47Q POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



supposition the phenomenon is of purely modern origin; in the sec- 

 ond its roots are imbedded in the past. When the explanation thus 

 becomes retrospective, if the people be in any wise homogeneous in 

 characteristics, customs, or speech, we substitute another shorter 

 word for inheritance. The whole matter simmers down to a decision 

 between environment and race. Our problem in this paper is to 

 adjudge a few such difficulties, whereby we may subserve a double 

 purpose. We may discover what are the distinctive social peculiar- 

 ities of the three races whose history we have been outlining; and 

 we may form a definite idea of the class of remedies necessary to 

 meet the peculiar needs of each community; for it is quite obvious 

 that social evils due to inherited tendencies require very different 

 treatment from those which are of recent origin, the product of local 

 circumstances. 



Purely environmental factors in social phenomena have been all 

 too largely neglected by investigators in the past. At times they rise 

 paramount to all other circumstances. One of the most striking in- 

 stances of the influence of climate, for example, upon the distribu- 

 tion of population is offered by the present location of the cotton 

 mills of Lancashire along the west coast of England. Why were 

 these mills all set up about the city of Manchester, nearly a century 

 ago ? Why were they not placed where plenty of labor was at hand 

 — viz., in the south and west, at that time the most densely populated 

 district in England? The mills were not moved up into Lancashire, 

 far from the crowd, because of the proximity to coal or iron. That 

 may have in part induced them to remain there, when the choice 

 had once been made. ■ But before the days of the steam engine coal 

 had no influence upon the selection of sites. Neither population nor 

 coal being important elements, it is certain that climate was all-pow- 

 erful in its attractiveness. Here, along the west coast, where the 

 warm, moist Gulf-Stream winds blow steadily landward, is the most 

 humid district in all England. In such an atmosphere the cotton 

 fiber becomes naturally pliant and supple, rendering the spinning of 

 thread a comparatively simple task. So considerable an element 

 was this, that all sorts of devices were adopted for securing per- 

 manent benefit from the natural climatic endowment. Building 

 sites were chosen on the western hill slopes, just where the humidity 

 from the rising currents of air was greatest. Oldham and other 

 towns above Manchester were located in accordance with it. Arti- 

 ficial ponds were created just west of the mills, so that the gentle 

 winds blowing over them might become duly dampened. So subtle 

 was this advantage that potted plants in the windows sometimes suf- 

 ficed to humidify the air to just the right amount. Even to-day, 

 with all the artificial devices for supplanting Nature's aid, we are 



