In this spectacle of nations lying athwart each other’s path the clue to the adequate settlement of the Turkish problem may be found. Turkey is before anything else a roadway--a bridge-land. As soon as this point of practical geography is recognized it will be easy to provide international legislation in which the claims of interested powers will be harmonized. But no solution of the political problem involved can ever be attained without full consideration of its geographical aspects. Failure to recognize this would leave the Eastern Question in the hopeless tangle in which it has lain for over a century. As the seat of through routes Turkey and its railroad play a great part in international transportation. Hence it is that the Turkish lines, with exception of the Hejaz railroad, are controlled by financiers grouped according to nationality. At present the majority of shareholders in each of the concessions belong to one or the other of the great European powers. [Illustration: _The American Geographical Society of New York_ _Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe, 1917, Pl. V_ RAILROADS IN TURKEY SHOWING THEIR CONNECTIONS AND EXTENSIONS] The broad Eurasian landmass contains three densely populated areas. Of these central Europe is the westernmost. The Indian peninsula follows, situated approximately midway between the European area and the coastlands and islands of eastern Asia, which form the easternmost of the three. In these three regions only does the average density of population exceed 64 inhabitants to the square mile. The speediest and most convenient routes between the westernmost and the two Asiatic regions must inevitably cross Turkey. This feature, together with the fact that Asiatic Turkey is a land richly endowed with natural resources and that, although lying at Europe’s very door, it is still undeveloped, confer upon Turkish railroads an importance which has always been keenly realized by enterprising business men the world over. All travel between Europe and Asia is deflected into northern and southern channels by a central mass of mountains which separate a vast lowland of plains and steppes on the north from the tablelands of southern Asia. Age-old avenues of human migration and of trade in the northern area have the disadvantage of traversing sparsely inhabited regions. To build trans-continental railroads along this route implies scaling some of the highest mountain ranges in the world in order to tap the populous centers of India. Although this is not beyond the engineer’s ability, capitalists decline to consider it. Southern routes, on the other hand, link with the seas that set far inland on Asiatic coasts. The function of the Turkish trunk lines is to provide the shortest connection between European railways and the steel tracks of southern Asia or to connect with the sea routes that link harbor to harbor from the Persian Gulf to the China Sea.