154 
NATURE 
LOLTOBER 2, 1913 
the two continents, and the connecting links furnished 
by the great ocean ferries, must become of relatively 
less importance. 
The various stages may be represented, perhaps, 
in some such manner as this. If I is the cost of pro- 
ducing a thing locally at a place A by intensive cul- 
tivation or what corresponds to it, if E is the cost of 
producing the same thing at a distant place B, and 
T the cost of transporting it to A, then at A we may 
at some point of time have a more or less close 
approximation to 
1=E+T. 
We have seen that in this country, for example, 
I has been greater than E+T for wheat ever since, 
say, the introduction of railways in North America, 
that the excess tends steadily to diminish, and that 
however much it may be possible to reduce T either 
by devising cheaper modes of transport or by shorten- 
ing the distance through which wheat is transported, 
E+T must become greater than I, and it will pay us 
to grow all or most of our own wheat. Conversely, 
in the ’seventies of last century 1 was greater than 
E+T in North America and Germany for such things 
as steel rails and rolling-stock, which we in this 
country were cultivating ‘‘extensively’’ at the time 
on more accessible coalfields, with more skilled labour 
and better organisation than could be found else: 
where. In many cases the positions are now, as we 
know, reversed, but geographically | must win all 
round in the long run. 
In the case of transport between points in different 
latitudes the conditions are, of course, altogether dis- 
similar, for in this case commodities consist of food- 
stuffs, or raw materials, or manufactured articles, 
which may be termed luxuries, in the sense that their 
use is scarcely known until cheap transport makes 
them easily accessible, when they rapidly become 
“necessaries of life.’ Of these the most familiar 
examples are tea, coffee, cocoa and bananas, india- 
rubber and manufactured cotton goods. There is 
here, of course, always the possibility that wheat as 
a staple might be replaced by a foodstuff produced in 
the tropics, and it would be extremely interesting to 
study the geographical consequences of such an event 
as one-half of the surface of the earth suddenly 
coming to help in feeding the two quarters on either 
side; but for many reasons, which I need not go into 
here, such a consummation is exceedingly unlikely. 
What seems more probable is that the trade between 
different latitudes will continue to be characterised 
specially by its variety, the variety doubtless increas- 
ing, and the quantity increasing in still larger 
measure. The chief modification in the future may 
perhaps be looked for in the occasional transference 
of manufactures of raw materials produced in the 
tropics to places within the tropics, especially when 
the manufactured article is itself largely consumed 
near regions of production. The necessary con- 
dition here is a region, such as (e.g.) the mon- 
soon region, in which there is sufficient variation in 
the seasons to make the native population laborious; 
for then, and apparently only then, is it possible to 
secure sufficient industry and skill by training, and 
therefore to be able to yield to the ever-growing 
pressure in more temperate latitudes due to increased 
cost of labour. The best examples of this to-day are 
probably the familiar ones of cotton and jute manu- 
facture in India. With certain limitations, manu- 
facturing trade of this kind is, however, likely to 
continue between temperate and _ strictly tropical 
regions, where the climate is so uniform throughout 
the year that the native has no incentive to work. 
There the collection of the raw material is as much 
as, or even more than can be looked for—as in the 
NO. 2292, VOL. 92] 
case of mahogany or wild rubber. Where raw 
material has to be cultivated—as cotton, cultivated 
rubber, &c.—the raw material has to be produced in 
regions more of the monsoon ytype, but it will prob- 
ably—perhaps as much for economic as geographical — 
reasons—be manufactured at some centre in the tem- 
perate zones, and the finished product transported 
thence, when necessary, to the point of consumption 
in the tropics. 
We are here, however, specially liable to grave 
disturbances of distribution arising from invention of 
new machinery or new chemical methods; one need 
only mention the production of sugar or indigo. 
Another aspect of this which is not without import- 
ance may perhaps be referred to here, although it 
means the transference of certain industries to more 
accessible regions merely, rather than a definite change 
of such an element as latitude. I have in mind the 
sudden conversion of an industry in which much 
labour is expended on a small amount of raw material 
into one where much raw material is consumed, and 
by the application of power-driven machinery the 
labour required is greatly diminished. One remembers 
when a fifty-shilling Swiss watch, although then still 
by tradition regarded as sufficiently valuable to de- 
serve enclosure in a case constructed of a precious 
metal, was considered a marvel of cheapness. Ameri- 
can machine-made watches, produced by the ton, are 
now encased in the baser metals and sold at some 
five shillings each, and the watch-making industry has 
ceased to be specially suited to mountainous districts. 
In considering the differences which seem likely to 
arise in what we may call the regional pressures of 
one kind and another, pressures which are relieved or 
adjusted by and along certain lines of transport, I 
have made a primary distinction between ‘ east-and- 
west’’ and “north-and-south"’ types, because both in 
matters of food supply and in the modes of life which 
control the nature of the demand for manufactured 
articles climate is eventually the dominant factor; 
and, as I have said, climate varies primarily with 
latitude. This is true specially of atmospheric tem- 
perature; but temperature varies also with alti- 
tude, or height above the level of the sea. To a 
less extent rainfall, the other great element of climate, 
varies with latitude, but the variation is much more _ 
irregular. More important in this case is the influence 
of the distribution of land and sea, and more especially 
the configuration of the land surface, the tendency 
here being sometimes to strengthen the latitude effect 
where a continuous ridge is interposed, as in Asia, 
practically cutting off ‘‘north-and-south”’ communica- 
tion altogether along a certain line, emphasising the 
parallel-strip arrangement running east and west to 
the north of the line, and inducing the quite special 
conditions of the monsoon region to the south of it. 
We may contrast this with the effect of a “‘north-and- 
south’? structure, which (in temperate latitudes 
especially) tends to swing what we may call the 
regional lines round till they cross the parallels of 
latitude obliquely. This is typically illustrated in 
North America, where the angle is locally sometimes 
nearly a right angle. It follows, therefore, that the 
contrast of ‘‘east-and-west’’ and “ north-and-south"’ 
lines, which I have here used for purposes of illus- 
tration, is necessarily extremely crude, and one of the 
most pressing duties of geographers at the present 
moment is to elaborate a more satisfactory method of 
classification. I am very glad that we are to have a 
discussion on ‘Natural Regions” at one of our 
sederunts. Perhaps I may be permitted to express 
the hope that we shall concern ourselves with the types 
of region we want, their structure or ‘“‘ grain,” and 
their relative positions, rather than with the precise 
delimitation of their boundaries, to which I think we 
a 
