water. Nearly all of this addition would be on the north, northwest, and northeast shores of the Caspian; but small areas would be subject to inundation on other parts of the coast. It is believed that the total area of the inland seas of Western Asia would be nearly trebled before the limit of inundation was reached.

The justification of this vast scheme is that its effects would not be merely local, but that it would have such an effect upon the rainfall of the adjacent countries as to change their climatic conditions to those of Southern Europe, while involving no greater inconvenience than the submergence of a few small towns and the disturbance of a few thousand nomads. The beneficent effect of an inland sea upon contiguous land is well known, and is shown to an extraordinary extent by the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and even the diminished Caspian, as the conditions on the northeastern slopes of the Caucasus prove. It is estimated that over an area of 300,000 square miles the rainfall would be increased to such an extent as would change the whole character of the country, turning the unproductive steppes and the deserts of Turkestan into country habitable by a settled population; while the southeastern provinces of Russia and the country of the Don-Cossacks, where, owing to lack of water, good harvests are at present periodical only, would rival the best watered land in the empire. What is of scarcely less importance, the proximity of the sea would modify the tremendous variations of temperature which are at present as great in the Kirghiz steppe as in Western Siberia. These climatic influences would be sharply defined; for the Aralo-Caspian depression is on nearly every side surrounded at no great distance by hills, while in the only open directions, the north and northwest, the lower temperature would precipitate rain.

On the other hand, the direct loss would be very small, and the rise of the waters would be so slow that it would less resemble a flood than the gradual encroachment of the sea which at present takes place owing to erosive influences all over the world. The unsettled population of the steppes would be little inconvenienced by being forced to shift their tents, an operation which, as it is, they perform every day. The submergence of the towns and settlements on the shores of the Caspian and at the mouth of the Volga would present a greater difficulty; but this point would not be reached for more than a generation after the actual works were built. Most of the wooden towns of Russia are renewed many a time in that period.

M. Demchenko estimates that it would cost $150,000,000 only to build the necessary embankments across the river valleys and the two

canals. The cost in time would be more serious. It would take ten years to complete the works, and four years more before the flood had risen to such a height as to penetrate the watershed canal. The exact time which would elapse before the inundation had reached its highest possible level in both seas is more doubtful, as the calculation requires an exact knowledge of the cubic contents of the depressions and involves a number of still more complex factors. The farther the flood extended, for instance, the greater the allowance that must be made for evaporation, and the gradual increase in the total rainfall of the affected areas must be in turn set against this. It is believed, however, that an appreciable effect would be produced upon the humidity of the country some ten or twelve years after the completion of the works, and many years before the whole depression had been inundated. But its greatest effects would not be produced for at least a generation.

It is admitted that if the levels taken are correct, and there is no reason to doubt them, this vast scheme presents no impossibilities. Engineering, indeed, recognizes no impossibilities, and concerns itself rather with the practical problem whether outlay in time and labor will be remunerated. In a country where great works of public utility are left to private and corporate enterprise, it would be emphatically decided that M. Demchenko's project was impracticable in the sense that it would absorb vast capital without yielding any immediate return to investors, who would hardly find a sufficient incentive in the knowledge that their grandchildren would reap the profit a thousand-fold. But governments differ from individuals in that they do not, or ought not to, count by lives; and the Russian Government in particular has long had a reputation for sacrificing the interests of the present to those of the future.

In that future, engineering schemes which have as their object the increase in the productivity of the world's agriculture will probably have an importance which might seem exaggerated to a generation which, like the present, is more busily engaged in perfecting the transport of the present productions of the world than in increasing their volume. If the course of the twentieth century should resemble that of the nineteenth, the third generation from the present may find America, now the world's greatest granary, occupied by a population greatly exceeding that of Europe, which will absorb the whole food supply of the Western Continent. On the other hand, the population of Europe and Asia is still increasing, though in varying ratios, at an alarming rate; and even Russia may be said to be already thickly peopled in comparison with her low

state of culture. In default. therefore, of some scientific olution of the food question, such as was foreshadowed by Sir William Crookes when he predicted the extraction of nitrogen for agricultural purposes from the air, or of the reform of a social order which permits a great part of the world's cultivable land to be devoted to unprofitable purposes, we may predict a time when the further expansion of the human race will be threatened by insufficiency of food. But human power and ingenuity are likely by that time to have developed to such an extent as to cope without difficulty with many problems of practical science now regarded as insoluble. It will, indeed, be impossible to increase to any large extent the productivity of a continent like Australia, which suffers from an absolute deficiency of water. But Northern Asia has a disproportionate and wasted share of the world's water-supply, and the diversion of some of it into productive channels is a question of capital and labor only. With the vast populations, improved science, and enormous accumulations of capital which we may expect in the near future, projects like M. Demchenko's, which are to-day condemned as impracticable, will probably be carried out as a matter of course.

R. E. C. LONG.

In his address on "The Wheat Supply of the World," delivered to the British Association at Bristol, on September 7, 1898.

THE DUTIES OF A MINISTER TO CHINA.

DIPLOMACY in China is a different thing from that which is practised in Europe. The foreign minister in that country may be said to be an integral part of its Government. The doctrine of extra-territoriality, which pervades and dominates the condition of all foreigners, regulates in a peculiar manner their relation to the Chinese. Under it the Chinese courts have no jurisdiction over the foreigner. The latter is legally responsible to his own consul only, who administers in a special court the jurisprudence of his own country. The minister constitutes an appellate court over these tribunals. Besides thus controlling the conduct of his nationals, he is the interpreter of the treaties, and he must hold the Chinese officials to the observance of them. He interposes his veto on any change of the tariff and on any act which does not comply with it. He demands redress for outrages; he arraigns for punishment Chinese officials who have acted injuriously toward foreigners; he protests against wrongful publications; he suggests facilities to be adopted for trade and commerce; he insists on the improvement of rivers; he attacks monopolies granted to persons of any nationality. In a thousand ways he takes an active part in the government of the country.

It is impossible for the foreign minister to avoid being drawn into the maelstrom of progress. The promoter besieges him with letters of recommendation from the most distinguished of his fellow-citizens. This promoter has a budget of improvements, filled with railroad schemes, electric lights, physical science, army reforms, new navies, a mint, a banking system, plans for a post office, and mining enterprises. He is a plausible gentleman; he has figures at his fingers' ends; and he will demonstrate that the granting of any one of his schemes will make China rich and prosperous in the course of a very few years. The minister has no course before him except to aid these gentlemen in securing charters. His own Government grudgingly permits him to do this, for it is subject to the same pressure. It naturally wants to see our trade and commerce extended; and even while it recognizes that its accredited representatives should not be commercial drummers, it leaves to their

discretion the mode in which our business influence should be promoted. Naturally, the minister finds it easier to go to the Yamen and demand a concession than to fight the enthusiastic drummer who has discovered a new field of operations and is eager to enter into it. Behind the pro

moter stands the great newspaper which is ever ready to denounce its country's representatives, because the American public loves sensational writing. No minister is perfect, any more than other men are, and if he has any weakness the newspaper man will find it out. If he is poor and cannot entertain largely he is denounced as stingy. If he spends money lavishly he is "aping royalty." If he is attentive to the fair sex, he is immoral; if not, he is a savage. Even the missionaries sometimes attack him. One of them kindly told me once that he had four hundred thousand men in his church behind him. I told him in reply that I had seventy-five millions behind me.

The better rule for the minister is to make an effort to oblige all the applicants who solicit his aid. It is the simplest way. To-day he presents to the Yamen the advantages to the Empire of giving an American company the right to build a railroad from Hankow to Peking. Failing in that scheme, to-morrow he will insist on the company's having the right to build a line from Peking to Mukden; and, when unsuccessful there, he will take up the cudgels for one from Hankow to Canton. The above is an account of what really happened. A new gun is a great card for the promoters, especially a dynamite gun. On the table before the Yamen there are spread plans of the great gun; and the interpreters worry as never before over intricate drawings, which the inventor tries in vain to make them understand. But a little learning goes a great way with the Chinese. The model of a warship, an article which no member of the Yamen has ever seen, is a great card. It speaks for itself. It needs no interpreter. A new interest is added when the promoter knows the cost of the ship; but he does not always state it, because he wants to be able to increase it at the last. One gentleman, I remember, wanted to sell something; and in order to secure standing before the Yamen he prepared a splendid essay on government, in which he particularly denounced "squeezing"- the pet vice of all the Chinese, high and low and the general corruption of the officials. I was expected to have this instrument translated, and to forward it with my friend's demand for the purchase of the invention. After he had read it to me I asked him whether, if he had gone to England on a similar mission, he would have denounced the House of Lords or the Prince of Wales, and he said he thought not. I then inquired how he expected to curry