farmer has apparently failed to meet modern conditions. He cannot compete with Australian meat products even in his home markets.

Although cattle are not raised in large numbers for meat products the country produces large quantities of milk and butter. Milk is an important article of diet throughout the country. An interesting adaptation to the extreme cold of winter is shown in the method of handling milk during that season. The milk is allowed to freeze in shallow pans. After a hole is cut in the center of each cake they are threaded on strings and thus carried to market or to customers. According to the Russion Year Book, butter constitutes Siberia's chief export. Because of its quality, which is constantly improving, it is now competing successfully with products of Europe and Australia. In 1913 the shipment of butter amounted to 173 million pounds. The butter is purchased at centers in Siberia and exported through foreign firms. The new American tariff which reduced the duty on butter from six cents to two and a half cents per pound opens a new market. A number of firms in Siberia are already supplying the American trade.

Another important product of the country is lumber. The industry of lumbering is confined, however, almost wholly to supplying local needs. Very little inroad has been made upon the forests in Eastern Siberia except along the Ussuri and its immediate neighborhood. No well organized lumber industry exists in the Far East, largely because of the restrictions imposed by the Russian Government to whom practically all of the forest lands belong. Another handicap is the difficulty of communication and transportation in these regions. The small amount of lumber exported is sent to Japan, China, Australia and some even to western Europe. As the industry becomes organized it is believed that the forest of the Amur River Basin will be an important factor in the world's timber supply. Doubtless pulp mills will be established, as much of the wood is suitable for making pulp. As has been suggested already much of the forest land of Eastern Siberia has not yet been explored. It is estimated that altogether Siberia possesses about 217 million acres of timberland. There is no other country which equals the Russian Empire in the extent of such lands.

As might be expected these vast forests are inhabited by many animals which are valuable for their furs. As the lumber industry increases, however, the fur industry decreases because of the reduction in the size of forest areas. Another reason for the decrease in the number of fur bearing animals is the lack of restrictions on hunting. Amazing numbers of pelts are sold at the fairs held annually throughout Russia. Nearly all Siberian furs are sold at the Irbit fair. According to consular reports for 1911 there were sold at this fair, besides other furs, four and one-half million squirrel skins, a half million rabbit skins, twelve thousand sable, two hundred thousand brown bear, sixteen thousand five hundred fox, one hundred eighty thousand weasel, and sixteen thousand five hundred gray wolf skins. The Russian government

has become alarmed at the rapid decrease in the number of sable and has passed a law prohibiting the killing of the animal or the buying, selling or exporting of sable furs for three years. The best sable skins sell for more than $200 each.

The only article of commercial value supplied by the cald tundras of the North is the ivory obtained from tusks of fossil Siberian mammoths. These fossil animals have furnished the Chinese with ivory for more than seven hundred years. At the present time from 500 to 650 hundredweight of mammoth tusks are found annually in the government of Yakoutsk. Small quantities are used by the inhabitants for carving, the remainder goes to Moscow and the European markets.

Siberia is also rich in minerals. The larger part of the gold and silver of Russia is obtained from this part of the Empire. All gold must pass through the government laboratories and thence to the mints of St. Petersburg. The chief gold producing regions are in Transbaikalia and in the vicinity of the Amur and Olekma rivers. The important silver deposits are found in the Altai region.

Coal is found in many places in Siberia. The coal deposits are large and promise much in the way of the future development of the country. At the present time, however, owing to the lack of transportation facilities, what little coal is mined is used only for home consumption. Mines are worked to a considerable extent near Vladivostok but there it is of poor quality. The most promising source of coal is Sakhalin where rich deposits exist. The great obstacle to the development of these deposits is the absence of good harbors on the western shore of the island where the coal is found in greatest abundance. In the towns and cities of Siberia wood is still used extensively for fuel but is becoming dearer each year, in many places being more expensive than in St. Petersburg. Hence the demand for coal is steadily increasing. With improved methods of production and increased transportation facilities the prices would be reduced and the consumption thereby increased.

Fishing is an important industry in certain parts of Siberia. About onehalf of the trade in fish is in herring. The fisheries of the Amur River region are the most important of the Far East. This importance is due not only to the size of the industry but also to the fact that fish is the staple article of food of the native and Russian population. The salmon stands first and the sturgeon second in importance.

In addition to the river fisheries an abundance of fish occurs off the Pacific coast. From May to October all kinds of fish, including salmon, cod and herring abound in the waters around the peninsula of Kamchatka. It is said they are present in such quantities that after a severe storm the shores are covered with fish to a depth of five or six feet. Fish going up river are an impediment to vessels. The fishing industry off Kamchatka is largely controlled by the Japanese. The growth of the industry in eastern

Siberia in recent years is due to the aggressiveness of the Japanese, and also to the fact that, as many of the European fish stations have become exhausted, the unexploited waters of the Far East have attracted fishermen from the White, Black, and Caspian Seas. There has been little in the way of export in the past, but the transportation of frozen fish from this region to European Russia seems now to be firmly established.

The industries of Siberia are chiefly agriculture, lumbering, mining, and fishing. Manufacturing is not carried on to any considerable extent although the milling of flour is an industry of some importance. Blagoweshtchensk in the Amur Province ranks third among the milling towns in the Russion Empire. The milling of lumber, the brewing of beer, and the making of brick and cement constitute the other more important manufacturing industries. These articles are used almost entirely for home consumption. The one thing needed above all others to improve conditions in all branches of industry in the country is improved transportation facilities. The Trans-Siberian Railroad helps greatly in this direction, but it must be realized that this road can reach but a very small fraction of Siberia. The great problem is of course the long distance which both imports and exports must be shipped. Transportation within the country itself assists in the support of transportation lines less than one would expect for the reason that uniformity of surface, climate, etc., gives similar products and so little need for exchange.

In spite of all obstacles, however, progress is being made in the way of improved transportation. A branch of the Trans-Siberian Railroad is being constructed along the north bank of the Amur River. This road will be extended to Nikolaiefsk on the Pacific coast, thus providing a railway across Asia lying entirely in Russian territory. In addition to extension of railways, plans are being considered whereby it may be possible to convey products by canals, lakes, and rivers entirely across the Russian Empire from the Pacific coast to St. Petersburg.

A country so greatly handicapped in all her other industries as is Siberia could hardly be expected to carry on an extensive foreign trade. Her chief exports are grains and dairy products. Some lumber, fish, and oil seeds are also sent to other countries. Imports consist in large measure of manufactured articles of many kinds. America sends large quantities of agricultural machinery, sewing machines, and articles used in railway construction.

On the whole, Siberia's resources are large; consequently her future possibilities are great. A most important need is wise and sympathetic governmental control. Thus, greater enlightenment on the part of the inhabitants themselves, aided by foreign capital and enterprise, will give to Siberia her full measure of prosperity.

CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL OF CITIES

By Frederick Homburg, Cincinnati, Ohio.

F all cities, ancient or modern, none has been as thoroughly studied as ancient Rome. The archaeologist has extended and supplemented the work of the historian, and has given us valuable information regarding Roman structures and monuments. We are now able to state of what the buildings, the walls and the streets of Rome were composed; and we cannot but marvel at the extent to which the neighborhood of Rome facilitated the building of the Eternal City. History might have been written otherwise had the strata of Rome been different; certainly Roman geology gave Roman genius an opportunity. There was clay for the making of brick and tile, and plenty of sand and material for lime, so that substantial buildings of brick and mortar could be erected. Nearby was also found a volcanic ash called pozzuolana, from which hydraulic cement was made. Good building stone was plentiful; for example a volcanic tuff known as peperino, also called Alban stone; and travertine, a porous light yellow calc-sinter. Travertine is an excellent building stone inasmuch as it is easily worked when just quarried, and as it hardens on exposure. We find it used in such buildings as the Coliseum of ancient days, St. Peter's of medieval times, and the modern Palace of Justice. In the days of the empire, when the provinces had to bear the burden of beautifying the chief city, the Romans became fastidious and called for expensive marble and other valuable rock not found in the vicinity; and in those days, freight boats, laden with building material from afar, helped with craft carrying other merchandise to almost choke the port of Ostia.

In the days of the republic, and as late as the early empire, Rome with its narrow winding streets and irregular construction was not particularly beautiful, but under Nero a new Rome sprang phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, and after that every Roman had reason to be proud of the appearance of his native place. The building mania of the imperators infected private men of means, and each tried to outdo his predecessor. Even later writers could say that there was nothing grander under the sun than the city of Rome, that no eye could compass its magnitude, no mind its beauty, no mouth its praise. In the third century an Arabian eulogist of Rome compared the state of those that had not viewed the great city with that of the blind who do not know the sun; and one of the later Christians from Africa at first sight of the Eternal City cried out: "How beautiful must be the heavenly Jerusalem, if this earthly Rome shines with such magnificence." Such was its extent that there was a saying: "In whatever part you happen to be, you are still in the midst." Looking down from the capitol on the vast expanse of houses, the great numbers of temples, palaces, colonnades, plazas with public buildings, theaters and baths, alternating with the fresh verdure of parks and gardens, the sight must have been indescribable. When in the year 357 the emperor

Constantius for the first time beheld Rome, he was speechless with wonder and admiration; he was dazzled by the crowding together of so much that was beautiful, and at each new sight it seemed to him that that must be the greatest and grandest of all. And where is all this beauty? An organism from which life has departed is decomposed and the parts are utilized in other combinations; and this has been the fate of the dead cities of antiquity. So stupendous were the ruins of old Rome, that they became veritable stone quarries for later generations; and costly material was torn from its place to be incorporated in the walls of some humble structure. Just as Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt had to furnish the material for building Cairo, so the Coliseum, the palaces and baths of the Caesars were exploited by medieval Rome; and medieval ignorance and bigotry worked faster than time to destroy or inflict deplorable damage on the proofs of the civilization of the past. Religious fanaticisms of the early Moslems and Christians must have had something to do with this vandalism, and irreplaceable marbles, monuments of surpassing beauty were dumped into the kiln to be turned into lime.

The imposing ruins of the great cities of antiquity may lead to the mistaken notion that they were always and uniformly built of enduring substance. Whenever wood is available, and it usually was in new settlements, ancient or modern, it will be used because of its low cost, abundant supply, cheapness of transport, rapidity and ease of construction. Ancient cities like modern ones grew only gradually to be composed of stone; hence if old sites could later on be ruthlessly treated as artificial quarries, it is because they represent the final stages of old cities, and whatever was perishable had passed away. The celebrated colonnades of Greek temples, composed of the far-famed Doric, Ionic and Corinthian pillars, are believed to have been evolved from the tree-trunks that supported the tops of the early temples of wood. Past the middle of the first century, Rome was still largely constructed of wood; and that accounts for the awful catastrophe of the year 64. An inconsiderable blaze at the south-east corner of the circus spread to the neighboring booths, a high wind fanned the flames and drove them into the narrow quarters between the Palatine and the Capitoline, then up the hills and down into the vales beyond, so that when night fell, the red sky announced to dwellers afar off the destruction of the mistress of the world. Six days and nights the devouring element raged, and when the panic-stricken people thought it was quelled, it rose again and left fully two-thirds of the city a smouldering heap. With Rome as ruler of the world, the great fire proved a blessing in disguise; there was, indeed, much immediate suffering, but the enormous cost of rebuilding was laid upon the provinces, and Greece and Asia had to sacrifice their treasures of art to adorn the metropolis on the Tiber. A far-seeing plan of reconstruction was adopted: the streets were made wider, plazas were established, the number of fountains was increased, building material was prescribed to prevent recurrence of disaster, and by example, by prizes and by