VoL. VI, PP. 1-22 FEBRUARY 14, 1894 
THE 
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 
GEOGRAPHIC PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION 
ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT 
. 
HONORABLE GARDINER G. HUBBARD 
(Presented before the Society February 2, 1894) 
If parallels of latitude were drawn around the earth about 
fifteen degrees north and fifteen degrees south of Washington, 
the land within these parallels would include all the countries 
of the world that have been highly civilized and distinguished 
for art and science. No great people, except the Scandinavians 
and Scotch, who, from their climate, belong to the same region, 
ever existed outside these limits; no great men have ever lived, 
no great poems have ever been written, no literary or scientific 
work ever produced, in other parts of the globe. In the far north 
are found savages and barbarians, the Mongols, Lapps, Eskimos, 
Finns and other equally barbarous tribes; in the south the 
Polynesians in Oceanica, the Hottentots and Bushmen in south- 
ern Africa, the Patagonians and Terra del Fuegans in South 
America. The nearer man lives to the polar regions the greater 
his inferiority in intellect, the greater his barbarism. 
Now, changing our starting point, if two other parallels are 
drawn, one fifteen degrees north and another fifteen degrees 
south of the equator, the country within these parallels would 
contain the richest and most abundantly watered lands, produc- 
1—Nart. Grog, Maa., von. VI, 1894. (1) 
