86 Tue NEARER East PROBLEM. 
frontiers they are to be found, and with whose history they 
have been more intimately associated. In addition, the 
effect of the following more or less strictly geographical 
factors was emphasised—the Karst, the rivers of Bulgaria, 
the openness of the Peninsula to the influx of races from 
Eastern Europe, the land-link between Europe and Asia, the 
two separate climatic divisions. 
From a consideration of all the geological and geo- 
graphical influencing factors it was observed that the out- 
standing resultant features were an absence of any nucleus 
for State growth and a welter of conflicting races with their 
separate and varied racial characteristics. 
The historical aspect of the Nearer East problem was 
then treated. Each State or province was dealt with 
separately—Serbia: her history, aspirations, economic 
situation, and thwarted hopes; Macedonia: the storm- 
centre; Bulgaria: her tendency towards the 4gean; Greece; 
the South Slav Region: its relations to Hungary’s outlet 
to the sea and to Serbia; Italy and the Adriatic. 
Sources of the Galloway Dee. 
By Rev. C. H. Dick, B.D., Moffat. 
I did not send a telegram to Ze Times when I discovered 
the truth about the sources of the river Dee, a subject which 
has been involved in much inaccuracy until the present day, as 
I had no reason for thinking that my Galloway explorations had 
attracted the attention of the civilised world, nor did I think 
that any enterprising journalist would be likely to make a valu- 
able “scoop ’’ by interviewing me on my discoveries and priva- 
tions at the earliest possible moment. The world, nevertheless, 
familiar as it is with the confusion and ignorance which pre- 
vailed at one time regarding the sources of the Congo, the 
Niger, and the Nile, is unaware of the darkness in which it has 
hitherto lain in the matter of the sources of the Dee. Yet this, 
in its own little way, parallels, if it does not surpass, that which 
once shrouded those more widely known rivers. Cartographers, 
guide-book makers, and the Royal Commission on the Ancient 
