The National geographic magazine . s been perpetuated in the name of theflourishing city which stands today at?the junction of the Amur and UsuriRivers. The Manchus were a warlikepeople, and the Black Dragon River, asthey called the Amur, was their north-ern boundary. After a contest whichcontinued forty years, they drove theRussians back and held undisputed pos-session for a hundred and sixty-six years,until 1854, when General Muravieff no-tified China that, with or without herconsent, he proposed to resume controlof the Amur River. In 1855 he rees-tablished the Cossack stations its entirelen
The National geographic magazine . s been perpetuated in the name of theflourishing city which stands today at?the junction of the Amur and UsuriRivers. The Manchus were a warlikepeople, and the Black Dragon River, asthey called the Amur, was their north-ern boundary. After a contest whichcontinued forty years, they drove theRussians back and held undisputed pos-session for a hundred and sixty-six years,until 1854, when General Muravieff no-tified China that, with or without herconsent, he proposed to resume controlof the Amur River. In 1855 he rees-tablished the Cossack stations its entirelength, and in i860, by the treaty ofAigun, this splendid valley of a rivernavigable for two thousand miles, andwith it the whole Pacific coast of Man-churia, reaching westward to the UsuriRiver and southward to Korea, wasgiven up to Russia without a one accession made Siberiawhat it is today. Without it, it was *An address before the National Geographic Society, December 20, 1901. 3§ The National Geographic Magazine. Sketch Map of Siberian Railway and would have remained a tracklesswaste. With it, it will be an empirewhich within a century will exercisemore influence in the worlds affairsthan European Russia ever has, for itis sure to be the dominant power in theOrient, where half the population of theworld is found, and it is not impossiblethat in some distant future the UnitedStates of North America may clasp handsacross the Pacific with the United Statesof Northern Asia. In the public parkin Khabarovsk, ona high bluff overlooking the Amur andUsuri Valleys, there stands a splendidstatue of General Muravieff. His backis turned upon the conquests of the pastand he is looking at and pointing towardManchuria. As I sat and gazed at it and thoughtof the events of the past two years,I fancied I could see the bronze eyestwinkle and the lips move with a shoutof triumph, for the Cossack has matchedagain, and by fire and sword almost tothe Chinese wall, has established Rus-
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectgeography, bookyear18
