(6) An Italian sphere extending inland from the extreme southwestern coast of Asia Minor so as to include the hinterland of the Gulf of Adalia. Italy is a recent invader of this field. Its ambitions were revealed in the fall of 1913, after it became known that negotiations had been carried on between the representative of the Italian bondholders of the Ottoman Public Debt and the Turkish government for the concession of a railway line to connect the seaport of Adalia and the town of Burdur, the southeasterly terminus of the Aidin railway. (7) With these six spheres a contested seventh should be mentioned, which is constituted by the exceedingly rich mineral district situated at the northern convergence of the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Russian, French and German interests claim respective rights of priority to its exploitation. None of these divisions would be recognized officially as such in Turkey. But then ethnographic boundaries are likewise strictly ignored by the rulers of that country. Definite official recognition of these spheres is nevertheless implied in the terms of a number of commercial covenants signed by Turkey and various European powers according to which the right to operate railroads, and even mines sometimes, is granted by the Turkish government exclusively to a single company which in almost every instance is owned by capitalists of the same nationality. The Russo-Turkish convention of 1900, which reserved to Russians rights of preëmption on railroad building in the area called the Franco-Russian sphere, may be mentioned as an example. Similarly the Bagdad Railway Convention of 1902, formally signed by the German ambassador and the Turkish Minister of Public Works, recognized the exclusive rights of the Bagdad Railway Company--a German enterprise--to build the important trans-peninsular route which will link Europe to Asia and Africa. One might infer that the existence of these six spheres should be attributed to Turco-European agreements. Closer scrutiny brings to light, however, the working of purely natural forces, explanation of which is to be found in the geography of Asia Minor. These international railroad conventions, and the areas determined by their text, represent in reality the outcome of the geographical conditions which are grouped here under the two major heads of world relation and regional features.