=Austria-Hungary.=--This empire is composed of the two monarchies, Austria
and Hungary, each practically self-governed, but united under a single
general government. The greater part of the country is walled in by the
ranges of the Alps and the Carpathian Mountains.

The region known as the Tyrol is topographically continuous with
Switzerland, and the people have Swiss characteristics. Galicia,
northeast of the Carpathian Mountains, the fragment of Poland that fell
to Austria at the time of partition, is a part of the great Russian
plain. Bohemia, which derives its name from the Keltic peoples, whom
Caesar called the Boii, comprises the upper part of the Elbe river-basin.
Its natural commercial outlet is Germany, but the race-hatred which the
Czechs have for the Germans, retards commercial progress. Hungary is a
country of plains occupying the lower basin of the Danube. The Huns are
of Asian origin. Austria proper occupies the upper valley of the Danube,
adjoining Germany; the country and the people are Germanic.

To the student of history it is a surprise that a country of such
diverse peoples, having but little in common save mutual race-hatred,
should hold together under the same general government. The explanation,
however, is found in the topography of the region. The basin of the
Danube is a great food-producing region, and the upper valley of the
Elbe River forms the easiest passage from the Black to the Baltic Sea.
The topography therefore gives the greater part of the country
commercial unity.

The climate and surface of the low plains of Hungary are much the same
as those of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Grain-growing and stock-raising are
the chief employments. High freight rates, a long haul, and the
competition of Russia and Roumania have retarded the development of
these industries, however. Bohemia is likewise a grain-growing country,
and the easy route into Germany through the Elbe Valley makes the
industry a profitable one. Bohemia is also in the sugar-beet area.

There is an abundance of coal in Austria, but most of it is unfit for
the manufacture of iron and steel. Steel manufacture, however, is
carried on, the industry being protected by the distance from the German
steel-making centres. The lead-mines about Bleiberg (or "Leadville") are
very productive; at Idria are the only quicksilver-mines in Europe that
compete with those of Almaden, Spain. The salt-mines near Krakow are in
a mass of rock-salt twe