Influences Of Geographic Environment by Ellen Churchill Semple

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Title: Influences of Geographic Environment
On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography

Author: Ellen Churchill Semple

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Influences Of Geographic Environment On The Basis Of Ratzel's
System Of Anthropo-Geography

By Ellen Churchill Semple

Author of "American History and Its Geographic Conditions"

TO THE MEMORY OF FRIEDRICH RATZEL

Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light.

MILTON.

Preface

The present book, as originally planned over seven years ago, was to be a simplified paraphrase or restatement of the
principles embodied in Friedrich Ratzel's Anthropo-Geographie. The German work is difficult reading even for
Germans. To most English and American students of geographic environment it is a closed book, a treasure-house
bolted and barred. Ratzel himself realized "that any English form could not be a literal translation, but must be adapted
to the Anglo-Celtic and especially to the Anglo-American mind." The writer undertook, with Ratzel's approval, to make
such an adapted restatement of the principles, with a view to making them pass current where they are now unknown.
But the initial stages of the work revealed the necessity of a radical modification of the original plan.

Ratzel performed the great service of placing anthropo-geography on a secure scientific basis. He had his forerunners in
Montesquieu, Alexander von Humboldt, Buckle, Ritter, Kohl, Peschel and others; but he first investigated the subject
from the modern scientific point of view, constructed his system according to the principles of evolution, and based his
conclusions on world-wide inductions, for which his predecessors did not command the data. To this task he brought
thorough training as a naturalist, broad reading and travel, a profound and original intellect, and amazing fertility of
thought. Yet the field which he had chosen was so vast, and its material so complex, that even his big mental grasp

could not wholly compass it. His conclusions, therefore, are not always exhaustive or final.

Moreover, the very fecundity of his ideas often left him no time to test the validity of his principles. He enunciates one
brilliant generalization after another. Sometimes he reveals the mind of a seer or poet, throwing out conclusions which
are highly suggestive, on the face of them convincing, but which on examination prove untenable, or at best must be set
down as unproven or needing qualification. But these were just the slag from the great furnace of his mind, slag not
always worthless. Brilliant and far-reaching as were his conclusions, he did not execute a well-ordered plan. Rather he
grew with his work, and his work and its problems grew with him. He took a mountain-top view of things, kept his eyes
always on the far horizon, and in the splendid sweep of his scientific conceptions sometimes overlooked the details near
at hand. Herein lay his greatness and his limitation.

These facts brought the writer face to face with a serious problem. Ratzel's work needed to be tested, verified. The only
solution was to go over the whole field from the beginning, making research for the data as from the foundation, and
checking off the principles against the facts. This was especially necessary, because it was not always obvious that
Ratzel had based his inductions on sufficiently broad data; and his published work had been open to the just criticism of
inadequate citation of authorities. It was imperative, moreover, that any investigation of geographic environment for the
English-speaking world should meet its public well supported both by facts and authorities, because that public had not
previously known a Ritter or a Peschel.

The writer's own investigation revealed the fact that Ratzel's principles of anthropo-geography did not constitute a
complete, well-proportioned system. Some aspects of the subject had been developed exhaustively, these of course the
most important; but others had been treated inadequately, others were merely a hint or an inference, and yet others
were represented by an hiatus. It became necessary, therefor, to work up certain important themes with a thoroughness
commensurate with their significance, to reduce the scale of others, and to fill up certain gaps with original contributions
to the science. Always it was necessary to clarify the original statement, where that was adhered to, and to throw it into
the concrete form of expression demanded by the Anglo-Saxon mind.

One point more. The organic theory of society and state permeates the Anthropo-geographie, because Ratzel
formulated his principles at a time when Herbert Spencer exercised a wide influence upon European thought. This
theory, now generally abandoned by sociologists, had to be eliminated from any restatement of Ratzel's system. Though
it was applied in the original often in great detail, it stood there nevertheless rather as a scaffolding around the finished
edifice; and the stability of the structure, after this scaffolding is removed shows how extraneous to the whole it was.
The theory performed, however, a great service in impressing Ratzel's mind with the life-giving connection between land
and people.

The writer's own method of research has been to compare typical peoples of all races and all stages of cultural
development, living under similar geographic conditions. If these peoples of different ethnic stocks but similar
environments manifested similar or related social, economic or historical development, it was reasonable to infer that
such similarities were due to environment and not to race. Thus, by extensive comparison, the race factor in these
problems of two unknown quantities was eliminated for certain large classes of social and historical phenomena.

The writer, moreover, has purposely avoided definitions, formulas, and the enunciation of hard-and-fast rules; and has
refrained from any effort to delimit the field or define the relation of this new science of anthropo-geography to the older
sciences. It is unwise to put tight clothes on a growing child. The eventual form and scope of the science, the definition
and organization of its material must evolve gradually, after long years and many efforts of many workers in the field.
The eternal flux of Nature runs through anthropo-geography, and warns against precipitate or rigid conclusions. But its
laws are none the less well founded because they do not lend themselves to mathematical finality of statement. For this
reason the writer speaks of geographic factors and influences, shuns the word geographic determinant, and speaks with
extreme caution of geographic control.

The present volume is offered to the public with a deep sense of its inadequacy; with the realization that some of its
principles may have to be modified or their emphasis altered after wider research; but also with the hope that this effort
may make the way easier for the scholar who shall some day write the ideal treatise on anthropo-geography.

In my work on this book I have only one person to thank, the great master who was my teacher and friend during his
life, and after his death my inspiration.

ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE.

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY.

January, 1911.

Contents

Preface
Contents
List Of Maps.
Chapter I—The Operation Of Geographic Factors In History

Man a product of the earth's surface.
Stability of geographic factors in history.
Persistent effect of remoteness.
Effect of proximity.
Persistent effect of natural barriers.
Persistent effect of nature-made highways.
Regions of historical similarity.
Climatic influences.
The relation of geography to history.
Multiplicity of geographic factors.
Evolution of geographic relations.
Evolution of world relations.
Interplay of geographic factors.
Land and sea in co-operation.
Land and sea opposed.
Local and remote geographic factors.
Direct and indirect effects of environment.
Indirect mental effects.
Indirect effects in differentiation of colonial peoples.
Indirect effect through isolation.
General importance of indirect effects.
Indirect political and moral effects.
Time element.
Effect of a previous habitat.
Transplanted religions.
Partial response to environment
The case of Spain.
Sporadic response to a new environment.
The larger conception of the environment.
Unity of the earth.

Chapter II—Classes Of Geographic Influences

Physical effects.
Variation and natural conditions.
Stature and environment
Physical effects of dominant activities.
Effects of climate.
Acclimatization
Pigmentation and climate.
Pigmentation and altitude
Difficulty of Generalization
Psychical effects.
Indirect effect upon language
The great man in history.
Economic and social effects.
Size of the social group.
Effect upon movements of peoples.
River routes.
Segregation and accessibility.
Change of habitat.
Retrogression in new habitat.
The Boers of South Africa

Chapter III—Society And State In Relation To The Land

People and land.
Political geography and history.
Political versus social geography.
Land basis of society.
Morgan's Societas.
Land bond in hunter tribes.

Land bond in fisher tribes.
Land bond in pastoral societies.
Geographical mark of low-type societies.
Land and state.
Strength of the land bond in the state.
Weak land tenure of hunting and pastoral tribes.
Land and food supply.
Advance from natural to artificial basis of subsistence.
Land in relation to agriculture.
Migratory agriculture
Geographic checks to progress.
Native animal and plant life as factors.
Land per capita under various cultural and geographic conditions.
Density of population and government.
Territorial expansion of the state.
Checks to population.
Extra-territorial relations.
Geography in the philosophy of history.
Theory of progress from the standpoint of geography.
Man's increasing dependence upon nature.
Increase in kind and amount.

Chapter IV—The Movements Of Peoples In Their Geographical Significance

Universality of these movements.
Stratification of races
The name Historical Movement.
Evolution of the Historical Movement.
Nature of primitive movements.
Number and range.
Importance of such movements in history.
Geographical interpretation of historical movement.
Mobility of primitive peoples.
Natural barriers to movement.
Effect of geographical horizon.
Civilization and mobility.
Diffusion of culture.
Ethnic intermixture.
Complex currents of migration.
Cultural modification during migration.
Effect of early maritime migration.
The transit land.
War as a form of the historical movement.
Primitive war.
Slavery as form of historical movement.
Fusion by deported and military colonies.
Withdrawal and flight.
Dispersal in flight.
Natural regions of retreat.
Emigration and colonization.
Commerce.
Commerce a guide to various movements.
Movements due to religion.
Religious pilgrimages.
Historical movement and race distribution.
Migrations in relation to zones and heat belts.
Range of movements in Asia.
Range of movements in Africa.
Colonization and latitude.
Movement to like geographic conditions.
Movement to better geographic conditions.
Southward and westward drifts in the northern hemisphere.
Eastward movements.
Return movements.
Regions of attraction and repulsion.
Psychical influences in certain movements.
Results of historical movement.

Differentiation and area.
Contrasted environments.
Two-type populations.
Differentiation and isolation.
Differentiation and digression.
Geographic conditions of heterogeneity and homgeneity.
Differentiation versus assimilation.
Elimination by historical movement.
No new ethnic types.
Checks to differentiation.
Geographical origins.
Large centers of dispersion.
Small centers.
Tests of origin.

Chapter V—Geographical Location

Importance of geographical location.
Content of the term location.
Intercontinental location.
Natural versus vicinal location.
Naturally defined location.
Vicinal location.
Vicinal groups of similar or diverse race and culture.
Thalassic vicinal location.
Complementary locations.
Types of location.
Continuous and scattered location.
Central versus peripheral location.
Danger of central location.
Mutual relations between center and periphery.
Inland and coastward expansion.
Russian expansion in Asia.
Periphery as goal of expansion.
Reaction between center and periphery.
Periphery of colonization.
Dominant historical side.
The Mediterranean side of Europe.
Change of historical front.
Contrasted historical sides.
One-sided historical relations.
Scattered location due to geographic conditions.
Island way station on maritime routes.
Scattered location of primitive tribes.
Ethnic islands of expansion.
Political islands of expansion.
Ethnic islands of survival.
Discontinuous distribution.
Contrasted location.
Geographical polarity.
Geographical marks of growth.
Marks of inland expansion.
Marks of decline.
Interpretation of scattered and marginal location.
Prevalence of ethnic islands of decline.
Contrast between ethnic islands of growth and decline.

Chapter VI—Geographical Area

The size of the earth.
Relation of area to life.
The struggle for space.
Area an index of social and political development.
The Oikoumene.
Unity of the human species in the relation to the earth.
Isolation and differentiation.
Monotonous race type of small area.
Wide race distribution and inner diversities.
Area and language.

Large area a guarantee of racial or national permanence.
Weakness of small states.
Contrast of large and small areas in bio-geography.
Political domination of large areas.
Area and literature.
Small geographic base of primitive societies.
Influence of small confined areas.
The process of territorial growth.
Area and growth.
Historical advance from small to large areas.
Gradations in area and in development.
Preliminaries to ethnic and political expansion.
Significance of sphere of activity or influence.
Nature of expansion in new and old countries.
Relation of ethnic to political expansion.
Relation of people and state to political boundary.
Expansion of civilization.
Cultural advantages of large political area.
Politico-economic advantages.
Political area and the national horizon.
National estimates of area.
Estimates of area in small maritime states.
Limitations of small territorial conceptions.
Evolution of territorial policies.
Colonial expansion.
The mind of colonials.
Colonials as road builders.
Practical bent of colonials.

Chapter VII—Geographical Boundaries

The boundary zone in nature.
Gradations in the boundary zone.
Oscillating boundaries
Altitude boundary zones.
'Wallace's Line' a typical boundary zone.
Boundaries as limits of movements or expansion.
Peoples as barriers.
Boundary zone as index of growth or decline.
Breadth of the boundary zone.
The broad frontier zone of active expansion.
Economic factors in expanding frontiers.
Value of barrier boundaries.
The sea as the absolute boundary
Natural boundaries as bases of ethnic and political boundaries.
Primitive waste boundaries.
Border wastes of Indian lands.
Alien intrusions into border wastes.
Politico-economic significance of the waste boundary.
Common boundary districts.
Tariff free zones.
Boundary zones of mingled race elements.
Ethnic border zones in the Alps.
The Slav-German boundary.
Assimilation of culture in boundary zones.
Boundary zones of assimilation in Asia.
Boundary zones of mountain Tibet.
Relation of ethnic and cultural assimilation.
The boundary zone in political expansion.
Tendency toward defection along political frontiers.
Centrifugal forces on the frontier.
The spirit of colonial frontiers.
Free border states as political survivals.
Guardians of the marches.
Border nomads as frontier police.
Lawless citizens deported to frontiers.
Drift of lawless elements to the frontiers.

Asylums beyond the border.
Border refugees and ethnic mingling.

Chapter VIII—Coast Peoples

The coast a zone of transition.
Width of coastal zones.
The inner edge.
Inner edge as head of sea navigation.
Shifting of the inner edge.
Artificial extension of inner edge.
Outer edge in original settlement.
Outer edge in early navigation.
Outer edge and piracy.
Outer edge in colonization.
Inland advance of colonies.
Interpenetration of land and sea.
Ratio of shoreline to area.
Criticism of this formula.
Accessibility of coasts from hinterland.
Mountain-barred hinterlands.
Accessible hinterlands.
Accessibility of coasts from the sea.
Embayed coasts.
Maritime activity on steep embayed coasts.
Contrasted coastal belts.
Evolution of ports.
Offshore islands.
Offshore islands as vestibules of the mainland.
Previous habitat of coast-dwellers.
Habitability of coasts as factor in maritime development.
Geographic conditions for brilliant maritime development.
Soil of coastlands as factor.
Barren coast of fertile hinterland.
Ethnic contrast between coast and interior peoples.
Ethnic contrasts in the Pacific islands.
Ethnic contrasts in the Americas.
Older ethnic stock in coastlands.
Ethnic amalgamations in coastlands.
Multiplicity of race elements on coasts.
Lingua franca of coasts.
Coast-dwellers as middlemen.
Monopoly of trade with the hinterland.
Differentiation of coast from inland people.
Early civilization of coasts.
Retarded coastal peoples.
Cultural contrast of coast and interior.
Progress from thalassic to oceanic coasts.
Geographic location of coasts.
Intermediate location between contrasted coasts.
Historical decline of certain coasts.
Political factors in this decline.
Physical causes of decline.
Interplay of geographic factors in coastlands.

Chapter IX—Oceans And Enclosed Seas

The water a factor in man's mobility.
Oceans and seas in universal history.
The sea in universal history.
Origin of navigation.
Primitive forms.
Primitive craft in arid lands.
Relation of the river to marine navigation.
Retarded navigation.
Regions of advanced navigation.
Geographic conditions in Polynesia.
Mediterranean versus Atlantic seamanship.
Three geographic stages of maritime development.

Influence of enclosed seas upon navigation.
Enclosed seas as areas of ethnic and cultural assimilation.
North Sea and Baltic basins.
Bering Sea.
Red Sea basin.
Assimilation facilitated by ethnic kinship.
Chinese expansion seaward.
Importance of zonal and continental location.
Thalassic character of the Indian Ocean.
The sea route to the Orient.
Limitation of small area in enclosed seas.
Successive maritime periods in history.
Contrasted historical rôles of northern and southern hemispheres.
Size of the oceans
Neutrality of the seas, its evolution.

Chapter X—Man's Relation To The Water

Protection of a water frontier.
Ancient pile villages.
Present distribution.
Malayan pile dwellings.
In Melanesia.
River dwellers in populous lands.
Reclamation of land from the sea.
The struggle with the water.
Mound villages in river flood-plains.
Diking of rivers.
Social gain by control of the water.
Control of water as factor in early civilizations of arid lands.
Cultural areas in primitive America.
Economy of the water: fisheries.
Fisheries as factors in maritime expansion.
Fisheries as nurseries of seamen.
Anthropo-geographic importance of navigation.

Chapter XI—The Anthropo-Geography Of Rivers

Rivers as intermediaries between land and sea.
Sea navigation merges into river navigation.
Historical importance of seas and oceans influenced by their debouching streams.
Baltic and White Sea rivers.
Atlantic and Pacific rivers.
Lack of coast articulations supplied by rivers.
River highways as basis of commercial preeminence.
Importance of rivers in large countries.
Rivers as highways of expansion.
Siberian rivers and Russian expansion.
Determinants of routes in arid or semi-arid lands.
Wadi routes in arid lands.
Increasing historical importance from source to mouth.
Location at hydrographic centers.
Effect of current upon trade and expansion.
Importance of mouth to upstream people.
Prevention of monopoly of river mouth.
Motive for canals in lower course.
Watershed canals.
Rivers and railroads.
Relation of rivers to railroads in recent colonial lands.
Unity of a river system.
The effect of common water supply in arid lands.
Union of opposite river banks.
Tendency toward ethnic and cultural unity in a river valley.
Identity of country with river valley.
Enclosed river valleys.
Rivers as boundaries of races and peoples.
Scientific river boundaries.
Rivers as political boundaries.
Fluvial settlements and peoples.

Riparian villages of French Canada.
Boatmen tribes or castes.
River islands as protected sites.
River and lake islands as robber strongholds.
River peninsulas as protected sites.
River islands as sites of trading posts and colonies.
Swamps as barriers and boundaries.
Swamps as regions of survival.
Swamps as places of refuge.
The spirit of the marshes.
Economic and political importance of lakes.
Lakes as nuclei of states.
Lakes as fresh water seas.

Chapter XII—Continents And Their Peninsulas

Insularity of the land-masses.
Classification of land-masses according to size and location.
Effect of size of land-masses.
Independence of location versus independence of size.
The case of Asia.
Location of hemispheres and ethnic kinship.
Continental convergence and ethnic kinship.
Africa's location.
The Atlantic abyss.
Atlantic islands uninhabited.
Geographical character of the Pacific.
Pacific affinities of North American Indians.
Polynesian affinities.
The real Orient of the World.
The Atlantic abyss in historic movements of peoples.
Races and continents.
Contrast of the northern and southern continents.
Isolation of the southern continents.
Effect of continental structure upon historical development.
Structure of North and South America.
Cultural superiority of the Pacific slope Indians.
Lack of segregated districts.
Coast articulations of continents.
Importance of size in continental articulations.
Historical contrast of large and small peninsulas.
Peninsular conditions most favorable to historical development.
Length of coastline.
The continental base of the peninsulas.
Continental base a zone of transition.
Historical contrast between base and extremity.
Continental base a scene of invasion and war.
Peninsular extremities as areas of isolation.
Ethnic unity of peninsulas.
Peninsulas as intermediaries.
Peninsulas of intercontinental location.
Atlantic peninsulas of Europe

Chapter XIII—Island Peoples

Physical relationship between islands and peninsulas.
Character of insular flora and fauna.
Endemic forms.
Paradoxical influences of island habitats upon man.
Conservative and radical tendencies.
The case of Japan.
Islands as nurseries and disseminators of distinctive civilizations.
Ancient Cretan civilization.
Limitation of small area in insular history.
Sources of ethnic stock of islands.
Ethnic divergence with increased isolation.
Differentiation of peoples and civilizations on islands.
Differentiation of language in islands.
Archaic forms of speech in islands.

Unification of race in islands.
Remoter sources of island populations.
Double sources.
Mixed population of small thalassic isles.
Mixed population of island markets.
Thalassic islands as goals of expansion.
Political detachability of islands.
Insular weakness due to small area.
Island remains of broken empires.
Political autonomy of islands based upon area and location.
Historical effects of island isolation; primitive retardation.
Later stimulation of development.
Excessive isolation.
The case of Iceland.
Protection of an island environment.
Factor of protection in Ceylon and Japan.
Character of the invaders as factor.
Islands as places of refuge.
Convict islands.
Penal colonies on uninhabited islands.
Island prisons for political offenders.
Islands as places of survival.
Insular survivals of manners and customs.
Effects of small area in islands.
Political dominion of small islands.
Economic limitations of their small area.
Poverty of alluvial lowlands in islands.
Dense populations of islands.
Density of population in Polynesia.
Various causes of this density.
Crowded and vacant islands.
Oceanic climate as factor.
Relation of density to area.
Island resorts.
Density of population affected by focal location for trade.
Overflow of island population to the mainland.
Precocious development of island agriculture.
Melanesian agriculture.
Intensive tillage.
Japanese agriculture.
The case of England.
Emigration and colonization from islands.
Modern emigration from islands.
Maritime enterprise as outlet.
Artificial checks to population.
Polyandry.
Infanticide.
Approved by the state.
Low valuation of human life.
Cannibalism in islands.

Chapter XIV—Plains, Steppes And Deserts

Relief of the sea floor.
Mean elevations of the continents.
Distribution of reliefs.
Homologous relief and homologous histories.
Anthropo-geography of lowlands.
Extensive plains unfavorable to early development.
Conditions for fusion in plains.
Retardation due to monotonous environment.
Value of slight elevations.
Plains and political expansion.
Arid plains.
Distribution and extent of arid plains.
Pastoral life.
Pastoral nomads of Arctic plains.

Historical importance of steppe nomads.
Mobility of pastoral nomads.
Tendency to trek.
Seasonal migrations.
Marauding expeditions.
Depredation and conquests of African nomads.
Forms of defense against nomad depredations.
Pastoral life as a training for soldiers.
Military organization of nomads.
Capacity for conquest and political consolidation.
Scope of nomad conquests.
Centralization versus decentralization in nomadism.
Spirit of independence among nomads.
Resistance to conquest.
Curtailment of nomadism.
Supplementary agriculture of pastoral nomads.
Irrigation and horticulture.
Effect of diminishing water supply.
Scant diet of nomads.
Checks to population.
Trade of nomads.
Pastoral nomads as middlemen.
Desert markets.
Nomad industries.
Oriental rugs.
Architecture of nomad conquerors.
Arid lands as areas of arrested development.
Mental and moral qualities of nomads.
Religion of pastoral nomads.
Fanaticism as a force in nomad expansion.
The faith of the desert.

Chapter XV—Mountain Barriers And Their Passes

Man as part of the mobile envelope of the earth.
Inaccessibility of mountains.
Mountains as transit regions.
Transition forms of relief between highlands and lowlands.
Importance of transition slopes.
Piedmont belts as boundary zones.
Density of population in piedmont belts.
Piedmont towns and roads.
Piedmont termini of transmontane routes.
Cities of coastal piedmonts.
Piedmonts as colonial or backwoods frontiers.
Mountain carriers.
Power of mountain barriers to block or deflect.
Significance of mountain valleys.
Longitudinal valleys.
Passes in mountain barriers.
Breadth of mountain barriers.
Circuitous routes through folded mountains.
Dominant trans-montane routes.
Brenner route.
Pass of Belfort.
Mohawk route.
Height in mountain barriers.
Contrasted accessibility of opposite slopes.
Its ethnic effects.
Persistence of barrier nature.
Importance of mountain passes.
Persistent influence of passes.
Geographic factors in the historical importance of passes.
Intermarine mountains.
Pass roads between regions of contrasted production
Passes determine trans-montane roads.
Navigable river approaches to passes.

Types of settlements in the valley approaches.
Lower settlements.
Pass cities and their markets.
Pass peoples.
Transit duties.
Strategic power of pass states.

Chapter XVI—Influences Of A Mountain Environment

Zones of altitude.
Politico-economic value of varied relief.
Relief and climate.
Altitude zones of economic and cultural development.
Altitude and density belts in tropical highlands.
Increasing density with motive of protection.
Motive of protection in primitive peoples.
Geographic conditions affecting density of mountain population.
Sparsity of population in the Alps.
Terrace agriculture.
Geographical distribution.
Terrace culture of the Saracens.
In the Himalayas.
In Tibet and China.
In ancient Peru.
Terrace agriculture in mountainous islands.
Among mountain savages.
Fertilizing
Economy of level land for houses and villages.
Perpendicular villages
Mountain pastures and stock-raising.
Mountain herdsman and shepherds.
Communal ownership of mountain pastures.
Haymaking in high mountains.
Methods of curing hay in mountains.
Winter industries of mountain peoples.
Overpopulation and emigration.
Forms of temporary emigration.
Permanent emigration.
Polyandry.
Female infanticide.
Effects of polyandry and polygamy.
Marauding tendencies in mountaineers
Cattle-lifting.
Historical results of mountain raiding.
Conquest of mountain regions
Political dismemberment of mountain peoples.
Individualism and independence
Types of mountain states.
Significance of their small size.
Slight power of mountain chiefs.
Mountain isolation and differentiation.
Survival of primitive races in mountains.
Diversity of peoples and dialects.
Constriction of mountain areas of ethnic survivals.
Isolation and retardation of mountain regions.
Conservatism of mountain peoples.
Mental and moral qualities.

Chapter XVII—The Influence Of Climate

Importance of climatic influences.
Climate in the interplay of geographic factors.
Direct and indirect effects of climate.
Effect of climate upon relief.
Climate limits the habitable area.
Adaptability of man to climatic extremes.
Temperature as modified by oceans and winds.
Effect of the westerlies.
Rainfall.

Temperature and zonal location.
Reactions of contrasted zones.
Temperate products from tropical highlands.
Isothermal lines in anthropo-geography.
Historical effect of compressed isotherms.
Effect of slight climatic differences.
Effect of climate upon distribution of immigration
Climate and race temperament.
Contrasted temperaments in the same nation.
Complexity of the geographic problem.
Monotonous climatic conditions.
The effects of Arctic cold.
Similarity of cultural development.
Cold and health
The small amount of tropical emigration
Effects of tropical climate.
Historical significance of deterioration
The problem of acclimatization.
Historical importance of the temperate zones.
Effects of contrasted seasons.
Effects of length of seasons.
Effect of long winters.
Complexity of climatic effects.
Social effects of long winters.
Zones of culture.
The cradle of civilization.

Notes

List Of Maps.

Density Of Population In The Eastern Hemisphere

Density Of Population In The Western Hemisphere

Primitive Indian Stocks Of South America

Ethnographical Map Of India

Ethnographical Map Of Asia

Ethnographical Map Of Africa

Distribution Of Wild And Civilized Tribes In The Philippines

Distribution Of Population In The Province Of Finmarken

Distribution Of Population In The United States In 1800

The Slav-German Boundary In Europe

Ethnographical Map Of Russia

The German North Sea Coast

Ancient Phoenician And Greek Colonies

Riparian Villages Of The Lower St. Lawrence

The Annual Rainfall Of The World

The Cultural Regions Of Africa And Arabia

Man a product of
the earth's surface.

Stability of
geographic factors
in history.

Persistent effect of
remoteness.

Effect of proximity.

Distribution Of Religions In The Old World

Density Of Population In Italy

Mean Annual Isotherms And Heat Belts

Chapter I—The Operation Of Geographic Factors In History

Man is a product of the earth's surface. This means not merely that he is a child of the earth, dust of
her dust; but that the earth has mothered him, fed him, set him tasks, directed his thoughts,
confronted him with difficulties that have strengthened his body and sharpened his wits, given him his
problems of navigation or irrigation, and at the same time whispered hints for their solution. She has entered into his
bone and tissue, into his mind and soul. On the mountains she has given him leg muscles of iron to climb the slope; along
the coast she has left these weak and flabby, but given him instead vigorous development of chest and arm to handle his
paddle or oar. In the river valley she attaches him to the fertile soil, circumscribes his ideas and ambitions by a dull
round of calm, exacting duties, narrows his outlook to the cramped horizon of his farm. Up on the wind-swept plateaus,
in the boundless stretch of the grasslands and the waterless tracts of the desert, where he roams with his flocks from
pasture to pasture and oasis to oasis, where life knows much hardship but escapes the grind of drudgery, where the
watching of grazing herd gives him leisure for contemplation, and the wide-ranging life a big horizon, his ideas take on a
certain gigantic simplicity; religion becomes monotheism, God becomes one, unrivalled like the sand of the desert and
the grass of the steppe, stretching on and on without break or change. Chewing over and over the cud of his simple
belief as the one food of his unfed mind, his faith becomes fanaticism; his big spacial ideas, born of that ceaseless regular
wandering, outgrow the land that bred them and bear their legitimate fruit in wide imperial conquests.

Man can no more be scientifically studied apart from the ground which he tills, or the lands over which he travels, or the
seas over which he trades, than polar bear or desert cactus can be understood apart from its habitat. Man's relations to
his environment are infinitely more numerous and complex than those of the most highly organized plant or animal. So
complex are they that they constitute a legitimate and necessary object of special study. The investigation which they
receive in anthropology, ethnology, sociology and history is piecemeal and partial, limited as to the race, cultural
development, epoch, country or variety of geographic conditions taken into account. Hence all these sciences, together
with history so far as history undertakes to explain the causes of events, fail to reach a satisfactory solution of their
problems largely because the geographic factor which enters into them all has not been thoroughly analyzed. Man has
been so noisy about the way he has "conquered Nature," and Nature has been so silent in her persistent influence over
man, that the geographic factor in the equation of human development has been overlooked.

In every problem of history there are two main factors, variously stated as heredity and
environment, man and his geographic conditions, the internal forces of race and the external forces
of habitat. Now the geographic element in the long history of human development has been
operating strongly and operating persistently. Herein lies its importance. It is a stable force. It never
sleeps. This natural environment, this physical basis of history, is for all intents and purposes immutable in comparison
with the other factor in the problem—shifting, plastic, progressive, retrogressive man.

History tends to repeat itself largely owing to this steady, unchanging geographic element. If the
ancient Roman consul in far-away Britain often assumed an independence of action and initiative
unknown in the provincial governors of Gaul, and if, centuries later, Roman Catholicism in England
maintained a similar independence towards the Holy See, both facts have their cause in the remoteness of Britain from
the center of political or ecclesiastical power in Rome. If the independence of the Roman consul in Britain was
duplicated later by the attitude of the Thirteen Colonies toward England, and again within the young Republic by the
headstrong self-reliance, impatient of government authority, which characterized the early Trans-Allegheny
commonwealths in their aggressive Indian policy, and led them to make war and conclude treaties for the cession of
land like sovereign states; and if this attitude of independence in the over-mountain men reappeared in a spirit of political
defection looking toward secession from the Union and a new combination with their British neighbor on the Great
Lakes or the Spanish beyond the Mississippi, these are all the identical effects of geographical remoteness made yet
more remote by barriers of mountain and sea. This is the long reach which weakens the arm of authority, no matter
what the race or country or epoch.

As with geographical remoteness, so it is with geographical proximity. The history of the Greek

Persistent effect of
natural barriers.

Persistent effect of
nature-made
highways.

peninsula and the Greek people, because of their location at the threshold of the Orient, has
contained a constantly recurring Asiatic element. This comes out most often as a note of warning; like the motif of
Ortrud in the opera of "Lohengrin," it mingles ominously in every chorus of Hellenic enterprise or paean of Hellenic
victory, and finally swells into a national dirge at the Turkish conquest of the peninsula. It comes out in the legendary
history of the Argonautic Expedition and the Trojan War; in the arrival of Phoenician Cadmus and Phrygian Pelops in
Grecian lands; in the appearance of Tyrian ships on the coast of the Peloponnesus, where they gather the purple-
yielding murex and kidnap Greek women. It appears more conspicuously in the Asiatic sources of Greek culture; more
dramatically in the Persian Wars, in the retreat of Xenophon's Ten Thousand, in Alexander's conquest of Asia, and
Hellenic domination of Asiatic trade through Syria to the Mediterranean. Again in the thirteenth century the lure of the
Levantine trade led Venice and Genoa to appropriate certain islands and promontories of Greece as commercial bases
nearer to Asia. In 1396 begins the absorption of Greece into the Asiatic empire of the Turks, the long dark eclipse of
sunny Hellas, till it issues from the shadow in 1832 with the achievement of Greek independence.

If the factor is not one of geographical location, but a natural barrier, such as a mountain system or a
desert, its effect is just as persistent. The upheaved mass of the Carpathians served to divide the
westward moving tide of the Slavs into two streams, diverting one into the maritime plain of northern
Germany and Poland, the other into the channel of the Danube Valley which guided them to the Adriatic and the foot of
the Alps. This same range checked the westward advance of the mounted Tartar hordes. The Alps long retarded
Roman expansion into central Europe, just as they delayed and obstructed the southward advance of the northern
barbarians. Only through the partial breaches in the wall known as passes did the Alps admit small, divided bodies of
the invaders, like the Cimbri and Teutons, who arrived, therefore, with weakened power and at intervals, so that the
Roman forces had time to gather their strength between successive attacks, and thus prolonged the life of the declining
empire. So in the Middle Ages, the Alpine barrier facilitated the resistance of Italy to the German emperors, trying to
enforce their claim upon this ancient seat of the Holy Roman Empire.

It was by river-worn valleys leading to passes in the ridge that Etruscan trader, Roman legion, barbarian horde, and
German army crossed the Alpine ranges. To-day well-made highways and railroads converge upon these valley paths
and summit portals, and going is easier; but the Alps still collect their toll, now in added tons of coal consumed by
engines and in higher freight rates, instead of the ancient imposts of physical exhaustion paid by pack animal and heavily
accoutred soldier. Formerly these mountains barred the weak and timid; to-day they bar the poor, and forbid transit to
all merchandise of large bulk and small value which can not pay the heavy transportation charges. Similarly, the wide
barrier of the Rockies, prior to the opening of the first overland railroad, excluded all but strong-limbed and strong-
hearted pioneers from the fertile valleys of California and Oregon, just as it excludes coal and iron even from the
Colorado mines, and checks the free movement of laborers to the fields and factories of California, thereby tightening
the grip of the labor unions upon Pacific coast industries.

As the surface of the earth presents obstacles, so it offers channels for the easy movement of
humanity, grooves whose direction determines the destination of aimless, unplanned migrations, and
whose termini become, therefore, regions of historical importance. Along these nature-made
highways history repeats itself. The maritime plain of Palestine has been an established route of
commerce and war from the time of Sennacherib to Napoleon.1 The Danube Valley has admitted to central Europe a
long list of barbarian invaders, covering the period from Attila the Hun to the Turkish besiegers of Vienna in 1683. The
history of the Danube Valley has been one of warring throngs, of shifting political frontiers, and unassimilated races; but
as the river is a great natural highway, every neighboring state wants to front upon it and strives to secure it as a
boundary.

The movements of peoples constantly recur to these old grooves. The unmarked path of the voyageur's canoe, bringing
out pelts from Lake Superior to the fur market at Montreal, is followed to-day by whaleback steamers with their
cargoes of Manitoba wheat. To-day the Mohawk depression through the northern Appalachians diverts some of
Canada's trade from the Great Lakes to the Hudson, just as in the seventeenth century it enabled the Dutch at New
Amsterdam and later the English at Albany to tap the fur trade of Canada's frozen forests. Formerly a line of stream and
portage, it carries now the Erie Canal and New York Central Railroad.2 Similarly the narrow level belt of land
extending from the mouth of the Hudson to the eastern elbow of the lower Delaware, defining the outer margin of the
rough hill country of northern New Jersey and the inner margin of the smooth coastal plain, has been from savage days
such a natural thoroughfare. Here ran the trail of the Lenni-Lenapi Indians; a little later, the old Dutch road between
New Amsterdam and the Delaware trading-posts; yet later the King's Highway from New York to Philadelphia. In
1838 it became the route of the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and more recently of the Pennsylvania Railroad between
New York and Philadelphia.3

The early Aryans, in their gradual dispersion over northwestern India, reached the Arabian Sea chiefly by a route
running southward from the Indus-Ganges divide, between the eastern border of the Rajputana Desert and the western
foot of the Aravalli Hills. The streams flowing down from this range across the thirsty plains unite to form the Luni River,
which draws a dead-line to the advance of the desert. Here a smooth and well-watered path brought the early Aryans
of India to a fertile coast along the Gulf of Cambay.4 In the palmy days of the Mongol Empire during the seventeenth