NORTH AND SOUTH. 367 



NORTH AND SOUTH. 



By SPENCER TROTTER. 



PBOFESSOE OF BIOLOGT IN 8WAKTHM0RE CtiLLEGE, PENNSTLVAHIA, 



A WRITER has somewliere remarked upon the different at- 

 mosphere that surrounds two well-known railway stations 

 in the city of Baltimore. The Union Station, in the upper and 

 newer section of the city, has about it all the life and bustle of a 

 Northern railroad center, while at the Camden Station, for so 

 many years the terminus of a Southern trunk line, there is an 

 air of easy-going uncertainty that breathes of the South. If this 

 difference in the influence of the Northern and the Southern life 

 is felt within the narrow limits of a metropolis, it is still more 

 apparent in the region that lies between the " City of Monu- 

 ments " and its more northern neighbor. As a matter of fact, the 

 frontier of the South extends some distance north of the region 

 with which we are accustomed to associate it, and the real line of 

 demarcation is a natural boundary fixed by certain well-marked 

 geographical features and indicated by the distribution of certain 

 animals and plants. When Mason and Dixon ran their cele- 

 brated " line," they did more than settle the dispute of a bound- 

 ary between colonial Commonwealths. Their arbitrary survey 

 embodied, in an approximate way, a more or less natural division 

 between the people of two great physical areas, each one of which 

 is broadly defined as a distinct geographical and political unit 

 the North and the South. Each of these domains is characterized 

 by certain marked peculiarities, both in natural productions and 

 in the life of the people, which have their origin in climatic and 

 topographical features. Through nearly two and a half centuries 

 the physical environment has slowly worked its subtle influence 

 into the blood and tissues of the inhabitants in each contrasted 

 area, producing a certain cast of thought, speech, and action 

 which are highly characteristic and which present unmistakable 

 marks of difference. 



The Northern and the Southern seaboard States of the Atlan- 

 tic slope are decidedly different in their physical aspects as a 

 result of topography. The numerous mountain ranges embraced 

 in the Appalachian highland have a long, southwesterly trend 

 from New England to Alabama. In the former section, north 

 and east of the lower Hudson Valley, the eastern slopes of the 

 mountainous highland reach to the sea, forming the bold and 

 rocky coast line of New England. South of the Hudson the 

 mountain ranges become more nearly parallel ; and the long 

 chains of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, trending more and 

 more toward the southwest, stand some distance inland, leaving a 



