HENRY WHITE, Vice-President

O. P. AUSTIN, Secretary GEO. W. HUTCHISON, Associate Secretary EDWIN P. Grosvenor, General Counsel

WILLIAM J. SHOWALTER Assistant Editor

CHARLES J. BELL

FRANKLIN L. FISHER Chief of Illustrations Division

President American Security and
Trust Company

JOHN JOY EDSON

Chairman of the Board, Washington Loan & Trust Company

DAVID FAIRCHILD

In charge of Agricultural Explorations, U. S. Department of Agriculture

C. HART MERRIAM

Member National Academy of
Sciences

O. P. AUSTIN Statistician

GEORGE R. PUTNAM

Commissioner U. S. Bureau of
Lighthouses

GEORGE SHIRAS, 3D
Formerly Member U. S. Con-
gress, Faunal Naturalist, and
Wild-game Photographer

E. LESTER JONES

Director U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey

TO carry out the purposes for which it was founded thirty-eight years ago, the National Geographic Society publishes this Magazine. All receipts are invested in the Magazine itself or expended directly to promote geographic knowledge.

ARTICLES and photographs are desired. For material which the Magazine can use, generous remuneration is made. Contributions should be accompanied by an addressed return envelope and postage.

IMMEDIATELY after the terrific eruption of the world's largest crater, Mt. Katmai, in Alaska, a National Geographic Society expedition was sent to make observations of this remarkable phenomenon. Four expeditions have followed and the extraordinary scientific data resulting given to the world. In this vicinity an eighth wonder of the world was discovered and explored-"The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes," a vast area of steaming, spouting fissures. As a result of The Society's discoveries this area has been created a National Monument by proclamation of the President of the United States.

AT an expense of over $50,000 The Society sent a notable series of expeditions into Peru to investigate the traces of the Inca race. Their

discoveries form a large share of our knowledge of a civilization waning when Pizarro first set foot in Peru. THE Society also had the honor of subscribing a substantial sum to the expedition of Admiral Peary, who discovered the North Pole. NOT long ago The Society granted $25.000, and in addition $75,000 was given by individual members to the Government when the congressional appropriation for the purpose was insufficient, and the finest of the giant sequoia trees of California were thereby saved for the American people.

THE Society is conducting extensive explorations and excavations in northwestern New Mexico, which was one of the most densely populated areas in North America before Columbus came, a region where prehistoric peoples lived in vast communal dwellings and whose customs, ceremonies, and name have been engulfed in an oblivion.

THE Society also is maintaining expeditions in the unknown area adjacent to the San Juan River in southeastern Utah, and in Yunnan, Kweichow, and Kansu, China-all regions virgin to scientific study.

66

UR Union covers one-seventh of the earth's surface" is an expression coined by some forgotten Soviet orator. Others have passed it along until it has become a stock argument to show the position which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics should occupy in world affairs. The measurement (8,200,000 square miles) is true if four oceans and a dozen seas are not counted, and the argument is sound. if affairs of nations, men, or families were dominated by size alone.

RUSSIA IS CONDUCTING A GREAT
EXPERIMENT

Russia is the testing ground for what had been only a theory of economy, society, and politics. The old order, the old life, institutions, leaders, were put aside. Four years of revolution were necessary. Then rebuilding started, machinery of state and industry moved again, and the theories were applied to a mass at home whose past had been submission and ignorance, with little interference and no assistance from without.

The clamor of theory and proclamations has so filled the ears of the world through these years that little has been noticed of the real test which is going on

inside Soviet Russia, as theories meet individualism which is so universal in humanity, unwritten rules of life and trade which have developed through the ages, and world laws which centuries have formulated for nations.

Russia is the world's largest country, stretching across two continents, and when theory and practice reach a balance, the test of a new system of government will have world-wide effect.

Soviet Russia has a radio station 650 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Its southernmost frontiers are on a parallel with San Francisco and Norfolk. Between them are as many changes of climate as between Spitsbergen and Cairo.

Ships from its western ports sail into. the Atlantic, and its eastern coast is buffeted by the Pacific, just the reverse of the United States, while the distance across the Soviet Union (5,796 miles) is almost twice as far and the train ride three times as long. Russia is the baby giant among nations, full grown but not

grown up.

In the north the Samoyed straddles a reindeer and trots across the perpetual snow during the few months that he can travel at all. The new airplanes which link together the cities of the south, see

other Russians cross-legged on the plodding camels of long caravans, similar to those which traverse the burning deserts of Arabia and Africa.

A Russian ship called at one of the islands off Siberia, the first time in ten years, and the inhabitants inquired about the health of the Tsar. Each year, as the scientific expeditions return from their summer wanderings, they tell of discovering traces of prehistoric ages or forgotten centuries, and at the same time report on vast stretches of country penetrated and explored for the first time. Russia is a land of many modes, the last undeveloped storehouse of the Temperate Zone.

Politically, it is divided into six constituent republics; they in turn comprise 33 autonomous units, each differing ethnologically and culturally. Most of them have their own language, their own customs and costumes, and the babel of tongues becomes even greater from the tribes who are as yet too backward for self-government.

Cities and villages string along the railroads and rivers over all that vast territory. As one rides over the Siberian steppes, a moving speck in the void, the plains seem unending. Then a peasant's cart is seen in the distance, the invariable dog trotting behind. Soon appear other carts, all going in the same direction.

RUSSIAN VILLAGES ALL OF A KIND

Then a village of log houses, with perhaps a public building and a departed aristocrat's brick house, always painted white, and the ever-present church, with its five Turkish-shaped towers, the large one in the center for Christ and the smaller ones on the corners for the four Gospels. The train vanishes again over the unending plains, varied only by stretches of forest or hills, which seem to come and go as suddenly as the villages.

It is always the same. Women and children at the station selling food, a couple of good-natured policemen, the crowd of loafers of all ages and garbs, railroad officials bustling with the excitement of the one event of the day.

The station master strides impressively from his office and rings the bell between the waiting-room doors. He returns to

his sanctum for another cigarette and a bit of gossip before he repeats the performance and gives two rings. Another wait, more questions of late arrivals to answer, and he stalks out, sounds three strokes, and this time waits for the train to leave.

Everybody has been gossiping Russian style, waiting for the last bell. full of apples, roast chicken, newspapers, teakettles, dogs and babies, they rush for the train.

MOSCOW STILL A LARGE VILLAGE

Moscow, metropolis and capital of Russia, is the largest village in the world. Moscow has its trolley cars, electric lights, tall buildings, theaters, stores, motor busses, and other outward metropolitan manifestations, but at heart it is a village. Leningrad, Odessa, and even some of the cities of the interior have an appearance and an atmosphere of western Europe; Moscow is the heart of Russia and it changes slowly.

Its brick and stone are a mosaic of the Russian spirit-stolid, unsmiling, unpolished, and slow to change. Even the unpainted log houses of the peasant villages seem to reflect age and durability.

Moscow is sprinkled with what is new, but everywhere it speaks of age, from the weather-beaten walls of the Inner City to battlemented monasteries on the outskirts. Broad thoroughfares radiate from its center, but around each corner the streets are narrow, with sidewalks no wider than footpaths.

Fires have wiped it away, invaders, from Tatars to Napoleon, have devastated it, governments have come and gone, but Moscow, stubborn and dull, has persisted. It symbolizes Russia.

It is only a step from Moscow, overcrowded and teeming with its peoples of many races, with rules for every movement and police to enforce them, into the wild, wide open spaces. Wolves and bears still roam in the Moscow district, and when the dull winter dusk comes at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and the country is under its white mantle of snow, hunger drives them to prey on mankind.

They boldly attack villages and, this year, even assailed a railroad train of cattle. No peasant ventures alone far