“You spoke a little while ago of the territory of the United States, as it was in my day. This would appear to intimate that the boundaries have changed since then, is that so?” “Well yes, you will think so, when you know that the United States of the present day covers the entire Continent of North America, and embraces besides, New Zealand, Australia, the English Colonies in South Africa, Ireland, Cuba and most of the West India Islands, and numerous islands in the Pacific ocean. I see this astonishes you and I will proceed to tell you how it happened. If we begin at the beginning, it appears to have been very largely due to the construction of railroads in Asia by the Russians; that is it, would never have happened if these roads had not been built. The great transcontinental Siberian road was completed from St. Petersburg to Vladivostock on the Pacific ocean in 1904 and formally opened with a great flourish by the Russian emperor. The Russians were not entirely satisfied however with this road. It was essential as a military road, and as a means of settling a vast extent of fertile country in Siberia, but as a commercial line it did not meet their rather sanguine expectations. “Their ambition was to monopolize the trade between China and Europe. The new road by going around the east side of Mantchooria instead of through it to Pekin, imposed on that trade an unnecessary transportation of 1800 miles. They saw directly that they needed a line to Pekin and Teentsin, from Irkutsk. They obtained a concession from the Chinese government and built this line for commercial purposes. Then, later, they found it desirable to build another line west of the first and reaching the ocean at Shanghai. They also tapped the western part of the Chinese empire by a line from Bokara.