The colonizing enterprise in Asia within recent years has been confined to Great Britain, France and Russia, which nations have gained large possessions in that great continent. Russia has made its way during several centuries of conquest over Siberia and Central Asia, until its immense possessions have encroached upon Persia and Afghanistan in the south and China in the east. At present, while the dominion of Russia in Europe comprises about 2,000,000 square miles, that in Asia is more than 6,500,000 square miles, the total area of this colossal empire being more than equal in area to the entire continent of North America. The possessions of other nations in Asia are, aside from small holdings on the Chinese coast, in the south of that continent. Holland has a group of rich islands in the Indian Ocean, Portugal some small holdings, and France a large area in Indo-China, gained by invasion and conquest. This includes Cambodia, Cochin-China and Tonquin, won by hard fighting since 1862. Great Britain, in addition to the extensive peninsula of India, with the neighboring rich island of Ceylon, has of late years acquired the fertile plains of Burmah, now included in its Empire of India, the whole covering an area of nearly 2,000,000 square miles. Its other Asiatic possessions include Hong Kong, in China; the Straits Settlements and other Malay states; Borneo and Sarawak, ad Aden and Socotra, in Arabia. THE BRITISH IN INDIA The British control of India began with the founding of commercial settlements early in the seventeenth century. Areas of land were gradually acquired, and rivalry began later between England and France for the control of Indian territory. The power of the British East India Company in India was largely extended by the military operations of the famous Lord Clive, and under Warren Hastings, a later governor of ambitious character, received new accessions. During the nineteenth century many accessions of territory were made, the one threat to British dominion in the peninsula being the great Sepoy rebellion, or Indian Mutiny, which needed all the resources of the Company to overcome. The most important event that succeeded was the taking over the powers of government, so far exercised by the East India Company, and vesting them in the Crown, which assumed full control of the now immense holdings of the Company. Subsequently came the raising of India to the dignity of an empire, and the adding to the title of Queen Victoria the further title of Empress of India. Since that period the establishment of British dominion in India has become almost complete, extending to the Himalayas in the north, and over Baluchistan in the west and Burmah in the east. As a result India, Canada and Australia have become the great trio of semi-continental British colonial possessions, India being far the richest and most populous of them all. COLONIES IN AMERICA