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Public Works nominally charged with the duty of attending to such matters, and admirably organ- ised for the purpose. But no practical evidences of the Board's existence are apparent in the provinces. China has had great administrative and great executive conceptions, but her social structure seems unsuited to any continuity of public effort.

In order to suggest a compendious idea of the Chinese Empire it has been spoken of above as consisting of two parts, namely, China proper and her tributary or indirectly governed states on the north and west, the whole forming an area of about 4,250,000 square miles and containing a population of some 450 millions of souls. This conception may be further defined by saying that the eighteen provinces of China proper occupy the southwestern corner of the vast area, and that, while constituting barely one-third of the total superficies, they nevertheless support nine-tenths of the aggregate population. Thus, even if China were stripped of all her outlying portions - Manchuria, Mongolia, Ili, and Thibet - the sources of her wealth and strength would still remain unimpaired, though her magnitude would be reduced by two-thirds. In fact, these outlying portions consist mainly of "poorly watered deserts or plateaux, thinly peopled by races forming majorities over the Chinese settlers."

Considered with regard to wealth and population, the eighteen provinces divide themselves into