Geographical Pivot of History 



335 



Holdich, the arbitrator of the Chile- 

 Argentine boundary dispute, and one 

 of the foremost authorities on South 

 American matters in the world, made 

 two points, as follows : 



(i) One of the great reasons, one of 

 the compelling reasons, for all the mi- 

 grations from Asia has been a distinct 

 alteration in the physical condition of 

 the country. 



(2) South America will be a potent 

 factor in the outer belt of power to 

 bring coercion to bear on the inner 

 power pivoting about the south of 

 Russia. 



' ' The potentiality of South America 

 as a naval power I look upon as very 

 great. I believe that in the course, 

 say, of the next half -century, in spite 

 of the fact that just now Argentina has 

 sold two ships to Japan, and Chile has 

 sold a couple of ships to us, in spite of 

 that fact, there will be an increase of 

 naval strength in South America, re- 

 sulting from purel3 r natural causes, for 

 the defense of her own coast and the 

 protection of her own traffic, which will 

 be only comparable to the extraordinary 

 development which we have seen during 

 the last half-century in Japan." 



Mr Amery made three points : 



( 1 ) As regards the supposed ' 'hordes' ' 

 of invaders which came from the inte- 

 rior, I do not myself believe there ever 

 were those very large hordes and large 

 populations in the interior. The fact 

 is this : the steppe populations were 

 small then, as now, but from the fact of 

 their mobility the heavier and slower 



military armies could not successfully 

 attack them. You remember the diffi- 

 culty the Roman legions had with the 

 Parthians, and I think we can find a 

 very much more recent example of the 

 difficulty a civilized state finds in con- 

 quering a steppe power. Only a short 

 time ago the whole of the British army 

 was occupied in trying to coerce some 

 40,000 or 50,000 farmers who lived on 

 a dry steppe land. 



(2) In the old days the ships were 

 mobile enough, but they carried few 

 men, and the raids of the sea people 

 were comparatively feeble. I am not 

 suggesting anything political at the 

 present time. I am merely stating a' 

 fact when I say that the sea is far bet- 

 ter for conveying troops than anything 

 except fifteen or twenty parallel lines of 

 railway. 



(3) Both the sea and the railway are 

 going in the future — it may be near or 

 it may be somewhat remote — to be sup- 

 plemented by the air as a means of loco- 

 motion, and when we come to that (as 

 we are talking in Board Columbian 

 epochs, I think I may be allowed to 

 look forward a bit) — when we come to 

 that, a great deal of this geographical 

 distribution must lose its importance, 

 and the successful powers will be those 

 who have the greatest industrial basis. 

 It will not matter whether they are in 

 the center of a continent or on an island. 

 Those people who have the industrial 

 power and the power of invention and 

 of science will be able to defeat all others. 

 I will leave that as a parting suggestion. 



NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 



IT is hoped that all members of the 

 National Geographic Society, when 

 they come to Washington, will visit the 

 home of the Society, Hubbard Memo- 

 rial Hall, Sixteenth and M streets, and 

 make it as far as possible their head- 

 quarters while in the citv. 



It has been suggested that as there is 

 no established abbreviation for Alaska, 

 Aaa. would make a convenient and dis- 

 tinctive abbreviation. This form would 

 not be confounded with the abbreviation 

 for Alabama. The suggestion is made 

 by William A. Kelly, superintendent of 

 the Industrial Training School, Sitka, 

 Alaska. 



