458 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 
vast areas of forest have been transformed into smiling farm lands. 
The few aborigines have become further reduced, while foreign in- 
fluence — Russian, Japanese, and Chinese — has greatly increased. 
The three Provinces of Manchuria — Fengtien, Kirin, and Heilung- 
kiang — occupy a broad horseshoe-shaped belt of country, of which 
the outer (eastern) edge is bounded by four great rivers, the Yalu 
and Tumen, on the south, forming the boundary between Fengtien 
and Kirin and Korea; the Ussuri, on the east, dividing Kirin from 
the east Siberian Province of Primorskaya ; and the Amur, or Heilung- 
kiang, on the north, separating Heilungkiang Province from the 
Amur Province, or Amurland. Formerly, during the Ch'ing dynasty 
and right into the nineteenth century, both Amurland and Primor- 
skaya belonged to Manchuria, and to this day the aborigines of these 
great stretches of country should be considered as Mancliurians 
rather than Siberians. 
The western boundaries of Manchuria are less clearly defineil, 
though here the Provinces come into contact with eastern Mongolia. 
The more or less arid steppes of which the latter country is formed 
do not end with the political boundary line, but extend beyond the 
border into the more fertile terrain of Manchuria. Thus portions 
of northern Fengtien, western Kirin, and southwestern Heilung- 
kiang are more typical of Mongolia, and we find the aborigines per- 
taining to the more truly Mongol race, such as the Daurians. 
Of the three Provinces, Fengtien has been longest under cultivation, 
and has figured the most in the history of China, Mongolia, Man- 
churia, and Korea. It consists of rather bare, rocky hills and moun- 
tains in the west and southeast, with a wide flat plain between, which 
runs in a northeast southwest direction, joining up with the east 
Mongolian steppes in the north, and bordering the Liao-tung Gulf 
in the south. Down this plain flows the Liao River, and on it are 
situated many important towns, such as Chinchowfu, Moukden, 
Tiehling, and Kaiyiian. The Peking-Moukden Railway traverses it 
from Shanhaikwan to Moukden. A branch line from Kowpantze 
runs to Yingkow at the mouth of the Liao River. From Moukden 
run three branches of the South Manchuria Railway. One strikes 
southwest and runs as far as Port Arthur and Dalny (Dairen), on 
the Liaotung Peninsula, with a short branch to Yingkow. Another 
running southeast reaches Antung at the mouth of the Yalu River, 
which it crosses by means of a magnificent steel bridge, and is con- 
tinued in Korea as the Chosen Railway. A third, which is really a 
continuation of the first, runs north to Changchun, where it makes 
connection with the Changchun-Kirin Railway, and a branch of the 
Chinese Eastern Railway which runs south from Harbin. The main 
line of the Chinese Eastern Railway runs from Vladivostok to Man- 
