GEOQBAPHT AXD THE RAILROADS, 231 



rable example of the manner in which this should be done when he 

 studied the relations existing between the geographical structure and 

 the vegetation of different regions. Remarks upon the influence of 

 soil and climate on plant-life are as old as the study of botany itself, 

 but a scientific plant-geography has been developed only since Hum- 

 boldt took the subject up. It has been followed by the study, upon 

 similar principles, of geographical influences on animal life ; and since 

 Carl Ritter's time the diversified aspects of human civilization have 

 been subjects of unceasing study from similar points of view. In this 

 study, religious ideas, personal, civil, and legal rights, customs, and all 

 the features of social and political life have been examined with refer- 

 ence to the influence of geographical conditions in shaping and modi- 

 fying them. At first sight the management of railroads would seem 

 to be one of the least amenable of all subjects to this method of con- 

 sideration. Originating and brought to a considerable degree of per- 

 fection in England, the railroad system has been transplanted bodily 

 into other countries, without considering any modifications of its 

 methods necessary except in obedience to the most imperative excep- 

 tional physical requisitions. Yet modifications and individual differ- 

 ences of character have been impressed upon the railroad service of 

 different countries by the silent working of varying geographical con- 

 ditions. These differentiations were especially studied by the late Max 

 Maria von Weber, whose theories respecting them are expounded in a 

 posthumous work recently published in Berlin, in which he has con- 

 sidered the subject under the headings of the " Geography of Railroad 

 Life " and the " Physiognomical Aspects of the Railroad Systems of 

 Different Civilized Nations." 



We may in the first place regard the manner in which the function 

 and service of the railroad system are dependent upon the form and 

 relations of a country's boundaries. The construction of the railways 

 in insular countries is governed wholly by mercantile considerations, 

 while, in countries whose boundaries are exposed, military and political 

 objects claim prominence. Thus, an English railway-map affords a 

 most accurate picture of the relations of the country to production and 

 trade, and of the ofiice of the railroads as the medium of communica- 

 tion between the great coal and iron fields on one side and the world's 

 mart on the Thames on the other side. But the ramifications of the 

 German system would be incomprehensible to one who did not con- 

 sider that, equally with mercantile requirements, the political interests 

 of a congeries of small states, the central situation of the empire among 

 a number of jealous and ambitious powers, and the great military de- 

 ficiency of the absence of a natural eastern boundary, have exerted a 

 dominant influence in its arrangement. The clearly mercantile feat- 

 ures of the organization of the railroads in states whose natural bounda- 

 ries give them security are thus neither more nor less appropriate 

 than the military and administrative methods prevalent in states 



