Betsy Burgent, age 13, of La Mesa, California, for her question:

 Where is the center of the United States?

Continental United States is about ore nineteenth of the world's land surface. It covers an area of some 3,002,387 square miles. This makes it larger than the big island continent of Australia and almost as large as Europe, as far as single countries go, it ranks fifth after Russia, China, Gunadn and Brazil.

The geographical center of our cherished land mass is claimed by the state of Kansas. The geographers write this point as 39 degrees minutes 5O minutes North Latitude and 98 degrees 35 West Longitude. This puts the geographical center of the United States near Lebanon, Smith County, Kansas.