Modern Geography Part 9

The bold navigators who had learnt their craft in the Mediterranean Sea left its basin by the Strait of Gibraltar, and visited successively those ma.s.ses of ancient rocks which project out into the ocean, and form the western extremities of Spain, France and Britain. But it was not only the sea route which was utilised, at least in later times. Perhaps so long ago as five centuries before our era a land route was organised which carried British tin to Ma.r.s.eilles, and thus to the Mediterranean.

The great valley of the Rhone renders such a traverse of France feasible, and the pa.s.sage from the valley to the Rhone to that of the Loire or of the Seine is easy. The existence of a commerce in tin thus ensured that France was early and deeply permeated by Mediterranean civilisation, for it involved the existence of high roads through her land, at a time when northern Europe generally was cut off from the civilisation of the Mediterranean. There is even reason to believe that trade in tin led to the founding of an early maritime power on the barren sh.o.r.es of Brittany. The trade in tin certainly did much to open the way for the future civilisation of France.

Though, as we have indicated, bronze was for long of relatively great importance, yet the use of iron dates back to great antiquity. It seems to have been a rare and precious metal when the Homeric poems took shape, and for long afterwards its use was partial and limited. The fact, however, that it is very readily destroyed by rust when exposed to air and damp, makes it difficult to draw any certain conclusions from its absence in ancient remains.

The slow growth of the use of iron must be largely ascribed to the great difficulties in smelting it, especially when it occurs in impure forms.

Iron does not occur in the pure state, as copper does to a small extent, but it is enormously abundant, being found, to a greater or less extent, in almost all rocks. Relatively pure ores are rare, most iron-bearing minerals containing a large number of impurities, some of which are very difficult to remove. Further, the process of smelting always requires much fuel, and, in the case of the more impure ores, remarkable skill and science. The result was that the early smiths could only employ a very high grade of ore; all others were useless to them. Even with a high grade of ore, they could only extract a relatively small amount of the iron present.

A very curious little proof of this latter fact is furnished by the Roman iron workings in the Forest of Dean in Gloucesters.h.i.+re. The refuse thrown out of the ancient furnaces worked by the Romans here, was re-smelted by the British smiths long centuries afterwards, and this refuse fed their furnaces for a period of between two and three hundred years.

The next point of interest in regard to iron is the source of the necessary fuel. At first wood or charcoal was always employed, and therefore iron could only be smelted in the vicinity of forests. Thus the Forest of Dean, already mentioned, supplied the wood used by the Romans in smelting, and the trees of the Weald or "wood" of Suss.e.x and Kent were completely removed during the long centuries when the iron ores of that region were smelted. The Forest of Arden, near Birmingham, is another region where iron was long smelted by the aid of charcoal.

The amount of fuel required, especially in the early days, was very great, and as the forests were cleared without any regard for scientific forestry, it naturally followed that in many districts the destruction of the necessary fuel led to a diminution of the industry.

In England coal was not generally employed in the smelting of iron until after the middle of the eighteenth century, and long before that the British forests had been largely destroyed. The result was that the British iron industry had declined, and in the early part of that century considerably more iron was imported than was made in England.

The countries which at this time were specially favoured in connection with the industry were those in which pure iron ores co-existed with extensive forests. This condition occurred especially in Germany, where the iron deposits formerly worked were those of the upland regions which have kept their forests till this day. Thus the wood and the ores of the Harz Mountains and of the Erzgebirge, or Iron Mountains, were of great importance before the industrial revolution, and up till the early part of the eighteenth century the German iron industry was more important than the British.

The replacement of charcoal by coal led to a great diminution of the cost of production, and permitted the use of low-grade ores, but it was not in itself a great improvement. Charcoal is a singularly pure form of carbon, and its use as the reducing agent gives a high quality of iron.

Coal, on the other hand, often contains impurities which spoil the iron, and have to be provided against in various ways. Not all coal, indeed, is suitable for iron smelting. The result is that where charcoal can still be obtained cheaply, as in the Scandinavian countries and in parts of Russia, it is still used in smelting, and the iron so produced is particularly valuable.

The original demand for iron, as we have seen, was very small, and even down to the middle of the eighteenth century remained insignificant. But with the use of machinery, the spread of railways, the replacement of wood by iron in s.h.i.+pbuilding and for the framework of buildings, etc., the demand in all civilised communities has become enormous, has become too great to permit of any forests supplying the necessary fuel. With the far increased demand has come an elaboration of methods which means very costly installations and much skill and training among the workers.

From the time of the industrial revolution till the present, then, a well-developed iron industry has demanded the following:--fuel, usually furnished by coal; an abundant supply of the ore, either furnished locally or easily obtained by water carriage, ores being so bulky that land carriage is rarely profitable; certain accessories, notedly limestone to serve as a flux, and ganister, a kind of sandstone used to form a lining in parts of the apparatus used; capital, necessary for the purchase and fitting up of the costly plant; the tradition and skill which come from the long practice of the industry.

The significance of these various necessaries may perhaps be realised by a few examples. Let us consider first the Mediterranean area. We have seen that it was civilised from a very early date, that a considerable part at least of that civilisation was indigenous, and that its early smiths showed no lack of skill. But with the advent of the age of iron its natural handicap became obvious. The forests of the region never had the luxuriance of those further north, and must have been early destroyed, and coal is virtually absent. Iron ores are present and are widely distributed; some, like those of Elba and of northern Spain, which is outside the area, are even rich; but the absence of fuel is a terrible handicap, and to its absence we must ascribe the present poverty and backwardness of Mediterranean countries.

It is to be noted, however, that electricity is coming to be used in smelting, and especially for making particular kinds of steel, used for special purposes. To generate this electricity water power is being used, and the appearance of small factories in the valleys of the Alpine border, both in France and Italy, perhaps marks the beginning of a change which will restore to some of the Mediterranean countries their ancient glory.

These small factories are not only employed in manufacturing high-grade steel, but also in making nitrogenous manure from the air, and in other processes. In the valleys in which they occur the inhabitants are forsaking their phylloxera-infested vineyards for the factories, and the a.s.sociation of the neglected land with the busy factories offers a very curious spectacle, and suggests that the twentieth century may see great changes in the present distribution of population.

Meantime this distribution has been almost everywhere in western Europe enormously influenced by the distribution of coal. Everywhere the coal has had an attractive influence, dragging population, wealth, and intelligence from the agricultural regions, even the fertile regions, to the vicinity of the coal measures, where alone great industries can be profitably established.

In Great Britain, where the coal-bearing beds are not only numerous, but in some instances crop out at the surface, coal seems to have been worked earlier than elsewhere in Europe. To its earlier utilisation of coal on a large scale Britain owes its long lead in the struggle for industrial supremacy, and we thus find the effect of coal upon the distribution of the population ill.u.s.trated in a more striking way here than elsewhere. Further, Great Britain is especially fortunate in that iron usually occurs in close proximity to coal, and that the other necessities for an iron industry are easily obtainable. Its position, sheltered by Ireland, gives it good ports, and it is rich in other minerals as well as in iron ores and coal.

The nature of the change introduced by the great industrial revolution may be realised, for example, by thinking of the great cathedrals of England, and noting how insignificant the towns in which they are placed are at the present day when compared with the great centres which have sprung up near the coalfields. Yet the very existence of these magnificent monuments of the past means that in the old days the towns in which they were placed were not only centres of population and of wealth, but had also prestige enough to draw men's eyes towards them.

Their very peace and cleanliness to-day means that the life of the nation is eddying round other centres. The emotions which found expression in their lofty spires now seek another outlet in the magnificent munic.i.p.al buildings, the art galleries, the hospitals, the universities and schools of the industrial centres.

The same lesson may be learnt by considering the county towns of some of the counties where the change wrought by the industrial revolution has been greatest. What do the towns of Alnwick, Durham, York, Lancaster, Appleby, Carlisle now signify beside the great towns in Yorks.h.i.+re and Lancas.h.i.+re, which depend for their existence upon the coalfields?

The great development of North America is similarly the product of the age of iron and coal, and therefore here also population tends to congregate round mineralised regions, and to be sucked away from the early centres, which were determined by other causes.

In brief we say that it is true generally of the civilised world that the attraction of the towns, of which we hear so much, is in reality the attraction of minerals, especially of coal and iron. This attractive power of minerals is no new thing. When the men armed with bronze or copper weapons and tools conquered those with stone implements, when iron was found to be better than all three, then first began that long process which now acts by sucking the countryman into the large industrial towns.

When coal became supremely important the small industries, previously scattered over the localities where some specially favourable conditions presented themselves, began to concentrate near the coalfields. With the cheap power they developed out of all proportion to their old state, and new industries were added to the old. Thus began that process which made the great manufacturing nations seek markets far beyond their own sh.o.r.es, and produce far in excess of their own needs. This, again, has led to enormous improvements in the means of communication. It must itself, however, be necessarily a more or less temporary phenomenon, to be replaced sooner or later by other conditions, as the new nations become manufacturers in their turn, and cease to offer unlimited markets to the old.

In regard to the localisation of industries, it is interesting to note that though the industries are attracted towards coal, local conditions generally determine which industry or industries shall prosper round a particular coalfield. The moist climate of Lancas.h.i.+re, with the relative proximity of the cotton supplies of the Southern United States, has determined the cotton industry of Lancas.h.i.+re. Once established the advantages a.s.sociated with a going concern make it very difficult for other districts to capture trade, even when they have greater natural advantages, _e. g._ the Southern States themselves are now manufacturing areas, but cannot compete on equal terms with Lancas.h.i.+re.

It is indeed remarkable that the proximity of raw material, except in cases when this is very bulky, as with ores, seems often to be of minor importance in localising industries. Thus, though Belfast may be said to owe its linen industry primarily to local supplies of flax, it is noticeable that the local supply is very limited, and several towns on the east coast of Scotland, as Dunfermline, Montrose, Arbroath, etc., have a flouris.h.i.+ng linen industry maintained entirely by imported raw material. A whole host of facts of this kind emphasise the importance of power in the case of a modern industry, as contrasted with the supreme importance of abundant raw material in the old days when man himself chiefly supplied the motive force.

In other words, modern industry has been very closely a.s.sociated with improved means of communication, which alone make it possible to carry cheap raw material over great distances, without excessive expense for freight. The study of the development of the means of communication is therefore a problem well worth the attention of the geographer, and is one which has many interesting facts to disclose.

Man himself is an animal relatively ill-adapted for continuous rapid movement or for the transport of goods. As a transport animal he is the costliest and most inefficient known, and were it not for the intelligence which enabled him first to utilise other animals for his own purposes, and later to find mechanical means, the progress of civilisation would have been impossible. Progress in Africa has been greatly checked by the fact that over a large area man is the only transport animal available, a fact which brings in its train the slave trade, and many other serious evils.

Except in certain special localities the surface of the earth is so uneven that progression, especially for a loaded man or animal, is very difficult except on a prepared surface. On the other hand, the diminution of friction over a water surface makes transport over it relatively easy. It has been pointed out that, as a result of this fact, the great civilisations have developed in regions where water transport was possible, and have involved the progressive utilisation of larger and larger ma.s.ses of water.

The first civilisations developed in river valleys, where water transport in one direction at least is very easy. The next stage was that which saw man settled on the sh.o.r.es of the great inland sea, and witnessed his gradual acquisition of greater and greater skill in navigation. As we have seen, he was soon not content with that sea alone, but launched out into the open, and, hugging the coastline, found his way to far Britain.

Only at a very much later date, however, did he conquer the vast Atlantic outside, which, as Prof. Myres points out, has now become a mere inland sea in its turn, when compared with the greater oceans beyond. To this day, however, the part which water transport plays in human life is reflected in the way in which the denser ma.s.ses of mankind cl.u.s.ter round the sh.o.r.es of the seas and oceans, as any map of the distribution of population will show.

In water transport the method of propelling the vessel employed is of great importance. In river navigation it is natural to allow the boat to drift with the current, and the use of a pole to steer with would naturally suggest its use as a paddle or oar in order to move against the current. In North America up till the appearance of the white man, the aborigines had not got past the paddle stage, in spite of the fact that they were very skilful navigators, and had a considerable variety of vessels.

The next stage is of course the sail, used by most races who venture on open water, as contrasted with flowing streams and rivers. Although before its virtual replacement by steam, the civilised races had carried the development of the sail to a very high pitch, yet the difficulties a.s.sociated with it militated against bold navigation, more especially in the early days when there was no science of meteorology. Thus it has been pointed out that the reason why the effective discovery of America was delayed so long was largely due to two meteorological facts. The first of these is that to the north, the place where the crossing is narrowest, the ice which streams down the west coast of Greenland, and even to this day presents difficulties to navigation off the coasts of Newfoundland, formed an effective barrier to early navigators. To the south the great difficulty was the constant north-east trade wind. What s.h.i.+p dare set out towards the unknown blown by a constant wind against which she could not return home again? To Columbus first, says Mr.

Mackinder, came the brilliant inspiration that, while travelling outwards with the trade, it would be possible to return with the westerly breezes of more northern lat.i.tudes.

When, later, the sail was functionally replaced by steam, man became virtually independent of the wind, and only the name of trade wind remains to carry us back to the period when the ocean breezes determined his movements and his commerce.

Turning now to the surface of the land, we may note that regions which are snow-covered in winter offer special facilities for rapid locomotion. In the northern part of North America, both in the tundra and the forest region, the aborigines used both snow-shoes and sledges.

The Eskimos to the north use dogs to draw their heavy sledges, but to the south the Indians used a lighter form of sledge, which was dragged by women, and therefore represents a much more primitive form of transport. Even down to the present time the conditions in Arctic America are such that transport facilities are very much greater in winter than in summer, except in regions close to navigable rivers.

Snow-sledges and snow-shoes of course occur also on the European side of the Atlantic to the north, but the domesticated reindeer replaces the dog in Lapland as the means of traction, though dogs are used in other parts of the tundra region of the old world.

Apart from snow-covered regions deserts afford another example of areas in which the surface is frequently so uniform that friction is greatly reduced, and rapid movement is possible without specially prepared tracks. In the Sahara, for example, which is far from being the waste of sand which is popularly imagined, there are great areas of almost level surface, where "the soil is firm and elastic, strewn with gravel, and like a garden walk." In Algiers it is possible to drive in high dog-carts over the plateau region in any direction, regardless of roads, and in parts of the North American desert the same thing is true. It has been suggested, indeed, that wheeled vehicles were invented by races living near desert regions, and that the invention thus preceded the making of roads.

In the general case, however, rapid movement is bound up with the existence of roads or tracks. In parts of North America, notably in the region south and east of the Great Lakes, where the rivers are generally unsuitable for navigation by very primitive forms of boats, the original Indian inhabitants mostly moved by means of "trails" through the woods.

These trails were the lines of migration of the larger mammals, especially of the bison, and it is a remarkable fact that the roads made later by the white immigrants sometimes followed these old trails, which proved to be the most convenient routes. This suggests one method in which roads and paths might originate, but the Indian trails, like the African negroes' paths through the forest, were excessively narrow and inconvenient.

Another stage in road evolution is well ill.u.s.trated in many mountain regions, _i. e._ in the less-frequented parts of the Alps. Here the mountains are crossed by narrow tracks, which die away at intervals and then reappear. They are chiefly used by the herdsmen and cattle, during the periodical migrations to the higher pastures, and this fact gives rise to certain peculiarities. Where the region traversed is very steep the path is usually well marked, and there may be even attempts to improve difficult parts so as to render it more practicable. When the ground becomes more level the path dies away, or divides up into a mult.i.tude of minor tracks. The reason is obvious. In the steep regions the cows must keep together, and their constant journeyings render the road well marked. It must also be easy enough to permit of the pa.s.sage of the animals, whose agility has its limits. Where the ground is level gra.s.s usually grows, and here the cattle spread out in all directions to feed, and the path naturally dies away. It may be marked on the map as going on to cross a col and so reach another valley, but as the number of persons making the traverse is likely to be small, the track is badly marked, as many a tourist has found to his cost.

From such tracks, which are little more than aids in crossing specially difficult areas, to the well-made roads which traverse the civilised countries of the world the gap is great, for, though the Romans made magnificent roads, after their time there was a rapid decay in the art, and the well-kept roads of the western countries of Europe are things but of yesterday.

With the development of tracks and roads, as distinct from a mere animal trail through the bush, there comes the possibility of using pack-animals and wheeled vehicles for transport. The two do not necessarily occur together. Thus in China and j.a.pan wheeled vehicles are drawn by human beings, though in China the wheelbarrows drawn by human porters have also sails to aid their propulsion.

The use of animals, whether as pack-animals or for traction, means a relatively high degree of civilisation, and means also a food supply normally more than enough for the human members of the community. In many parts of tropical Africa, despite the tropical luxuriance of many of the food plants, and the absence of winter, there is practically no food reserve, and the normal condition is that the whole group is within measurable reach of starvation, should any one of a whole series of probable or possible accidents happen to the plantations. Under such conditions large domestic animals, requiring great quant.i.ties of food, cannot be kept.

Again, where the population is dense, and all the land is required to grow food for man, it is not possible to set aside regions for the pasturage of domestic animals, whose numbers must necessarily then be small. This is true of China and j.a.pan, where domestic hoofed animals are few in number. The contrary condition is of course seen in new countries, like Australia and the Argentine, where there are far fewer men than sheep and cattle. The United States is beginning to pa.s.s from this condition, and there have been published already warnings to the community that it cannot go on giving up much of its fertile land to the growth of crops for its domestic animals, instead of for its citizens directly.

Of the domestic animals which have a.s.sisted man in the work of transport there can be no doubt that the horse is by far the most valuable. It is the strongest, the swiftest, and the best fitted for man's purposes. The camel, of which so much has been written, is in point of fact a poor subst.i.tute for the more valuable animal, rendered necessary by desert conditions. Among the other animals which have played their part as beasts of burden or of traction are many kinds of ox, including the yak of Tibet; the llama of South America; the elephant; the reindeer; the dog; and the animals which rank as horses to the zoologist though not to the owner--that is the a.s.s and the mule.

Just as the use of beasts of burden is an enormous improvement upon human porters, and that of wheeled vehicles upon beasts of burden, so is the use of steam an enormous improvement upon wheeled vehicles drawn by animals. Railways have practically revolutionised the problem of land transport, though their cost, especially in countries of marked relief, is a great drawback to their universal use. The last few years have seen in the development of motor-driven vehicles a new change, which has given back to the roads their old importance, and which will probably in the future greatly aid the development of new countries, and take from the railways some of their importance. It is too soon yet to say whether the last development of means of transport, the aeroplane, is destined to affect greatly man's movements and methods of exchanging commodities.

In connection with means of communication a few words must be said about towns and their position, a subject in which the "new geography" has been greatly interested. In this chapter we have a.s.sumed that the progress of civilisation means, and has always meant, an increasing desire on the part of man for freedom of movement, and an increasing number of wants, which have led in their turn to an increasing desire for the exchange of commodities. The desire to possess efficient tools and weapons first attracted him, as we have seen, to the localities where useful minerals occurred. The new powers so obtained increased his desires, and also his mobility, and tended to make him cl.u.s.ter round the spots where his new desires could best be gratified. At a very early stage the desire to exchange commodities must have led to the founding of towns, whose number and size have increased with the pa.s.sage of time.

Of the various causes which have led to the founding of towns at certain spots, some are obvious. That which has always attracted most attention perhaps is the fortress town, placed on some rocky peak, and commanding a well-marked route. But though such towns are imposing, and seem easily explained, it is obvious that at no stage of his history has warfare been man's chronic state. Even at the worst period, if there had been no busy group of traders at the foot of the fortress-crowned rock, its significance could only have been trifling, and almost all fortress towns show, in the proximity of another agglomeration more suited to normal human activities, that the fortress itself was always rather spectacular than significant. Edinburgh, with the old city sloping down to the plain from the great rock, Carca.s.sonne with the real city some distance from the theatrical erection on the hill, are two examples which ill.u.s.trate this fact.

One or two of the chief economic causes of towns may be noted. They tend to occur where there is a "break of bulk" in goods being carried from one region to another. Such break of bulk now takes place at the great ports where the liners unload, but in the old days the small s.h.i.+ps came up the rivers with the tide, and towns tended to occur at the tidal limit, as, _e. g._ at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Towns tend also to occur near natural obstacles to easy transport. Thus we have in England a great number of "bridge towns," placed at the point where an important river was easily bridged or forded, and thus where co-operative effort was necessary to smooth over an obstacle. Towns tend to occur also where two regions of different natural products meet, for here the inhabitants of the two regions meet for the purpose of exchange of goods. Milan, at the foot of the Alps and yet in the plain, is a good example, for the products of the plains are not those of the mountains.

Many cities owe their origin and their fame to some event, often some religious a.s.sociation which draws great numbers of pilgrims and others.

It is often doubtful, however, to what extent the supposed cause is the real cause of the city's importance. Not every saint founds a city, not every holy city keeps its fame, and in the struggle for existence those cities will persist whose natural advantages are greatest.

Another very important cause of cities is a junction of routes, for this means that many different types of merchandise will pa.s.s this way, and will give abundant raw material for many minor industries. London is a good example of a town upon which many routes converge, these being both land routes and water routes.