "The Russian heads his letters with a date 13 days later than that recognized by the rest of the civilized world simply because the church insists on the maintenance of the Old Style." The church is a bureaucratic institution and the village priest is made to feel that he is a part of the bureaucracy, a government official. The chapter on Peasants and Proprietors contains much geographical material: it opens with,--"Russia is an agricultural country par excellence. Of its 164 millions of inhabitants three-fourths, or over 120 millions, are engaged in agriculture. It is a country of peasants. The prosperity of the Empire, the state of the budget are dependent principally on the state of the crops. Even the political situation is largely dependent on the harvest." The cities are said to be with difficulty emerging from the market-town stage. The peasants are of infinite variety and of every degree of poverty and prosperity, ignorance and intelligence. Drunkenness is prevalent. The state monopoly of alcoholic liquors yields $400,000,000 in taxes and an abundant harvest of state-made drunkards. There are German and Lettish peasants who prosper greatly on land of the same quality as that on which the Russian peasants merely eke out an existence. The communal system of land tenure is breaking down. Thousands of peasants are emigrating to Siberia and certain Siberian towns are growing rapidly; one town in the Altai region having grown to 80,000 in seven years. The large estates of the landed gentry are breaking up. "Russian culture was in the first instance and still largely is, a culture of the landed gentry." The chapter on Trade and Industry is also geographical. Transportation conditions are discussed. "The primary consideration in the construction of many of the chief Russian railways has been strategic, and strategic and economic interests by no means coincide." Of manufacturing, the author says it is a small thing in comparison with Western Europe. "It lags behind in the application of mechanical power." The final chapter is an excellent description and analysis of St. Petersburg. The book is entitled to recognition as one of the very best on the subject with which it deals. Iceland, Horseback Tours in Saga Land, by W. S. C. Russell, a science teacher in Springfield, Mass., has recently been published by Richard Badger, Boston, and by The Copp Clark Co., Toronto ($2.00). It is a well organized and well written account of four summers of travel in Iceland. The book is popular rather than strictly geographical, but the author, having considerable knowledge of geography and physiography, has made a book which is much more than a mere traveler's random observations. It is one of those books which both the scientist and the general reader finds satisfying. The book is distributed also by the Cambridge Botanical Supply Co., Boston. A Book of Discovery by M. B. Synge is among the recent geographical offerings of G. P. Putnam's Sons. It is a 500 page volume giving a history of the world's exploration from the earliest times to the discovery of the South Pole. Each of the 73 chapters deals with a different event or group of events or with the work of a successful explorer. Illustrations are profuse, including half-tones, nine colored plates and reproductions of ancient and mediaeval maps. The book is not a reference work for scholars but is rather, an account of inherently interesting events, written in a simple, easy style well suited to young people. Boys in their teens will read it with eagerness. It is a good book for school libraries and pupils who read it will find geography a more interesting study thereafter. The Beginner's Garden Book is the title of a 400-page text-book just issued by the Macmillan Company ($1.00). It is written by Allen French and is designed for use in the upper grammar grades. As its title indicates, the book is a hand book in gardening. It divides the work into "Autumn Work," "Winter Work," "Gardening under Glass," and "The Real Garden." Excellent illustrations, review questions, and an interesting manner of presentation are qualities of the book. Germany of Today is volume 72 in the Home University Library (Holt, 50 cents). It is written by Charles Tower, and is up to the high standard which the series is so admirably maintaining. Its 250 pages can be read at a sitting and when the reader finishes he feels that he has seen Modern Germany through the discerning mind of an author who understands the German people and the German nation. He sees both the weakness and the strength of Germany. Latin America is volume 78 in the same series. It is written by Professor William R. Shepherd of Columbia. He places the emphasis upon “in stitutions and culture," and upon "phases of civilization" in the Latin American Republics. Several of the chapters are geographical; for example, the ones on Geography and Resources, on Industry, on Commerce and on Transportation. The individual republics are not treated separately but their resemblances and differences are brought out by comparison. The terse, crisp style made necessary by the space limitations placed upon the author give the book added value to the busy man who desires to get an authoritative account of Latin America in brief space. HARDWOOD FORESTS OF SOUTHERN SOUTH AMERICA Owing to the fact that leather tanning extracts which formerly came almost entirely from hemlock and oak bark have been largely replaced by quebracho tanning extracts from the forests of South America, the following note will be of timely interest: The manufacture of the quebracho tannin is conducted in numerous little factories in the forests of the Chaco region, mostly located in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. The quebracho forests of the north and northeast remain by far the country's most valued supply of hardwoods. Within the past decade the amount of logs exported has increased from 245,000 tons to 445,000, and of extracts, from 9,000 to 84,000 tons. In this great land of forests and glades, rising from the Parana river toward the northwest, some 300 saw mills and extract factories are eating out its vitals, backed by 25,000,000 dollars of capital and $45,000,000 of sales. The largest company employs 4,000 or 5,000 workmen in getting out the timber and transporting it to the saw mills and extract factories. The greater proportion of the population of the quebracho country are a mixed race of Indians and the whites of all nations. The cultivation of cane and the manufacture of sugar are prosecuted over a large extent of northern and northwestern Argentina, and in these industries several thousand Indians and mixed Correntinos are employed every year as unskilled laborers. Many more work in the quebracho forests. At the end of the sugar season these savage workmen will return to their homes in the Chaco country, traveling sometimes four or five hundred miles over mountains and through swamps and forests. They will then fell the quebracho trees on the banks of the rivers and streams, bind them into rafts with lighter woods beneath as floating buoys, get out fence posts and sleepers and assist in preparing the red quebracho for the manufacture of the tannin extract. The management of these hardwood industries is chiefly in the hands of Europeans of Latin and German stock, with a threatened incursion by capitalists of the United States. The Farquhar syndicate, a powerful combination of New York moneyed men, is solidly intrenched in Paraguay and southwestern Brazil and is making ceaseless attempts to penetrate the quebracho region of Argentina.-[American Forestry.] A GEOGRAPHY QUIZ ON THE CONTINENTS 1. What land was "The Dark Continent" until a few years ago? 2 What continent is the homeland of Western Civilization? 3. What continent was the last to be discovered by civilized peoples? 4. What continent is inhabited mainly by Spanish-speaking peoples? 5. What continent contains the countries of the Far East? 6. 7. 8. What continent was inhabited only by a black race when discovered? 9. What continent is governed by rulers or colonists from another? 10. What continent contains the least waste and uninhabited land? 11. What continent has a great desert merging southward through grasslands into dense forests? 12. What continent is a peninsular portion of a larger continent? 13. What continent lies south of the equator? 14. What continent has its larger part north of the equator? 15. What continent extends nearest to the south pole? 16. Which continent of the Western Hemisphere extends farther to the east? 17. Which continent of the Northern Hemisphere extends equator? 18. What continent lies north of the tropic of cancer? 19. What continent is east from Central America? 20. What continent extends into both temperate zones? nearest to the 21. What continent in west longitude is crossed by the tropic of cancer? 22. What continent has the most irregular coastline? 23. What continent has the loftiest, largest highland? 24. What continent has a highland extending from end to end, without any low pass? 25. What continent has no lofty mountains, always snowcapped? 26. What continents have their main highlands in their western part? 27. What continent has lofty mountains but no long continuous highland? 28. Which continent is heavily forested on the western slope of its southern portion? 29. Which on the eastern? 30. Which continent is reached by the equatorial rain belt only in our winter season? 31. Which continent has the greatest extremes in tmperature and moisture between its different parts? 32. Which continent has the longest river system? 33. What continent has the river basin with the greatest total rainfall and outflow? 34. What continent has the most populous flood plains? 35. What continent has the largest freshwater lakes? 36. What continent has the largest salt lakes? 37. What continent produces most corn? 38. Most coffee? 39. Most sugar? 40. Most wheat? 41. Most tea? 42. Most silk? 43. Most of the finest wool? 44. Most flax? 45. Most cotton? 46. Most rice? 47. What continent owns most large ocean steamers? 48. What continent owns most large lake steamers? 49. Which continent has most cities of the first rank in population,-a million or more? Which continent has the greatest railway mileage? PHILIP EMERSON. |