half of this century has run its course. We realize that the future belongs, not to England, or to France, or to Germany, but to Russia. After generations of suffering, the Slav is at last coming into his inheritance.
III
The vast plains of Russia, the most extensive in the planet, include three parallel zones—in the north the forest zone, in the centre the agricultural zone—with the "black earth" of wondrous fertility—and in the south the waving prairie inhabited by the Cossacks. If we add to those three zones the vineyards of the Crimea and of the Caucasus, we find that the soil of Russia produces every form of agricultural wealth. And the mineral resources of the country are no less varied and no less inexhaustible. We need only refer to the coalfields of the Donetz, to the oil-fields of Baku, to the gold and silver mines of the Ural Mountains and of Siberia. If to-day Russia is one of the granaries of the world, to-morrow she will also be one of the greatest industrial areas.
For the transport of her agricultural and industrial produce Russia possesses not only sixty
