Venice is a seaport of Italy on the northern part of the Adriatic Sea. It is built on 117 islands in a great lagoon formed by a bay in the Adriatic. The parts of the city are connected by a system of canals, the largest of which is here shown. In all, the canals number 150, over which have been built 378 bridges. The houses are built on piles. The city has a population of about 160,000. The Grand Canal is the city's chief thoroughfare. When you travel in Venice you do not take a street car or a taxicab. You get into a little boat, called a gondola, rowed by Italians. For a small piece of money you can travel through a maze of water streets. On some of these front shabby, unkempt dwellings; on other magnificent palaces rise. The Grand Canal gets its name not only because of its size, but because of the grandeur of the buildings that face it. Along some of the canals are narrow foot-

populated region. It is a distributing center for that section. It is well situated for this, as it is on a navigable waterway and is the junction of seven railroads. It is also a very important manufacturing center. Czechoslovakia has coal and iron mines and plenty of streams to furnish power so we are not surprised to learn that Prague manufacturing railway cars, cotton, woolen and linen goods, chemicals, glassware and flour. It is also a sugar market. In the surrounding country are raised many sugar beets. In the agricultural sections are raised potatoes and also cereals. The country now Czechoslovakia was long subject to Austria-Hungary. The Czechs and Slavs, however, succeeded in keeping their own speech and customs. Today their independent country, with its republican form of government, is nearly as large as Austria and Hungary together.