170 THE OCEAN RIVER 



of wealthy absentee owners who worked them by slave labor, 

 and wheat growing gave place to vineyards and olive orchards. 

 The decline of the Roman Empire was also probably hastened 

 by the rise of malaria, as in Greece. As the Mediterranean 

 weather got softer and less stimulating, the energetic cyclonic 

 zone moved into northern Europe and brought on great activ- 

 ity and invasions from the Gothic tribes. Huntington in sev- 

 eral books has carefully developed this theory of the climatic 

 control of human energy and hence the rise or fall of civiliza- 

 tions. Here it may be enough to mention his work as an 

 interesting contribution to the history of the Ocean River 

 and its effect on the development of the Atlantic community 

 from early historic times. 



In Climate Makes the Man Dr. Clarence Mills backs up 

 the Huntington thesis and applies it specifically to the Amer- 

 ican environment. He points out that the early Spaniards 

 coming into the soft Caribbean climate underwent a relaxa- 

 tion both physically and morally before they could become — 

 in later generations — adjusted to their new environment, 

 and that similar changes in Europeans meeting the stimula- 

 tion of the North American climate have accounted for diffi- 

 culties of adjustment. In other words, Mills holds that man is 

 as much a pawn of climate as he is lord of creation. Certainly 

 there is ample evidence to prove that mankind, responding to 

 the cyclonic whip, has reacted to changes in this climatic 

 sequence. Mills goes so far as to relate the terrific military 

 energy of the Napoleonic period to a run of cold years in 

 Europe between 1784 and 1817 and claims that succeeding 

 years of revolutionary outbursts in 1830 and 1848 were deto- 

 nated by the particularly vigorous nature of the weather in 

 those years. Bruckner, of course, is another authority who 

 correlates migrations from Europe to North America with 

 the rainfall in Europe, 



This brief resume of the climate engine over the Ocean 

 River and how it has affected the waters of the Atlantic and 



