370 



NA TURE 



[August 8, 190; 



below that of former times, so that for such commodities 

 as pepper the mere freight is ahnost a negligible item. 



At the present day there can be no doubt that in point 

 of quanti'.y the spice trade is much larger than it ever 

 wa=i. If Venice could get the whole of that trade into her 

 hands, a rhing which she never had, notwithstanding the 

 patriotic boast of Doge Mocenigo, the trade would not 

 now bring her a tithe of the wealth which it brought in the 

 days of \\f-x grandeur. Much has been said of the sudden 

 " fall " uf th; Portuguese and Dutch in turn, and that 

 fall has often been explained by mistakes in method. " The 

 fall of the Dutch colonial empire resulted," says Sir William 

 Hunter, " from its short-sighted commercial policy. It was 

 deliberately based upon a monopoly of the trade in spices, 

 and remained from first to last destitute of sound economical 

 principles."' But one may well ask. Did the Dutch ever 

 fail in a manner for which they were in any way respon- 

 sible? It is true that the Dutch East India Company did 

 not supply as many people as they could with the spices 

 of which they held the monopoly. But that was not their 

 aim. It is true that they did not build up a great empire 

 like that of the English East India Company. But neither 

 was that their aim. Their aim was to declare dividends, 

 and dividends they declared. The profits of the company 

 down to 1720 averaged 20 per cent, per annum, never sink- 

 ing below 15 per cent., and sometimes rising to 50 per cent. 

 If spices ceased to enable them to declare such dividends 

 that was not their fault. It was James Watt, George 

 Stephenson, William Symington, and Robert Fulton, who, 

 without intending it, and without being able to foresee 

 what in this respect they were destined to do, sucked the 

 value out of pepper, and that in a manner which neither 

 the strength of armies nor the subtlety of statesmen could 

 have done anything to prevent. 



Now the countries that offer the most attractive markets 

 for the greatest quantities of goods of all kinds are no 

 longer those which look to the spice trade or to trade in 

 any specially valuable commodities for their enrichment, 

 but those which abound in coal so placed as to develop a 

 great amount of manufacturing industry, an industry en- 

 gaged for the most part in working for the million, not 

 merely in producing the lu.xuries of the rich. The com- 

 modities of very small bulk in proportion to their value 

 now have a comparatively insignificant place in commerce. 

 The precious metals and precious stones still indeed retain 

 £i good deal of their former importance. But very few 

 vegetable or animal products can be put in the same cate- 

 gory. Rubber, indeed, may be reckoned as one, and very 

 handsome profits are reaped from .soEne rubber estates. 

 But everyone knows that such e.xceptional profits can be 

 reaped only for a short time. Of animal products orna- 

 mental feathers are the most valuable in proportion to their 

 bulk. Egrets' feathers, I believe, are seldom worth less 

 and often worth a good deal more than twice their weight 

 in gold, but ornamental feathers altogether make up less 

 than a third of i per cent, of the total value of British 

 imports. 



Perhaps the greatest feature of modern commerce is the 

 unparalleled manner in which it has promoted the increase 

 of nooulation nearly all the world over. Rendcrma i' 

 possible for manufacturing and commercial peoples to depend 

 in a very large measure for their very means of subsist- 

 ence on supplies brought from the ends of the earth, it is 

 rapidly pushing the settlement of vacant land to the base 

 of the mountains and the edge of the desert. Fifteen years 

 ago Prof. Bryce said, " We may conjecture that within 

 the lifetime of persons now living the outflow from Eurone 

 to North America will have practically stopped."^ We 

 are at least nearing the time when the " new lands " of 

 this earth in the temperate zone will all have been allotted. 

 The results of such a check to expansion after a long 

 period of stimulation to expansion must be momentous, 

 but what the nature of these results will be I for one 

 confess that I am unable to foresee. I am, however, con- 

 vinced that, if we are to be enabled to make any probable 

 forecast as to the course of future development, one of 

 the most important aids to that result must consist in the 

 study of the relations of geography and history from the 



1 " Imperial G»7clieer of India," 2nd ed., vol. vi., p. 162. 



2 "The Mieraii.inso'the Races of Men considered Historically," in the 

 Scottish Gcogi-nphknl Magazine, 1892, p. 419. 



NO. 197 1, VOL. 76] 



point of view which I have endeavoured to indicate. To 

 study these relations merely with reference to the imme- 

 diate causes and effects of wars and treaties gives little real 

 insight into the working of geographical influences in his- 

 tory. .As in ihe study of the human body medical men 

 have recognised the necessity of ascertaining with the aid 

 of the microscope the normal functions of the cells of 

 which the body is composed, the pathological states that 

 interfere with their normal working, and the effects on one 

 part of the body of minute disturbances of function in 

 another part, so in tracing the course of history it is 

 becoming more cmd more recognised that the minute 

 gradual silent changes must be inquired into and taken into 

 account, not merely in relation to the regions in which ihey 

 take place, but in relation, it may be, to regions far dis- 

 tant. Such studies, it is true, are not confined to the 

 geographer. In them, indeed, the geographer must seek 

 the aid of workers in other fields: but there can hardly be 

 a doubt that it must help greatly towards arriving at a 

 sound solution of the problems presented to keep steadily 

 before one the geographical point of view. The field for 

 such studies is of course immense, the material perhaps 

 not all that could be wished ; but 1 can imagine no task 

 more delightful for those who have the opportunity to 

 engage in it than that of seeking out and examining from 

 that point of view such material as actually exists. 



I 



KOTES. 

 The death is announced, at the age of fifty-one years, of 

 Prof. Emil Petersen, professor of chemistry in the Uni- 

 versity of Copenhagen. Prof. Petersen was a pupil of and 

 collaborator with Prof. Jorgensen, and was well known 

 for his researches in physical and analytical chemistry. 



We regret to see by the Sn>n(i/ic American that Prof. 

 Angelo Heilprin died on July 17 at the age of fifty-four 

 years. 



The sum of gooi. has been given by Mr. W. H. Crocker, 

 of San Francisco, to the University of California for the 

 purpose of defraying the e.\penses of an expedition to 

 observe the total solar eclipse of January 3 ne.xt, w^hich 

 will be visible on the Pacific coast. 



The Board of Trade is about to constitute a special 

 temporary branch (under the direction of Colonel Sir 

 Herbert Jekyll, K.C.M.G.) for the purpose of dealing with 

 matters relating to London traffic so far as they come 

 within the scope of the Board. 



Mr. H. C. Plummer, assistant in the Oxford University 

 Observatory, has been appointed to a fellowship at the 

 University of California in connection with the Lick 

 Observatory on Mount Hamilton. 



In reply to a question put to him in the House of 

 Commons on Thursday last by Mr. McCrae, the member 

 for Edinburgh, East, as to whether he was in a position 

 to say if he was able to accede to the request of the 

 Scottish members of Parliament for a grant to the Scottish 

 Meteorological Society for the purpose of reopening and 

 maintaining the Ben Nevis observatories, the Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer said the only scheme which had up to 

 the present been placed before him was one under which 

 the whole cost of the re-equipment and maintenance of the 

 observatories would be thrown upon public funds, and to 

 this he did not fee! justified in assenting. He was, how- 

 ever, quite prepared to consider the question of renewing 

 the Government grant, which was for many years given 

 to these institutions through the Meteorological Council, 

 provided that an adequate contribution towards their re- 

 establishment and maintenance were forthcoming from 

 other sources. 



