166 THE EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT 



no close contact of man with man, no assembling into com- 

 munities. The men tended their flocks ; the women learned to 

 spin and weave ; some ideas of individual rights were developed. 

 The nomad condition of life gave form to his habitation — a tent 

 easily moved. 



From Asia we turn to Europe, a country from its geographic 

 environment better adapted for the advancement of Q,W\\\z?dj\on 

 than an}^ other quarter of the world. Its two long, narrow penin- 

 sulas, Greece and lioXy, stretch southward into the Mediter- 

 ranean ; its seacoast, longer in proportion to the land surface 

 than that of any other continent, is indented with excellent har- 

 bors on the north and south, with deep bays and gulfs ; its islands 

 of Great Britain, its temperate climate, its abundant rainfall and 

 numerous rivers, its mountain ranges, easily crossed, afford facili- 

 ties for the development of trade and commerce, of science, the 

 arts, and civilization of all kinds not jDossessed by any other 

 country ; yet this land, so well suited for the progress of civiliza- 

 tion, was unfitted to be the birthplace of civilization. 



The life of primitive man in EurojDe has been longer and more 

 thoroughly studied than in any other part of the world. Traces of 

 the different stages in the development of primitive man through 

 the Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found in many places. 

 We learn of the life of the Drift and Cave men and of the time 

 when they lived from their implements and from the bones of 

 animals. Their implements resemble those found in other con- 

 tinents. This, however, does not prove the acquaintance of one 

 race with the work of another in a different continent, but that 

 similar stages of development occurring in different places and at 

 different times, produce a like results. These implements, which 

 are very rude and simple, are made of the stones most easily 

 worked, and show b}'' their design that they could have been 

 made only by man. In France and England these remains have 

 been found in the banks of streams 50, 80, or even 100 feet above 

 the present level of the river. The men of this period belong to 

 the earliest Stone Age, and are called " Drift men." Their im- 

 plements are found Avith fauna extinct before our earliest knowl- 

 edge of natural history and known to us only as fossils, or else 

 with the remains of such animals as the reindeer and woolly 

 rhinoceros, now found only in arctic or tropical climates. 



These Drift and Cave men lived the life of all primitive men, 

 hunting and fishing, or eating roots and the fruits of trees. 

 Neither in their physical nor mental condition were they much 



