THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 171 



is clearly at variance with the fact that the earliest national develop- 

 ments, of Egypt and western Asia, were in the warmer latitudes, where 

 frosty seasons are absent or not very marked, but where periods 

 of dryness produce conditions in the plant world analogous to the 

 effects of a winter. With the less rigorous, but no less effective, spur 

 of a dry, rather than a cold, season, the fertile protected valleys of the 

 Nile and of the Euphrates naturally developed nations earlier than 

 those localities where the hard conditions of cold winters meant a 

 longer struggle to rise above mere physical needs. The constant opera- 

 tion of this factor of degree of rigor in the off season is seen in the 

 successive development of true nationality in the less favored localities, 

 with the least favored advancing slowest of all. Thus the compara- 

 tively mild Mediterranean sections of Europe were logical successors 

 of Egypt and western Asia, just as the milder maritime sections of 

 western Europe were the logical predecessors of the more rigorous con- 

 tinental portions, so far as the time of national development was con- 

 cerned. This climatic factor, therefore, adds another important reason 

 for the slower national evolution in the open plains of north central 

 and eastern Europe, as compared with Britain or France. 



Variahility of Climate. — Variability of climate may be either 

 periodic, at regular or irregular intervals, or it may be in the nature of 

 apparently permanent change in one direction. Such variation as the 

 latter, whether the change be toward wet, dry, hot or cold, must greatly 

 alter the course of any national evolution already started, as indicated 

 by the evidences of permanent desiccation and consequent depopulation 

 of important sections of the old world. Too much periodic variability 

 of climate, that is, from year to year, or in the form of too long an off 

 season, especially when it is marked by prolonged cold, are almost as 

 great handicaps as the extremes of cold or heat and moisture combined. 

 The unreliability of the Australian climate in practically all the habit- 

 able portions, has been, and apparently must be, one of the most im- 

 portant controlling factors in the entire economic development of 

 that country. It is in effect a large scale example of the conditions 

 which brought the Kansas boom, in this country, to a disastrous end 

 two decades ago. The variability of the Indian climate from year to 

 year imposes burdens on the people which hinder greatly the chances 

 for reaching the higher stages in the evolution of India as a nation. 



In the same way, too long an off season, particularly a long and cold 

 winter, is a serious obstacle to the best development. Much of the 

 agricultural population of Russia, for example, is forced into idleness 

 through half the year by the length of the Russian winter. Inactivity 

 in itself is hostile enough to progress, but when combined at the same 

 time with the burden of providing against the extreme severities of the 

 long winter, it brings much of Russia close to the border line of those 



