KORAT  , the

capital of the provincial division (Menton) of Nakawn Racha Sema, or " the frontier country," in Siam; in 102° 5' E., 14° 59' N . Pop. about 7000, mixed Cambodian and Siamese . It is the headquarters of a high commissioner and of an army division . It is the terminus of a railway from Bangkok, 170 M. distant, and the distributing centre for the whole of the plateau district which forms the eastern part of Siam . There are copper mines of reputed wealth in the neighbourhood . It is the centre of a silk-growing district and is the headquarters of the government sericultural department, instituted in 1904 with the assistance of Japanese experts for the purpose of improving the quality of Siamese silk . The government is that of an ordinary provincial division of Siam . A French vice-consul resides here . Since the founding of Ayuthia in the 14th century, Manuscripts . Korat has been tributary to, or part of, Siam, with occasional lapses into independence or temporary subjection to Cambodia . Before that period it was probably part of Cambodia, as appears from the nature of the ruins still to be seen in its neighbour-hood . In 1896 the last vestige of its tributary condition vanished with the introduction of the present system of Siamese rural administration .