FOWKE— INFLUENCE OF GEOLOGY 



that they were once homogeneous. And it is to the persistence of 

 spirit so deeply implanted in the old Norse that England owes her 

 great explorers and pioneers. The Saxon or German is justly entitled 

 to precedence as a colonizer and developer of new regions; but he is 

 never a pioneer, moving in only when some one else has opened the 

 way. He has always been a farmer and trader, and to some extent a 

 settler in cultivated territories; but he has not been partial to the 

 wilderness. The progress of civilization owes as much to the rugged 

 coast and rocky soil of Scandinavia as it does to the level lands along 

 the Baltic sea or the rolling fields of southern England. 



Even the general outward appearance of men depends on geology 

 to some extent. The physical structure of the mountaineer is not like 

 that of the man who lives on dry, level land, and both are different 

 from the dweller in the swamp. People who belong to limestone soils 

 are heavier, though not always taller, than those living in sandstone 

 regions. There is no reason for believing that the inhabitants of the 

 United States, as a whole, will develop into distinct types, such as 

 now exist in Europe, owing to the facilities for intermingling; but it 

 is a fact that where the manner of living of the people approximates 

 most closely to that led by the aborigines, the white man is taking 

 on something of the Indian expression and attributes. 



Dependent also on soil and climate, which are determined by 

 geological structure, are the products of the earth on which men 

 must subsist ; and the amount and quality of food is a decisive factor 

 in the formation of character. Despite the popular superstition that 

 fish is a brain food, it is beyond doubt that those who are compelled 

 to live principally on fish are intellectually feeble. Those who subsist 

 entirely or even chiefly on meat are usually vigorous, cruel, over- 

 bearing, adventurous, seldom attached to their homes, ever ready to 

 rove and wander, prone to make incursions and to despoil those living 

 outside their boundaries — not so much on account of the meat diet, 

 perhaps, but because of the influence on their minds of the methods 

 by which they must secure it. 



So long as man's needs were satisfied with natural productions, 

 savagery prevailed. Permanent communities were not established 

 until spontaneous products of the earth no longer sufficed for the 

 sustenance of a constantly increasing population, and agriculture had 

 consequently to be taken up as a business instead of a makeshift. 

 Even then the founders of such communities were forced into situa- 

 tions which were not suitable for the requirements of hunters or cattle- 

 raisers — to the lands of insufficient rainfall and scanty vegetation. 

 The great centers of earliest systematic culture were in localities 



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