OcTOBER 2, 1913] 
NATURE 
B55 
have sometimes been inclined, for educational pur- 
poses, to give a little too much attention. 
Before leaving this I should like to add, speaking 
still in terms of “‘east-and-west” and ‘ north-and- 
south,” one word more about the essential east-and- 
west structure of the Old World. I have already 
referred to the great central axis of Asia. This axis is 
prolonged westward through Europe, but it is cut 
through and broken to such an extent that we may 
include the Mediterranean region with the area lying 
further north, to which indeed it geographically 
belongs in any discussion of this sort. But the Medi- 
terranean region is bounded on the other side by the 
Sahara, and none of our modern inventions facilitating 
transport has made any impression upon the dry 
desert; nor does it seem likely that such a desert 
will ever become a less formidable barrier than a great 
mountain mass or range. We may conclude, then, 
that in so far as the Old World is concerned, the 
*north-and-south”” transport can never be carried on 
as freely as it may in the New, but only’ through 
certain weak points, or “round the ends,” i.e. by sea. 
It may be further pointed out that the land areas in 
the southern hemisphere are so narrow that they 
will scarcely enter into the ‘“‘east-and-west’”’ category 
at all—the transcontinental railway as understood in 
the northern hemisphere cannot exist; it is scarcely 
a pioneer system, but rather comes into existence as 
a later by-product of local east-and-west lines, as in 
Africa. 
These geographical facts must exercise a profound 
influence upon the future of the British Isles. Trade 
south of the great dividing line must always be to a 
large extent of the ‘‘north-and-south”’ type, and the 
British Isles stand practically at the western end of the 
great natural barrier. From their position the British 
Isles will always be a centre of immense importance 
in entrepét trade, importing commodities from 
“south”? and distributing “east and west,’’ and 
similarly in the reverse direction. This movement will 
be permanent, and will increase in volume long after 
the present type of purely “ east-and-west’’ trade has 
become relatively less important than it is now, and 
long after the British Isles have ceased to have any of 
the special advantages for manufacturing industries 
which are due to their own resources either in the 
way of energy or of raw material. We can well 
imagine, however, that this permanent advantage of 
position will react favourably, if indirectly, upon cer- 
tain types of our manufactures, at least for a very 
long time to come. 
Reverting briefly to the equalisation of the distribu- 
tion of population in the wheat-producing areas and 
the causes which are now at work in this direction, 
it is interesting to inquire how geographical conditions 
are likely to influence this on the smaller scale. We 
may suppose that the production of staple foodstuffs 
must always be more uniformly distributed than the 
manufacture of raw materials, or the production of 
the raw materials themselves, for the most important 
raw materials of vegetable origin (as cotton, rubber, 
&c.) demand special climatic conditions, and, apart 
from the distribution of energy, manufacturing indus- 
tries are strongly influenced by the distribution of 
mineral deposits, providing metals for machinery, and 
soon. It may, however, be remarked that the useful 
metals, such as iron, are widely distributed in or near 
regions which are not as a rule unfavourable to agri- 
culture. Nevertheless, the fact remains that while a 
more uniform distribution is necessary and inevitable 
in the case of agriculture, many of the conditions of 
industrial and social life are in favour of concentra- 
tion; the electrical transmission of energy removes, 
in whole or in part, only one or two of the centri- 
NO. 2292, VOL. 92| 
petal forces. The general result might be an ap- 
proximation to the conditions occurring in many parts 
of the monsoon areas—a number of fairly large towns 
pretty evenly distributed over a given agricultural 
area, and each drawing its main food supplies from 
the region surrounding it. The positions of such 
towns would be determined much more by industrial 
conditions, and less by military conditions, than in the 
past (military power being in these days mobile, and 
not fixed); but the result would on a larger scale be 
of the same type as was developed in the central 
counties of England, which, as Mackinder has pointed 
out, are of almost equal size and take the name of 
the county town. Concentration within the towns 
would, of course, be less severe than in the early 
days of manufacturing industry. Each town would 
require a very elaborate and highly organised system 
of local transport, touching all points of its agricul- 
tural area, in addition to lines of communication with 
other towns and with the great “north-and-south ” 
lines of world-wide commerce, but these outside lines 
would be relatively of less importance than they are 
now. We note that the more perfect the system of 
local transport, the less the need for points of inter- 
mediate exchange. The village and the local market- 
town will be “‘sleepy”’ or decadent as they are now, 
but for a different reason; the symptoms are at 
present visible mainly because the country round about 
such local centres is overwhelmed by the great lines 
of transport which pass through them; they will sur- 
vive for a time through inertia and the ease of foreign 
investment of capital. The effect of this influence is 
already apparent since the advent of the ‘‘commercial 
motor,’’ but up to the present it has been more in the 
direction of distributing from the towns than collect- 
ing to them, producing a kind of ‘‘suburbanisation ” 
which throws things still further out of balance. The 
importance of the road motor in relation to the future 
development of the food-producing area is incalcul- 
able. It has long been clear that the railway of the 
type required for the great through lines of fast 
transport is ill-adapted for the detailed work of a small 
district, and the ‘‘light’”’ railway solves little and 
introduces many complications. The problem of deter- 
mining the direction and capacity of a system of 
roads adequate to any particular region is at this 
stage one of extraordinary difficulty; experiments 
are exceedingly costly, and we have as yet little ex- 
perience of a satisfactory kind to guide us. The 
geographer, if he will, can here be of considerable 
service to the engineer. 
In the same connection, the development of the 
agricultural area supplying an industrial centre offers 
many difficult problems in relation to what may be 
called accessory products, more especially those of a 
perishable nature, such as meat and milk. In the 
case of meat the present position is that much land 
which may eventually become available for grain crops 
is used for grazing, or cattle are fed on some grain, 
like maize, which is difficult to transport or is not 
satisfactory for bread-making The meat is then 
temporarily deprived of its perishable property by 
refrigeration, and does not suffer in transport. 
Modern refrigerating machinery is elaborate and com- 
plicated, and more suited to use on board ship than 
on any kind of land transport. Hence the most con- 
venient regions for producing meat for export are 
those near the sea-coast, such as occur in the Argen- 
tine or the Canterbury plains of New Zealand. The 
case is similar to that of the ‘‘accessible”’ coalfield. 
Possibly the preserving processes may be simplified 
and cheapened, making overland transport easier, but 
the fact that it usually takes a good deal of land to 
produce a comparatively small quantity of meat will 
