Influences of Geographic Environment Part 63

73-78. Leipzig, 1901.

[1226] W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, p. 438. New York, 1899.

[1227] _Ibid._, Maps pp. 143, 147, text p. 148.

[1228] E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, pp. 106-109. Boston, 1907.

[1229] W.Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 249-253. New York, 1899.

[1230] _Ibid._, p. 282 and cartogram, p. 284.

[1231] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, p. 201. London, 1905. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. I, p. 295. Oxford, 1907.

[1232] Census of India, 1901, Ethnographic Appendices, Vol. I, p. 60, by H. H. Risley, Calcutta, 1903. C. A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British Borderland, pp. 341-353. London, 1906.

[1233] B. Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, Vol. II, Part 1, p. 294. Paris, 1903.

[1234] George Adam Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, pp.

383, 384, 391-400, 407, 409. New York, 1897.

[1235] Wilhelm Deecke, Italy, pp. 20, 21. London, 1904.

[1236] Francis Younghusband, The Heart of a Continent, pp. 150, 194, 199. London, 1904.

[1237] E.F. Knight, Where Three Empires Meet, pp. 12, 88, 157-159, 231.

London, 1897.

[1238] _Ibid._, pp. 173, 177.

[1239] Sir Thomas Holdich, India, map p. 85, pp. 86, 89. London, 1905.

[1240] Vambery, _Reise in Mittelasien,_ pp. 371-375. Leipzig, 1973.

[1241] C.A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British Borderland, p. 136.

London, 1906.

[1242] O.P. Crosby, Tibet and Turkestan, pp. 112-116. New York, 1903.

[1243] Elisee Reclus, Asia, Vol. II, pp. 50-51. C.A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British Borderland, pp. 146-148, 152, 157, 300-303.

London, 1906.

[1244] _Ibid._, pp. 326-327.

[1245] _Ibid._, pp. 4, 61-64, 310-311.

[1246] _Bella Gallico,_ Book III, chap. I.

[1247] Strabo, Book IV, chap. VI, 1, 11.

[1248] Strabo, Book IV, chap. VI, 10.

[1249] Sir Thomas Holdich, The Indian Borderland, p. 48. London, 1909.

[1250] H.R. Mill, International Geography, p. 467. New York, 1902.

[1251] Pallas, Travels Through the Southern Provinces of Russia, Vol. I, p. 431. London, 1812.

[1252] E.A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, Vol. I, pp.

286-287. London, 1882.

CHAPTER XVI

INFLUENCES OF A MOUNTAIN ENVIRONMENT

[Sidenote: Zones of alt.i.tude.]

There are zones of lat.i.tude and zones of alt.i.tude. To every mountain region both these pertain, resulting in a nice interplay of geographic factors. Every mountain slope from summit to piedmont is, from the anthropo-geographical standpoint, a complex phenomenon. When high enough, it may show a graded series of contrasted complementary locations, closely interdependent grouping of populations and employments, every degree of density from congestion to vacancy, every range of cultural development from industrialism to nomadism. The southern slope of the Monte Rosa Alps, from the glacier cap at 4500 meters to the banks of the Po River, yields within certain limits a zonal epitome of European life from Lapland to the Mediterranean. The long incline from the summit of Mount Everest (8840 meters) in the eastern Himalayas, through Darjeeling down to sea level at Calcutta, comprises in a few miles the climatic and cultural range of Asia from Arctic to Tropic.

[Sidenote: Politico-economic value of varied relief.]

For the state, a territory of varied relief is highly beneficial, because it combines manifold forms of economic activity, a wide range of crops, areas of specialized production mutually interdependent. It induces a certain balance of urban and lief, rural life, which contributes greatly to the health of the state.[1253] The steep slopes of Dai Nippon, fertile only under spade tillage, will forever insure j.a.pan the persistence of a numerous peasantry. For geological and geographical reasons, as from national motives, therefore, j.a.pan will probably never sacrifice its farmer to its industrial cla.s.s, as England has done. On the other hand, contrasted reliefs on a great territorial scale tend to invade political solidarity. Tidewater and mountain Virginia were poor running-mates for a century before the Civil War, and then the mountain region broke out of harness. Geographical contrasts made the unification of Germany difficult, and yet they have added to the economic and national strength of the Empire. The history of Switzerland shows the high Alpine cantons always maintaining a political tug of war with the cantons of the marginal plain, and always suffering a defeat which was their salvation.

[Sidenote: Relief and climate.]

The chief effect of a varied relief is a varied climate. This changes with alt.i.tude in much the same way as with lat.i.tude. Heat and absolute humidity diminish, generally speaking, as height increases, while rainfall becomes greater up to a certain level. The effect of ascending and descending currents of air is to diminish the range of temperature on mountain slopes and produce rather an oceanic type of climate. The larger and more uniform a climatic district, the more conspicuously do even slight elevations form climatic islands, like the Harz Mountains in the North German lowlands. A land of monotonous relief has a uniform climate, while a region rich in vertical articulations is rich also in local varieties of climate.[1254] A highland of considerable elevation forms a cold district in the Temperate Zone, a temperate one in the Tropics, and a moist one in a desert or steppe. Especially in arid and torrid belts does the value of elevation for human life increase.

[Sidenote: Alt.i.tude zones of economic and cultural development.]

The highlands of Mexico, South America and the Himalayan rim of India show stratified zones of tropical, temperate, and arctic climate, to which plant, animal and human life conform. The response is conspicuous in the varying density of population in the successive alt.i.tude zones.

Central Asia shows a threefold cultural stratification of its population, each attended by the appropriate density, according to location in steppe, piedmont and mountain. The steppes have their scattered pastoral nomads; the piedmonts, with their irrigation streams, support sedentary agricultural peoples, concentrated at focal points in commercial and industrial towns; the higher reaches of the mountains are occupied by spa.r.s.e groups of peasants and shepherds, wringing from upland pasture and scant field a miserable subsistence. The same stratification appears in the Atlas Mountains, intensified on the southern slope by the contrast between the closely populated belt of the piedmont and the wandering Tuareg tribes of the Sahara on the one hand, and the spa.r.s.e Berber settlements of the Atlas highlands on the other.

The long slope of Mount Kilimanjaro in German East Africa descends to a coastal belt of steppe and desert, inhabited by Swahili cattle-breeders.

Its piedmont, from 1000 feet above the plain up to 2400 feet, const.i.tutes a zone of rich irrigated plantations and gardens, densely populated by peaceful folk of mingled Bantu and Hamitic blood. At 6000 feet, where forests cease, are found the kraals, cattle, sheep and goats of the semi-nomadic Masai of doubtful Hamitic stock, who raid the coastal lowlands for cattle, and purchase all their vegetable food from the tillage belt.[1255] [See maps page 105 and 487.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DENSITY OF POPULATION IN ITALY.]

This stratification a.s.sumes marked variations in the different geographical zones. In Greenland life is restricted to the piedmont coastal belt; above this rises the desert waste of the ice fields.

Norway shows a tide-washed piedmont, containing a large majority of the population; above this, a steep slope spa.r.s.ely inhabited; and higher still, a wild plateau summit occupied in summer only by grazing herds or migrant reindeer Lapps. Farther south the Alps show successive tiers of rural economy, again with their appropriate density of settlement. On their lower slope is found the vineyard belt, a region of highly intensive tillage, large returns upon labor, and hence of closely distributed settlement. Above that is the zone of field agriculture, less productive and less thickly peopled. Higher still is the wide zone of hay farming and stock-raising, supporting a spa.r.s.e, semi-nomadic population and characterized by villages which diminish with the alt.i.tude and cease beyond 2000 meters. On Aetna, located in the tropical Mediterranean, three girdles of alt.i.tude have long been recognized,--the girdle of agriculture, the forest belt, and the desert summit. But the tourist who ascends Aetna, pa.s.ses from the coast through a zone of orange and lemon groves, which are protected by temporary matting roofs against occasional frosts; then through vineyards and olive orchards which rise to 800 meters; then through a belt of summer crops rising to 1550 meters, and varied between 1400 and 1850 meters elevation by stretches of chestnut groves, whose green expanse is broken here and there by the huts of the forest guards, the highest tenants of the mountain. From these lonely dwellings down to the sea, density of population increases regularly to a maximum of over 385 to the square mile (150 to the square kilometer) near the coast.

[Sidenote: Alt.i.tude and density belts in tropical highlands.]

In the tropical highlands of Mexico, Central and South America, on the other hand, concentration of population and its concomitant cultural development begin to appear above the 2000 meter line. Here are the chief seats of population. Mexico has three recognized alt.i.tude zones, the cold, the temperate and the hot, corresponding to plateau, high slopes and coastal piedmont up to 1000 meters or 3300 feet; but the first two contain nine-tenths of the people. While the plateau has in some sections a population dense as that of France, the lowlands are spa.r.s.ely peopled by wild Indians and lumbermen. Ecuador has three-fourths of its population crowded into the plateau basins (mean elevation 8000 feet or 2500 meters), enclosed by the ranges of the Andes. Peru presents a similar distribution, with a comparatively dense population on a plateau reaching to 11,000 feet (3500 meters) or more, though its coastal belt, being healthful, dry, and fairly well supplied with irrigation streams from the Andes, is better developed than any other similar district in tropical America.[1256] In Bolivia, 72 per cent of the total population live at an alt.i.tude of 6000 to 14,000 feet, while five out of the nine most densely peopled provinces lie at elevations over 11,000 feet.[1257] [See map page 9.]

From Mexico to central Chile, the heavy rains from the trade-winds clothe the slopes with dense forests, except on the lee side of the high Andean wall of Peru and Chile, and reduce much of the piedmont to malarial swamp and jungle. The discouragement to primitive tillage found in the unequal fight with a tropical forest, the dryer, more bracing and healthful climate of the high intermontane basins, their favorable conditions for agriculture by irrigation, and their naturally defined location stimulating to early cultural development, all combined to concentrate the population of prehistoric America upon the high valleys and plateaus. In historic times these centers have persisted, because the civilized or semi-civilized districts could be best exploited by the Spanish conquerors and especially because they yielded rich mineral wealth. Furthermore, the white population which has subsequently invaded tropical America has to a predominant degree reinforced the native plateau populations, while the imported negroes and mulattoes have sought the more congenial climatic conditions found in the hot lowlands.

[Sidenote: Increasing density with motive of protection.]