THE GEOGRAPHIC ASPECT OF CULTURE 159 



of primary importance. 5 In polar and tropical regions, as well as in 

 certain other isolated sections such as the deserts of central Asia, it is 

 an absolute barrier to progress. Even in the most favored localities it 

 has a marked effect upon the trend of social evolution. The invigor- 

 ating effect of clear, cold weather is commonly recognized, but it is 

 equally true that excessive moisture depresses the vital processes and 

 thereby hampers development, an effect strikingly exemplified in the 

 case of Ireland. On the other hand, dry weather if sufficiently pro- 

 longed creates a surplus of energy and at the same time weakens the 

 emotional control, resulting, as shown by statistics, in a notable increase 

 in misconduct and crime, apparent not only locally in times of drought, 

 but habitually in dry countries like Mexico. 



A remarkable synchronism of climatic changes has also been shown 

 to exist throughout the world, recurring in cycles of approximately 

 thirty-six years. In America this has made itself felt in the great 

 financial crises, each of which has been associated with the deficiency in 

 rainfall occurring at the low point of one of these cycles. This in turn 

 has reacted upon politics to such an extent as to be of national import. 



As yet the study of geographic influences in history has related only 

 to such external and obvious manifestations as are apparent in social, 

 industrial and political development. It may be interesting, therefore, 

 to point out how these results may be extended to include intellectual 

 development. In any attempt of this kind, it is necessary at the outset 

 to set up some universal and fundamental principle of thought to serve 

 as a standard for comparison of racial traits, and an index of mentality. 

 Since racial traits become more distinct and divergent the more remote 

 the period considered, few principles are sufficiently general to answer 

 this purpose. There is, however, at least one form of thought which 

 has always been characteristic of the human mind wherever historically 

 manifested. Primitive culture, however remote, has always been accom- 

 panied by some form of mathematical reasoning. It is, in fact, note- 

 worthy that all oriental nations ascribe the origin of both their culture 

 and their mathematics to a single personage whom they also regard as 

 the founder of their race. With the Chinese this was the Emperor 

 Fohi, whose reign, about 2800 B.C., marked the beginning of Chinese 

 history. As the Chinese have no earlier records to indicate the origin 

 of their mathematics, their traditions relate that the number system 

 was revealed to this emperor inscribed on the back of a dragon which 

 rose from the waters of the Yellow Eiver. In Egyptian history the 

 first historical personage is the King Menes, who ruled somewhere 

 between 5000 and 3000 B.C., and was the founder of the first dynasty 

 of Pharaohs. Here also, from lack of earlier records, the Egyptians 

 regarded Menes as the father of numbers, calculation and writing. 



5 Dexter, "Weather Influences," The Macmillan Co., 1904. 



