Tie admiration of Professor Mendeleyefl for his own conntry—"the Central Empire, the path of the great migrations of—the Peoples""—is sincere and well founded. What the aged scientist seems to be most proud of in Russia is her enormous population and wonderful birth-rate. He points out that the strength of Western European Powers is deceptis if judged from the population, for a very large proportion of that population consists of alien races. The British empire, for instance, borists of 8 population of 410 millions, France of ninety-seven, Germany seventy-four, but without her colonies France has only thirty-nine, England forty-four, Germany sixty-one. Again, the births in these countries are not much excess of the deaths, being annually in France ninety-two thousand, in England 394 thousand and in Germany 836 thousand, whereas in the United States they are 1,720 thousand, in Russia 2,230 thousand (that is 900,000 greater than England, Germany and France taken together) and° in China higher still. The fact that increases at the rate of one-half per cent yearly or doubles in fifty years accounts, in the author's opinion, for the rapid occupation of all the unoccupied land in the empire and for the collisions with foreign nations.
Professor Mendeleyeff does not believe in one world-empire, but he thinks that the small States will all, in course of time, be annihilated or fused into other States. He foretells that the result will be six world-Powers, holding sway over more than two-thirds of the inhabitants and of the inhabited land on the surface of the globe—Ri Germany, France, England, the United States and China. He docs not think Japan will be a great world-Power, because she does not—_ belong to the—* originator-Powers;" she is "an ier only. chance of enlarging her empire is to annex odds and ends of land that other nations had overlooked or to enter on a desperate struggle with the Celestial Power. If Japan chooses the latter course, a union of the other great Pow be formed against her. Unhappily for Japan the day of durable 1 successes. i ever. Japan too anal, The onder and peace of the workd can only be gnarantesd by an Before laughing at these prophecies, it would be well to remember that these Muscovite mystics have more than once guessed aright. Solovyoff for example, the famous theologian and ie cor reetly predicted the Russo-Japanese war me when the idea of such a war scowed as ridiculous as any of these Inter prophesies of Mendeleyeff.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.