Englishmen were the first to engage in Turkish railway building. The Aidin railway, which links the thriving port of Smyrna to the Anatolian plateau at Dineir, represents an investment of about $50,000,000, or about a third of all the money invested in Turkey by the British public. This road taps the fertile Meander valley and has proved a remunerative undertaking to its owners, although it has not been subsidized by the Turkish government. The line is credited with the best management in Turkey. Its well-ballasted track and the splendid condition of its rolling stock impress the traveler most favorably. English capital is also represented in other lines built in Turkey, though only as minority holdings. This British zone of influence is at present the best developed region in Asia Minor. Its northern boundary is determined by the divide separating the watersheds of the Gediz and the Meander rivers. The Aidin railway follows the course of the last-named river to its very sources at about 1,000 feet below the general western level of the plateau.[209] The eastern boundary of the sphere is defined by the end of the natural road at one of the abrupt slopes leading to the plateau in the vicinity of lakes Burdur and Ajituz. Its southern frontier reaches the districts which supply the railroad with traffic drawn from the border line of the Carian ranges and the foot of the northern slopes of the Lycian Taurus. The sound establishment of Great Britain’s commercial influence in this locality dates from the year 1856, when construction on the Aidin railway was inaugurated. Its real beginning can be traced back to the dawn of the nineteenth century, when English naval supremacy replaced France’s hitherto paramount maritime influence in the Levant. In recent years an interesting expansion of British trade ascendancy in this zone can be detected since the products of the area tapped by the Aidin railway, whether they consist of cereals, fruit, ores or local manufactured goods such as rugs, are mainly exported nowadays to Great Britain, the United States and Australia.