528 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Such large-scale facts are not to be overlooked; there are others, 

 however, of varying degrees of prominence. Some merely require to be 

 interpreted thoughtfully, while others, after diligent study, may still 

 remain dubious and matter for speculation. Geography is the true basis 

 of historical investigation and the elucidation of contemporary move- 

 ments. At the present time great social and political changes are occur- 

 ring throughout the world — in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and 

 in the islands of the great seas. These changes are absolutely depend- 

 ent upon the physical peculiarities of the different lands acting upon 

 generations of men during a prolonged period of time. As a conse- 

 quence of certain soils, geographical characteristics and climates, we 

 notice how harsh surroundings have disciplined some races to hardiness 

 and strenuous industry, accompanied by keen commercial activity, 

 which is itself both a result of increasing population and the cause of 

 still greater overcrowding. Then we see other people at first sight more 

 happily circumstanced. With them the struggle to live is less ferocious, 

 their food is found with little toil. But we perceive that the outcome of 

 generations of Nature's favoritism has been to leave them less forceful 

 and less ingenious in the never-ending warfare of existence. By com- 

 parison they grow feeble of defense against the hungrier nations, rav- 

 enous for provender. Man forever preys upon his own kind, and an easy 

 life in bland surroundings induces a flabbiness which is powerless against 

 the iron training of harsh latitudes, or against the fierce energy and the 

 virile strength produced by hereditary wrestling with unkindly 

 ground. 



The discovery of America and Vasco da Gama's voyage round the 

 Cape originated movements and brought into play those subtle in- 

 fluences of foreign lands upon alien sojourners, and through them 

 upon their distant kindred, which alter the course of history and modify 

 national manners and perhaps national characteristics also. The colo- 

 nization of territories in the temperate zone by European Governments, 

 separated by vast ocean-spaces from their offshoots, has given origin to 

 new and distinct nations different from the parent stock in modes of 

 thought and in ways of life, a result due mainly, no doubt, to local phys- 

 ical conditions, but in part also, if only in part, to detachment, to 

 complete and actual severance from the mother country. This brings 

 us to that most interesting and important topic, geographically speak- 

 ing, of Distance, an aspect of our science which is of the utmost con- 

 cern to traders and statesmen; indeed, an eminent German geographer 

 defines geography as the Science of Distances. To this subject of Dis- 

 tance I wish in particular to direct your attention, and especially to its 

 bearings upon the British Empire. 



The British Empire is equal in size to four Europes, while its 

 population approximates four hundred millions. Although that may 



