FOWKE— INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGY 



Quite different from either is the man whom nature has assigned 

 to treeless, grass-covered plains, where his sole reliance for existence 

 is his flocks and herds. The only energy and foresight required in their 

 care is to drive them from pasture to pasture as grass becomes ex- 

 hausted, or to prevent them from straying out of reach of recovery. 

 In this kind of life man soon becomes, in effect, "a brother of the ox." 



Men living in settled communities are less affected by their envi- 

 ronment. They modify the surface to suit their requirements. They 

 delve into the ground and bring out substances which were un- 

 revealed to primitive man, and with these they build up a civilization. 



Until man is entering this last stage, he is concerned only with 

 the superficial aspect of geology — that branch of it which we com- 

 monly know as Physical Geography. In the childhood of the race it 

 was the only portion which bore any relation to human life. It is 

 inevitable that the distribution of land and water; the trend of ocean 

 currents; the direction and force of the prevailing winds; the char- 

 acter of soils, which result from decay of the underlying rocks; the 

 height and bearing of mountain ranges; the inequalities of land, 

 whether flat plains, rugged mountains, or rolling hills; the course of 

 rivers; the amount and quality of water supply — it is inevitable that 

 these features should exert a very great influence on the character 

 and disposition of individuals and nations. The dwellers near stormy 

 seas people the air and heavens with mighty gods whose deeds are 

 those of valor and strength and wrath; the mountaineer frequently 

 reflects in his soul the hard, sterile aspect of the peaks; the imagina- 

 tion of the desert wanderer absorbs something of the marvelous color- 

 ing of his sky; amid beautiful scenery is born the poetic and artistic 

 instinct. 



In considering, however, the influence of soil, climate, and to- 

 pography on the evolution of a race which lives long in any part of 

 the earth, it must be remembered that a very long period of time is 

 required to develop fully their racial characteristics. Similarly it 

 takes a long time to alter them once they become fixed. So when we 

 attempt to trace a connection between the temperament or the 

 beliefs of a community and the nature of the country in which it is 

 established, we must take into consideration the mental qualities 

 which have had their beginnings in some other part of the world. 

 This is particularly observable where large numbers of persons have 

 moved in a body from one country to another and formed a colony 

 that has little in common with the community in which it has settled, 

 or, even more, has displaced a clan or a tribe and occupied its terri- 

 tory. Yet, in time, the intruding colony loses much of its original 



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