124 GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



Zurukhait, run in Manchuria toward the towns of Cicikar (Tsit- 

 sikar), Khu-lan-Chen, and Ning-tu, and connect with the Nikolsk 

 station of the South Ussuri Railroad. The total length of the 

 Manchuria railway will be 1,920 versts (1,273 miles), of which 

 1,425 versts (945 miles) will be in Chinese territory. According 

 to the original survey of the Siberian line, the course through 

 Manchuria will shorten the Siberian railroad 514 versts (341 

 miles). The Manchuria, line traverses a country of better climate 

 and more productive soil. The fruitful valle}'' of the Sungari 

 supplies the Amur region with bread, and northern Manchuria 

 possesses natural wealth, to some extent already worked. 



In a recent number of JahrbucJier fur Nntionaldkonamic und 

 SUdistik there appeared an article by Dr Ballod " Concerning the 

 importance of the husbandry of Siberia." He arrives at tlie con- 

 clusion that the Siberian railway will at first onl}' open up the 

 country for the export of the more valuable classes of goods and 

 facilitate w^holesale immigration. It will be of enormous impor- 

 tance as a transit route for goods of high value from China and 

 Japan, and also for passenger traffic from and to these countries, 

 but it will be serviceable to the development of grain export onl}^ 

 in a very limited degree. Careful estimates of production and 

 freights convince him that an increased output of grain cannot 

 be expected so long as low prices rule. It would be necessary 

 for the Siberian peasant to export at a lower price than has hith- 

 erto been paid for his grain in the home markets. Should prices 

 rise materially, profitable cultivation of wheat in middle Siberia 

 would become a possibility, and this would probably bring about 

 an important increase in exports. 



GEOGRAPHIC LITERATURE 



Glaciers of North America : A Reading Lesson for Students of Geography 

 and Geology. By Israel C. Russell, Professor of Geology in the 

 University of Michigan. Pp. x -|- 210, with maps and illustrations. 

 Boston : Ginn & Company, 1897. $1.90. 

 Professor Russell's prefatory "To the Reader" is a stalwart message. 

 " Strange as it may appear," he says, " in the face of the overshadowing 

 popular interest that centers in the glaciers of the Alps, North America 

 offers more favorable conditions for the study of existing glaciers and of 

 the records of ancient ice sheets than any other continent," for in North 

 America the three great types of glacier— alpine, piedmont, and conti- 

 nental—are magnificently exemplified, while the glaciers of other con- 

 tinents (save little-known Antarctica) are limited to the poor little alpine 



