CLIMATE IN SOME OF ITS RELATIONS TO MAN 265 



north in Europe, until Holland, and then England, became the dom- 

 inant power. From lands of more genial climates to lands of colder 

 and longer winters, but also of the most active and energetic races, 

 the migration has taken place. 



Present-day Migrations in the Temperate Zones. — Within the 

 north temperate zone especially, and also across from the north to the 

 south temperate, vast, peaceful migrations are taking place, deter- 

 mined to no small degree by climatic considerations. From Europe 

 and Asia to the United States alone, a million people a year are now 

 migrating. These aliens have shown marked tendencies to settle where 

 climate, soil and occupations are most like those of their old homes, 

 although the fact that most of them land at one port on the eastern 

 seaboard, the concentration of industries in certain sections, and other 

 artificial controls, have operated very effectively to counteract and 

 interfere with this tendency. Scandinavians, for example, have gone 

 largely into the northwest; and in the future, unless steps are at once 

 taken to prevent it, the southern parts of the United States will doubt- 

 less have a population predominantly of Latin blood. I say this al- 

 though I am well aware of the very homogeneous " native " character 

 of the southern population to-day, and of the high birth-rate among 

 that population. Canada has grown slowly, partly on account of the 

 repelling effect of her long, cold winters and her generally severe 

 climate. 



This migration within the temperate zone is peopling Canada, 

 South Africa and Australia with the same stock as that which occupies 

 the home-land of the British Isles. Therefore, institutions and gov- 

 ernment essentially similar to those at home are possible in these col- 

 onies of England beyond the seas. The case is very different in trop- 

 ical climates, as has been seen. Eussia will later be found to gain 

 great strength from the fact that she has expanded eastward within the 

 same zone. T think it was Leroy-Beaulieu who first pointed out what 

 a unifying influence in Eussia is the severe winter cold and the snow- 

 fall. In spite of the many factors which make for diversity and lack 

 of coherence, there comes a great factor of unification in the possibil- 

 ity of continuous sleighing over those immense stretches of country, 

 from north to south and from east to west, when the frozen rivers can 

 be crossed without bridges and when the traveler, on his sledge, can 

 journey straight across country to the farthest limits of the empire. 



It is interesting to observe how immediately controlled by the spe- 

 cial weather conditions or even one season these voluntary migrations 

 may be. Years of sufficient rainfall and abundant crops in the United 

 States are always followed by a large immigration. A failure of crops 

 in Europe, whether it be of wheat in one country, or of fruit in another, 

 or of potatoes in another, resulting from drought, or storms, or ex- 

 cessive rainfall, always promotes a larger exodus from the country con- 



