THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR BOOK A COMPENDIUM OF THE WORLD'S PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1899 EDITOR FRANK MOORE COLBY, M.A. CONSULTING EDITOR HARRY THURSTON PECK, Ph.D., L.H.D. Professor in Columbia University Editor-in-Chief of THE INTERNATIONAL CYCLOPÆDIA NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS PREFACE. The record of the year 1899 is an unusually full one. In the United States the development of trade, industry, and agriculture marks it as one of the most prosperous years in our history, and our political record has an especial interest from the new issues that have presented themselves. in connection with our colonial policy. In international and foreign affairs the topics that have come up for treatment are numerous and varied. Besides the war in the Transvaal, the list comprises The Hague Conference, the Alaska Boundary Dispute, the settlement of the Fashoda affair, the new international status of Japan, the Anglo-Russian agreement respecting China, and the new turn in the Dreyfus affair. The discussion of scientific topics has been unusually interesting. Important discoveries have been made in the departments of Archæology, Medicine, Anthropology, Experimental Psychology, Engineering, Geology, Chemistry, Botany, and Physics. New men have come forward, and men already well known have added to their records, necessitating the inclusion. of an unusually large number of biographical articles. Biographies of the living include such names as Roberts, Buller, Rhodes, and Kruger, while on the death list are Lawton, Joubert, Coues, Moody, Ingersoll, Dingley, and many others. The new books and new plays requiring mention fill many pages. Important experiments have been made in municipal government. In short, the abundance of material has made the problem. of condensation exceedingly difficult, especially as the YEAR BOOK aims to be something more than a bare record of facts or compilation of statistics, its object being to discuss as well the debated questions of the year, with a view to exhibiting fairly the opposing views. The essential features of the original plan have been retained. The work being designed to supplement or continue the principal cyclopædias, |
