18 G. G. Hubbard— Geographic Progress of Civilization. 
east and west. It has less ocean front to the square mile than 
Europe, more than either Asia or Africa. 
When America was discovered its north temperate region was 
occupied by numerous tribes of Indians, living by hunting and 
fishing, almost always at war with one another. South of Ohio 
river the land was more easily tilled, and the tribes that in- 
habited it, unlike the aborigines of New England and New York, 
cultivated a little ground and were less savage. Still further 
southward, in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, the Cherokees, 
Chocktaws, and Natches had an organized government with fixed 
places of residence and tribal rights. They relied for their 
support more on agriculture than on the chase and fishing. 
The Pueblos, in New Mexico and Arizona, inhabiting the cliff 
dwellings, had advanced to a still higher state of civilization. 
Among the Pueblos, as well as among the more highly civilized 
tribes of Central America, were other tribes living in the same 
territory, much more savage than their neighbors, and in some 
cases even more savage than the Indians of New England. Still 
further southward, in Central America, in a warmer zone, tem- 
pered by its high mountains, was a higher civilization than in 
the north. Unfortunately, we know little either of this people 
or of the Incas of Peru. On the Pacific coast of North America, 
in a territory 50 miles wide and 1,000 miles long, were a vast 
number of different races and languages. In South America 
there was a greater variety of race and language than in North 
America east of the Sierra Nevada. 
In South America is the richest valley of the torrid or tem- 
perate zone, watered by the Orinoco and the Amazon. A rich 
soil, with a moist and hot climate and an abundance of rain, 
produces a most luxuriant vegetation. Mr Buckle says: * Here, 
where physical resources are the most powerful, where the soil 
is watered by the noblest rivers, the coast studded by the finest 
harbors, the profusion of nature has hindered social progress 
and opposed that accumulation of wealth without which prog- 
ress is impossible.” Fortunately, most valuable timber, the 
rubber tree, quinine, and tapioca yield abundant harvests with- 
out the labor of planting and watching from seed time to har- 
vest, and by quick gains for light work offer inducements to 
the laborer to acquire habits of industry. The inhabitants of 
this region are a mixed race of Spaniards, Indians, and Negroes, 
numbering about 37,000,000, of which 21 percent are white, 35 
- percent Indians, 40 percent mixed, and 6 percent Negroes. In 
ee 
