seventy days, but is now accomplished in ten. Even Australia cannot be said to be distant; a steamer needs but seventy-five days to reach it, and ten of those are consumed on the Isthmus of Suez. No island now lies beyond the world of commerce. The most active traffic exists between places the most remote. The wool and the wheat of Australia control the price of those commodities in London, and the value of cotton in America fixes that of woven goods and even of bread in Europe. The great rivers too have been curtailed of their relative importance, and have been shortened by steam sixfold. They can be stemmed too, which is an immense gain, for in the primitive stages of navigation they could only be sailed upon downward, from source to mouth. In 1854, four hundred steamers traversed the Mississippi and its branches, and came into contact with a region one-third as large as Europe. The Indus, Ganges, Irrawaddy, Nile, La Plata, and even the Amazon, the monarch of rivers, which drains a country half as large as Europe, are now more or less open to steam navigation. The great river systems of central Europe too are thoroughly navigated; and Southern Germany, Trebizond, Mayence, Cologne, and London may be grouped as neighbors. The land-locked seas are reduced to insignificance, and their shores are now covered with villages and cities, from the Platten-See of Hungary up to the Caspian and the great lakes of North America. To sum all up in one word, the mighty influence of Time on the geographical development of the earth is displayed in the clearest manner. But this influence is not the same for all localities on the globe. While there are some people and some places which are left behind, there are others which have made wonderful progress, and have taken and now hold a foremost place. And such a position is that of Europe at the present moment. Europe, the most central of all continents, in relation to the great land-mass of the earth, and also the one most equally removed from the middle point of the great water-mass, touches the whole remaining world at the greatest number of points, and this, in conjunction with her remarkably broken coast-line, so favorable to the purposes of navigation, have given her her place of command, and have assigned to England her evident role of mistress of the seas.