Professor W. M. Ramsay dblivered on Monday a lecture before
the Royal Geographical Society, tho object of which was to emphasise the geographilTal and historical importance of Anatolia, or, as Europeans usually call it, Asia Minor. The great peninsula, which juts .out westward from Asia and almost touches Europe, thus fox crushing a broad bridge for invaders, has from early ages been the constant scene of great events, and is full of the !debris not only of ruins of many periods but of many races. It needs, more perhaps than any country in the world, contintoi ous exploration, not by one explorer but by groups of them, antiquarians, artists, his- torians, and Orientalists. Pro-. lessor Ramsay evidently believes that besides being the roate through which every- thing Asiatic has reached Europe,. it was, in or before the dawn of history, the seat of a great Empire with wide external influence, and with an art, a religio n, and a language of its own. Information is gradually beim r acquired as to them all, the most salient fact apparently being that the Anatolians differed from the remainder of the vorld in believing not in the fatherhood, but in the mothe rhood of the ultimate Creator. Some day all Europe will be quarrelling over Anatolia, much the richest and big; gest prize open to the Powers without crossing great breadth a of sea. It is one of the most fertile lands in the world, an covers precisely the area of France.
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