!7o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tion, Britain stands close to the ideal, while Germany or Eussia may be 

 taken as representative of the opposite extreme. 



Position Climatically. Extremes of Climate. — The seats of the 

 early nations of the world, alike in the matter of separation, do not 

 show the same degree of uniformity in climatic characteristics. Their 

 positions climatically, however, do suggest that the extremes of climate 

 are unfavorable to national development. The extremes of cold and of 

 great aridity prohibit cultivation of the soil and thus immediately re- 

 move the essential basis of national development. Far northern peoples 

 and desert tribes may utilize their meager opportunities with much 

 greater skill than the most highly civilized man could, hence with respect 

 to their opportunities they are in no sense backward or unprogressive. 

 Yet the burden of satisfying human needs is so great that the people 

 must remain relatively unprogressive and can not develop nationally. 

 They represent a close parallel to the natives of some of the islands of 

 the Pacific Ocean, where the absence of all metals in the coral reefs has 

 prevented a people, highly skilled in many ways, from advancing into 

 a metal age. 



The extremes of heat and moisture, when combined, are conducive 

 to the development of extravagant forms of both plant and animal life 

 in superlative abundance. To conquer these rival forms of life and 

 establish himself successfully on an agricultural basis is a difficult task 

 even for the highly civilized man, with every modern appliance at his 

 command. Primitive man, therefore, under these conditions finds 

 himself generally unable to rise above the plane of the forest dweller. 

 At the same time the small need for clothing and shelter, coupled with 

 the ease of gratifying all physical wants from the bounty of nature, 

 favors inaction which is always hostile to progress. For these reasons, 

 national qualities and civilizations have not been developed among the 

 primitive groups of the equatorial rainy sections. 



Intermediate Types of Climate. — The intermediate climatic types 

 are the only ones under which national evolution from the primitive 

 group has taken place and where high stages of national civilizations 

 have been developed. In these cases, the climatic conditions impose 

 demands for food, clothing and shelter, beyond the possibilities of the 

 unaided bounty of nature to supply, yet capable of satisfaction through 

 a fair amount of human effort. 



This idea of a climatic stimulus as a basis for human progress and 

 the evolution of nations, is commonly expressed in the phrase " spur of 

 the seasons." Too often, however, the spur of the seasons is assumed 

 to mean a winter, or a period when low temperatures cause plant 

 activities to cease temporarily, and therefore require, for the human 

 being, not only the provision of warm clothing and substantial 

 shelter, but also the accumulation of stores of food. This concept 



