ii8 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



Elsewhere there are a few small areas of relatively dense population, as 

 in Java, Malaya, and West Africa, but the greater part of the land is thinly 

 occupied. Of particular interest is the belt of deserts which forms a zone 

 across the Continent from the Sahara north-eastward to Eastern Siberia ; 

 for it was this ' Great Divide ' of empty lands, interrupted only by few 

 and generally small oases and occupied by widely scattered and generally 

 nomadic peoples, which held apart the civilisations of the ' East ' and the 

 ' West ' during all the ages of human history before da Gama's voyage 

 to India in 1497 C.E. 



In these great regions there has been only one change of world magni- 

 tude within recent centuries, namely the peopling of Eastern North 

 America between 1620 and 1920, mainly in the last hundred years. This 

 has added a fourth populous region capable of ranking with the three of 

 the Old World ; though it has not yet had time to accumulate so dense 

 a population as any one of them. 



Except for this the recent shifts of population have mainly been within 

 the great populous regions, and have tended to accentuate their relative 

 importance. The population of India has doubled its numbers since 

 1 87 1 ; but the numbers of Indians settled outside India and Ceylon is 

 only about three millions, or less than one per cent, of the Indian peoples, 

 and less than one-sixtieth of the increase of the Indian population since 

 1 87 1. And most of these are in Burma and Malaya. 



The numbers, both absolute and relative, of the emigrants from the 

 Far East are more difficult to determine. It has been estimated, by 

 Prof. Mukerjee, that some ten million Chinese live outside the lands 

 claimed by the Chinese Republic ; half of whom are in Siam, Malaya and 

 the East Indies. Similarly, there are perhaps two million Japanese out- 

 side their native land ; but three-fifths of these are in Taiwan (Formosa), 

 Chosen (Korea), Karafuto and Manchukwo, leaving less than three- 

 quarters of a million outside the Far East. So the total population derived 

 from the Far Eastern Region and now living outside it may be estimated 

 at less than two per cent, of the home population. It is twice as numerous, 

 both absolutely and relatively, as that from India ; but, like that, it is 

 a very small proportion of the probable increase in the Far East during 

 the last two or three generations. 



The really large-scale migration of the past hundred years was that 

 from Europe to North America. But the number of all the peoples of 

 European origin now living outside Europe and North America is probably 

 less than a tenth of the number in those two continents, and not more 

 than a third of the increase in the population of Europe itself during the 

 past century. Yet Europeans form the great majority of the peoples of 

 all the ' new ' lands of the south temperate regions, except South Africa. 

 Even if we count North America as a colony it is still true that little more 

 than a fourth of the peoples of European origin live outside Europe, 

 though the population of that continent has increased fourfold in the last 

 two hundred years. 



During the present century there have been extensions of the inhabited 

 lands on the margins of all four of the major populous regions. In North 

 America this has been a thrust westward and north-westward on the 



