382 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1944 
At the close of World War I, Michael Pupin, a Serb, and distin- 
guished physicist of Columbia University, was the head of many 
Serbian organizations in this country. When Woodrow Wilson, at 
Paris, was big in the European news, Pupin remarked one day, “I 
don’t want a college professor, I want a king and a hero.” 
The Turk ruled a wide empire of many peoples, but was able to 
establish his language only in Anatolia. 
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FicurE 18.—Topography and routes of conquest and migration. Note the Zun- 
garian Gate, opening a marauders’ road from grassland toward farmlands. 
(From Mackinder, “Democratic Ideals and Reality,” Henry Holt & Company.) 
The second route from the left is the Khyber Pass. No one knows the number 
of bands of migrants, marauders, or organized armies that have marched 
through that very favorable opening in the mountain wall. There were those 
of Alexander, Tamerlane, and George V. Today it has a strategic railway, 
and bristles with pillboxes perched high aloft on many commanding hills. 
RUSSIA TAKES THE STEPPES 
Gunpowder with muskets and cannon ended the career of the horse- 
men of the steppes after an undisturbed independence of unknown 
duration, and after about 4,000 years during which the horsemen over- 
ran almost at will their more civilized neighbors on the east, south, 
and west. In 1580 the Russians with muskets, cannon, and wagons 
crossed the Urals. In 300 years they subjugated the whole of central 
