':V.V: ' Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/humangeography22smit Fig. 1 A scene in which elevation divides the land into zone's. In the lowest part of the valley, alfalfa, beets, barley, and wheat are grown. On the slopes above the valley floor and below the upper irrigation ditch, there are groves of almond and walnut trees, and orchards of peaches, apricots, oranges, and lemons. Many of the orchards are in blossom. Above the irrigation ditch, cattle and sheep pasture on the lower slopes and in the open forests. On the higher slopes are snowfields that furnish water for power and irrigation. The electric trans- mission line carries power to the distant city. Where might such a scene as this occur? What can you tell about the climate in such a region? How many kinds of food production are shown in this picture? Clarence Lehr, Principal, Gilbert School, Phila- delphia, Pa. Walter Lefferts, Principal, William B. Hanna Public School, Philadelphia, Pa. C. S. Lyman, State Normal School, Framingham, Mass. This book is on a new plan. Indeed, it is so new that I have not dared to publish it without first having the plan approved by many teachers and then having the lessons tried out in actual classes. I have thus received much advice from experienced teachers who have taught parts of this book in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Their assurance that the plan of the book works well in class and that the lessons are easily teachable has been a satisfaction and a stimulus in the completion of this book. 1. For counsel as to the soundness of the plan I am indebted to: Isaiah Bowman, Director, American Geograph- ical Society, New York City. Rose Lees Hardy, Director of Primary Instruc- tion, Washington, D. C. Elizabeth A. Hummer, Teacher of Geography, James O. Wilson Normal School, Washington, D. C. Margaret J. McCoy, Teacher of Geography, Philadelphia Normal School, Philadelphia, Pa. Walter S. Tower, late Professor of Geography, University of Chicago. Now Commercial Attache, American Embassy, London. 2. For teaching sections of the book in class: Carrie Adler, Oak Lane Country Day School, Philadelphia, Pa. Susan A. Bockius, Principal, Edward T. Steel Public School, Philadelphia, Pa. Florence A. Doyle, Principal, James Wilson Public School, Philadelphia, Pa. Henrietta Denney Kelley, James Wilson Public School, Philadelphia, Pa. Lucia Harrison, Instructor in Geography, Western State Normal College, Kalamazoo, Mich. Caroline W. Hotchkiss, Horace Mann School, New York City. 3. For the criticism of particular sections of the manuscript: Robert G. Buzzard, Head of Department of Geography, State Teachers College, DeKalb, 111. Carl C. Case, Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Cincinnati. Cora Caverno, Copernicus Public School, Chicago, 111. J. E. Conner, late U. S. Consul, Leningrad (Petrograd) Chicago, 111. Georgiana F. Hatch, Copernicus Public School, Chicago, 111. C. W. Freeman, Stockton High School, Stockton, Calif. Fred. W. Hiatt, Head, Department of Geogra- phy, Tempe Normal School, Tempe, Ariz. Sarah Ella Jeffries, Western State Normal School, Bowling Green, Ky. Clarence F. Jones, Assistant Instructor in Geography, University of Chicago. Robert H. Lane, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, Los Angeles, Calif. Myrta L. McClellan, Instructor in Geography and Chairman Department of Geography, Southern Branch, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif. David Olson, Professor of Geography and Geology, Kent State Normal College, Kent, Ohio. A. G. White, Assistant Professor of Geography University of Pennsylvania. Copyright, 1921, 1922, 1924, by The John C. Winston Company Entered at Stationers' Hall, London All rights reserved P-ll-25 PRINTED IN U. S. A. Mary F. Kirchwey, Horace Mann School, New York City. Mabel C. Stark, Head of Department of Geog- raphy, State Normal School, Salem, Mass. J. A. Strong, Principal, Public Schools, Oak Park, 111. Bessie Dalton, Milford School, Cleveland, Ohio. Hazel Conley, Milford School, Cleveland, Ohio. Stella Hughes, Milford School, Cleveland, Ohio. Caroline Weber, Milford School, Cleveland, Ohio. J. P. Rowe, Professor of Geology and Director of Summer Quarter, State University of Mon- tana, Missoula, Mont. Deforest Stull, Head of the Geography De- partment, Northern Michigan State Normal College, Marquette, Mich. Robert M. Brown, Professor of Economic Geography and Geology, Rhode Island College of Education, Providence, R. I. Magnolia Scoville, Critic Teacher of East Carolina Training School, Greenville, N. C. Esther S. Anderson, Instructor in Geology and Geography, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb. Charles F. Watson, Head of the Department of Geography, State Normal School, Stevens Point, Wis. Lewis F. Thomas, Assistant Professor of Geog- raphy, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. Eliza M. Rabbette, Harriman School, Hudson, Mass. William Sims Allen, Professor of Primary Education, Baylor University, Waco, Tex. E. J. Saunders, Assistant Professor of Geology and'v-Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash. 4. For assistance in preparing the questions: Edwin W. Adams, District Superintendent of Schools, Philadelphia, Pa. ( 'i 5 % William B. Nichols, West Philadelphia High School, Philadelphia, Pa. Bertha A. Jenkins, Henry C. Lea School of Practice, Philadelphia, Pa. Elizabeth A. Hummer, Teacher of Geography, James O. Wilson Normal School, Washington, D. C. Mary E. Kelton, Chestnut Hill Country Day School, Philadelphia, Pa. 5. For criticism of English: George Hayes, Robert College, Constantinople, Turkey. Mabel Dodge Holmes, William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pa. 6. For advice as to maps and regional boundaries: Isaiah Bowman, Director, American Geograph- ical Society, New York City. Walter S. Tower, late Professor of Geography, University of Chicago. Now Commercial Attache, American Embassy, London. Col. Lawrence Martin, Department of State, Washington, D. C. John E. Orchard, Instructor in Economic Geography, Columbia University, New York City. O. E. Baker, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 7. And finally, from beginning to end of a long and laborious task, I have received cogent suggestions from: Ezra Allen, late Supervisor of Geography, Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, and Editor for The John C. Winston Co. Everett G. Rodebaugh, my able secretary and assistant. Henrietta Stewart Smith, my wife, skilled in juvenile psychology, who has helped me with three or more revisions of each of the eighty- two chapters of this book. J. Russell Smith, Columbia University, New York City. Jan. 14, 1922. ) \ "i Geography has long been regarded as the natural center around which the curriculum develops. How should this central subject be presented? I. There should be an introductory frame- work of observational and place geography. II. Then Regional-Human Geography should follow. Regional Geography is the study of the world by divisions that have unity with regard to the conditions affecting human life. For a number of years, pro- gressive teachers have insisted that the re- gional method should be used in teaching geography in the elementary schools of the United States. The regional method has been discussed at educational meetings and by educational journals, and there have been attempts to apply it in prescribed or proposed courses of study. It is already being used successfully in many of the higher schools of the United States, despite the scarcity of suitable texts. A recent canvass of teachers revealed the strong sentiment in favor of it. “Should Book Two of the Human Geog- raphy Series be based on political units, or on natural (economic) regions?” I put that question to a group of expert teachers of geography in elementary schools, and in a normal school in a large city. Every teacher in the group voted by secret written ballot for the regional, instead of the political unit. Why teach Regional Geography in the grades? A. Regional Geography is an addition to geographic knowledge. — First, we must teach children about their home, which is in a rural or in an urban locality. It is also in a county, a state, a country. Yet more, it is in a natural region. This last is the new element and a little thought will show that the natural region in which a modern man lives is the fact that often decides his occu- pation, and perhaps his future prosperity. Most of the American geographers were trained first in geology, then they specialized in physiography, which is the minute study of just how the forces of nature shaped every mountain, hill, valley, and sandspit of the earth’s crust. Overlooking human use, men with such training sometimes tell us that the units of study in regional geography should be physiographic regions; a coastal plain, for example, should be a region even if one end is swamp and the other end is desert. This book is Regional-Hum^ ,i Geography. The center of classification is man, not phys- iography or any of the other elements. The diagram shows the relationship of sciences to Human Geography. People are the most interesting and important things in the world. This book, more than any other geographic text, tells of human action, of the world as the home of man. It contains physiography, economics, history, and other sciences, but it presents them always as they affect man, and help him to live in his region. B. Political Regions are arbitrary and accidental; Natural Regions are scientific . — Wars, elections, acts of legislature, or even the whims of one man at a desk may change the political map any day. Take the South Atlantic group of states. What states are in the group? Do Delaware and Maryland belong? Yes, they do, now. Recently they have been moved in from the Middle Atlantic States. It happened that a statistical gentleman in the Bureau of the Census at Washington wrote the words “Delaware” and “Maryland” in another column be- cause that happened to be statistically con- venient. You will hunt long before you will find anything that these states grouped thus arbitrarily have in common and that other states do not share. When you are interested in the life of man on the earth there is no reason for studying these particular states as a group. What can be said of the South Atlantic States as a whole, as they are now grouped by the census man? A part of their area is beautiful mountains; another part rolling piedmont; another part a rich coastal plain. Because of the circumstances of soil, surface, and climate, the people living in the moun- tains think in terms of mountain farms, of coal, of lumber, and of the tourists who visit the tefreshing uplands. The people of the warmer sections grow cotton, buy cot- ton, sell cotton, think in terms of cotton. Indeed, most of their prosperity depends upon cotton. In speaking of this group of states, or even of one state, we instinctively talk about one of these parts or natural regions at a time. We instinctively use the regional method. Regional geography treats of these natural regions, — mountains, the piedmont, the cotton belt, each as a geo- graphic unit — a region — a human-use region. C. Regional Geography is the scientific method. — Science classifies knowledge by putting together things that are alike. If we were thinking primarily of government when we study geography, then a county, or a state, or a group of states would be a good unit. But we are thinking primarily about the earth as the home of man, and for that purpose the political unit is the wrong classifi- cation. Man living on the earth lives in relation to a corn belt, a wheat region, a trade or manufacturing region; to semi-arid pastures, or to some other natural region. Hence classification of regions by human use is the scientific method for the study of geography for the children of America. D. Regional Geography is the method of business thinking. — Practical men think in terms of Regional Geography. They do so because they must. For years business men and economic writers have been talking about the “Cotton Belt,” the “Corn Belt,” the “Wheat Region,” and about other producing regions of the world. Why is this? It is because men, thinking of business, must think in terms of regions of production. To use states alone (political geography) con- fuses economic understanding, because most states are parts of several natural regions. E. Regional-Human Geography helps eco- nomic understanding. — Men are learning more and more that business, politics, national policy, even peace and war, are largely mat- ters of economics, and that economics rests in large part on a geographic basis. When we understand why one part of our country is corn land, worth over $200 an acre, and why another part is ranch land, worth less than $20 an acre, and why one region forges ahead in manufacturing and another manu- factures but little, then we have made a great stride in economic understanding. The modern trading man (all of us are trad- ing men) needs more and more to know why certain regions are cotton, lumber, or factory regions, and why his own region may or may not be expected to have trade with certain other regions. Geography, studied by Human Use Regions, can emphasize these things. F. Regional Geography saves time. — Con- sider one region, the land of light rain and wide ranches east of the Rocky Mountains, where pasture is the chief resource of man. These pasture plains extend from Mexico northward across the Rio Grande through state after state until finally they include a part of Canada. When we have described this vast region of ranches we have at the same time described parts of many states and of three countries. It would be foolish to repeat the de- scription of these plains for each separate state, group of states, or country when the entire region can be treated as a geographic whole. G. Regional-Human Geography uses com- parison. — One of the early astronomers is said to have claimed the discovery of an elephant on the moon — but a friend reached up and took a fly out of his primitive tele- scope. The ancient astronomer had nothing with which to compare his discovery. It is too often thus with the knowledge children get of foreign countries. We learn by com- paring the unknown with the known. Com- parison aids memory and understanding. Regional Geography makes comparison easy. When we have fully explained the California climate and its resulting fruit industries, the child can easily understand each of the four other similar regions in five other continents. Regional-Human Geography gives the child a wonderful set of standards for comparison. III. The Applied Science method. — The systematic science method used in the old geographies begins by teaching about weather, climate, streams, trade, industries, and the other big abstract ideas. After the child has acquired all of these abstract princi- ples, he is then supposed to be able to apply i them to the study of geography and to the various countries of the world. This German systematic science method has bored tens of thousands of children, and has given thou- sands of teachers a headache. The new pedagogy uses the applied science method, the method by which children naturally learn. This method gives the facts first and lets the ideas develop from the facts. The great teachers of all ages have used this method. ACsop used it in telling his fables. By the method of telling fact before ideas we can teach more ideas than could possibly be taught by the older method which was devised by adults for adults. This book presents scientific facts at places where they do something; where they function as natural parts of an explanation. By the use of the applied science and expla- nation method the child more easily re- members both the science and the thing explained, whether a part of the earth’s sur- face or of man’s work is considered. IV. Explanation helps memory. — In the past, geography has too often been taught as mere unexplained memory work. The regional method is a great aid to memory because it puts reason back of the scraps of Political Geography and makes unities of them. It is easy to remember things that we understand. V. Fundamental civics. — The child who masters this text has opportunity to absorb the two greatest civic concepts that his generation can have: (a) a sense of the obligation of individuals to larger groups, and (b) a sense of the interdependence of men and of nations. VI. The link between geography and his- tory. — This book contains many vital bits of history because a knowledge of historic events is necessary to a complete under- standing of human geography. It is equally true also that history is only a jumble of facts unless the student has acquired the nec- essary background of Regional Geography. Human Geography knits Regional Geography and History together, and helps the pupil better to understand both subjects. VII. Pictures that teach. — Pictures should be to the text what jewels are to the setting. Teachers will find unusual teaching value in the pictures in this book. To attain this end we have often rejected hundreds of pictures to one which has been accepted. VIII. The Regional-Human method makes Political Geography alive and full of mean- ing. — Political Geography is not sacrificed because emphasis is laid upon natural regions. Indeed, it is necessary to teach the old style Political Geography when we are teaching Regional Geography. For instance, to locate the Cotton Belt we must show that it is in such and such states. The regional maps are political maps too. The book contains in addition a full set of new political maps of the best type. Regional-Human Geography takes a great forward stride in interpreting Political Geog- raphy. It puts meaning into a new Political Geography because it shows the influence of different types of governments upon the lives of peoples. The Human Geography treatment of the efficient democracy of Den- mark, the strong central government of Japan, the weakness and disturbance in China and Mexico, and the chaos of African tribes, emphasizes the relation between gov- ernment and the welfare of peoples. IX. Maps that are simple. — Since a map carries more information than any other page of print yet invented, the map-maker is tempted to overload. When the child studies an overloaded map, his mind cannot easily grasp the specific data required because there is so much else to see. Hence he is confused. By having each map show a few things, our maps are made to meet the new pedagogical demand for simplicity. X. The future. — This book discusses the undeveloped resources of regions in such a way that future possibilities of each part of the world are glimpsed. Our idea of the further development of our home region and of other regions will often greatly influence our actions. A study of the future broadens one’s economic understanding. XI. A Manual for the teacher. — To teachers using this text, the publishers, upon request, will send free, a Manual which contains new teaching helps, additional problems and questions, definite references to supplemen- tary reading, and other material that will help the teacher to make geography a living subject, one that holds the children as a game holds them. Every teacher should write for one to The John C. Winston Co., Publishers, 1006 Arch St., Philadelphia, Pa. (vi) 1. Something in which all races are alike. — People differ from each other in race, in color, and in the kinds of places in which they live. Yet all mankind is alike in having six needs. Every man in the world needs (1) food, (2) fuel with which to cook the food, (3) a house or some other form of shelter. (4) clothes to wear, (5) tools to help him make and carry goods, and (6) luxuries or ornaments to please his sense of beauty and his love of ornament, of power, or of play. Name two of each class In having these six needs all men are brothers. No matter of what color or race a man may be, he struggles to get these needed things. The things themselves are very different among different peoples, but every people has some of all six kinds. The Eskimo needs more clothes than does the black man in the hot forest near the equa- tor. The black man Courtesy Olive D. Campbell Fig. 3. Spinning threads into yarn at the cabin door. When did your ancestors spin that way? ( 1 ) does not need a warm house, but he needs a leaf shelter to keep off the sun and the rain. Every race makes tools for the work that has to be done, and every tribe and people has its sports, games, and playthings. 2. Different ways of meeting the needs. — Men in different places get the six kinds of needful things in many, many different ways. The world has so many kinds of land and so many kinds of climate, that men have found various materials to use. Since men have learned how to build railroads and steam- ships and automobiles, they can travel easily and can get the needed materials from widely separated parts of the earth. It has been only a few decades that it has been possible to go to the stores and buy so many kinds of things. Not long ago the people of each neighborhood had to make nearly all of the things they used. There are still a few places like that. 2 INTRODUCTION Courtesy Olive D. Campbell Fig. 4. Plowing a hillside field to plant corn in the tractor (Fig. 17) be of much use on such land? What this field? (Fig. 82.) 3. Life far back in the mountains. — When the author of this book was a col- lege student he visited such a home in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. From the railroad station he had to ride for a whole day on horseback along a narrow path that followed a creek. Sometimes, because high hills rose on each side, the valley was so narrow and steep that the horse had to walk in the creek. There was no level land on the hilltops, and very little in the valleys. Once in a while a valley would widen out enough to make room for a little field near a cabin. At evening the traveler reached the home where Dave Douglas lived with his wife and five children. Dave had cut trees from the forest to make the small, one-roomed cabin which sheltered the family. Behind the house were his garden, his small field of corn, and his many acres of forest. The floor and the door of the cabin were made of boards hewn out of logs. Even the latch on the door was made of wood. The window was just a hole cut in the side of the wall. Dave had no glass to put in it; instead he used a piece of board, which could be pushed over the hole when it rained or the wind blew cold. There was no stove; only a hearth on which an open fire could be made. In the fireplace hung an iron pot in which food might be boiled. For frying, there were two skillets which hung on pegs beside the fire. The plates used by the family were wooden and homemade. The only things that had been bought were axes, a gun, powder and shot, steel traps, three hoes, a spin- ning wheel, knives and forks, pot and skillets, a tin bucket, a dishpan, salt, blue overalls and jackets for the men, cotton dresses for the women, needles and thread, and fishhooks. 4. Home-raised food. — For breakfast the family ate corn cakes and salt pork, and sometimes eggs. They fried the pork in a skillet over the open fire. They mixed cornmeal with water in the dishpan, and then baked it in the other skillet. Their dinner was like their breakfast, except that they added boiled potatoes and cabbage, and some blackberries which they had picked from bushes at the edge of the woods. Supper was the same as breakfast, unless one of the older children was lucky enough to shoot some squirrels in the woods, in which case the whole family had fried squir- rel. Alf, Dave’s fifteen-year-old boy, care- fully skinned all the squirrels that were brought home, because tanned squirrel skins made good shoestrings and harness thongs. Dave owned two dogs, a cow, two oxen, twelve pigs, some sheep, and some chickens. They used corn to make bread for themselves, and to feed the cattle and the sheep when the snow covered the ground, and the animals themselves could get no food. The pigs roamed the woods, and got their own living by eating acorns and hickory nuts, and by digging up roots with their stout noses. An ox pulled the wooden plow that was used in the cornfield. He also pulled the narrow wooden sled that served for a wagon on which the family hauled corn and wood. In the autumn, Dave and Alf drove one ox away down the valley path, many miles, until they finally came to the railroad. Courtesy Olive D. Campbell Mountains. Would a will a hard rain do to THE SIX NEEDS OF ALL MANKIND 3 Courtesy Southern Railway Fig. 5. Preparing a level field for the spring planting. Can a man produce more corn in a season in this field or in the field in Fig 4? Why? Here they sold the ox to a cattle dealer. They could spare the ox, because his younger brother would be big enough to take his place at plowing the next spring. 5. Homemade clothes. — As they trudged back up the mountain path to their home, Dave and Alf car- ried many small things bought with the money received for the ox. But they did not have enough money to pay for warm woolen clothes for winter. Dave’s wife, Sallie, had to make these with the help of Mary, the oldest daughter. When the women had done the cooking and cleaning and had worked the garden, they always had spinning to do. After they had made the wool of the sheep into yam on the spinning wheel, they knitted socks by hand. Sometimes they wove the yarn into warm cloth on the handloom. At other times they made caps of raccoon and squirrel skins, for they needed skin caps to keep all the Douglas heads warm in the frosty winter. The father made the shoes from a cowskin, to secure which he had traded four lambs to one of his neighbors. Thus did these people provide themselves with food, fuel, clothes, tools, and transportation. In the whole year the only things this family had to sell were the ox and the skins of some skunks and foxes. They could not even sell the wood on their lands, because they lived so far from a railroad that they could not have earned ten cents a day if they hauled wood down to the train. Since they had so little to sell, they could not buy much. 6. When every neighborhood supplied its own needs. — Some people in every continent are still living as the Douglas family lived. They can be found in out-of-the-way places even in Europe. Indeed, that is how most of the people in all the world have had to get along most of the time since men lived in caves. At one time nearly all the families in the United States supplied their own needs. Now most of us live differently, because every family has many helpers. 7. Who are our helpers? — Isn’t it fair to say that the people who make things for us are our helpers? They help us by making things we use, and we help them by sending other things in return. The trade that now is possible by ship and train makes distant men our helpers. Let us see who are some of the helpers of the children who come to this school. What do the people in this neigh- borhood eat for breakfast? Where is the food made? Let us see how many different states and countries and kinds of people are neighbors and helpers to us by helping with our food, our fuel, our clothes, and our houses. Write on the blackboard a list of the articles that we use, the states and countries from which they come, and the kinds of people that help by making them. Make another list which will show the things that are sent from the neighborhood of this school in return for the many things we receive here. QUESTIONS 1. How did Dave Douglas provide his family with food, fuel and shelter? 2. Suggest from Figure 3 the method used by Sallie and Mary Douglas in making clothing for the family. 3. Would you rather live in your home or as the Douglas family lived? Why? 4. What are raw materials? Prepare a list showing 4 INTRODUCTION the raw materials from which your six needs are supplied. Arrange your list as follows: Raw Materials Used in Supplying Me with Food. Fuel. Shelter. Clothing. TOOL9. Luxuries. make candles; the boy Lincoln read his few books by firelight. The few things they got by trade came in wagons over the Allegheny Mountains to Pittsburgh, and down the Ohio in fiatboats. 5. How did the early Puritans supply their needs? 6. How does the Indian of the Great North Woods provide himself with the necessities of life? the Eski- mo? the black man of the tropics? 7. Name some things which you think Mary and Alf Douglas may have known how to do better than you; that you know how to do better than they. 8. Tell a story in which you imagine that all means of transportation and communication have been shut off between your neighborhood and the Tell of the diffieul- might arise, and would meet 9. Name and out on the countries of all the peo- ple who have helped your school by makingsome- ching someone in it has used- 10. Study closely Figs. 2,4. How many points of ad- vantage can you find in favor of the level farm? I f you were in the real estate business and were trying to sell the level farm, to what in the pic- ture would you call the attention of prospective pur- chasers? rest of the world, ties which how you them, point map the Courtesy of Olive D. Campbell Fig. 6. Mountaineers’ cabins in the Appalachians in the old days. Do you think the man with the mule was more prosperous than Dave Douglas? Why do you think so? What does the level land farmer sell ? 9. Lincoln’s trip to New Orleans. — When Lincoln’s neighbors wanted to sell wheat and salt pork, they joined together and built a flatboat, which they floated down the Ohio and Mississippi with a load of produce. On such a trip to New Orleans Lincoln went when he was nineteen. Down, down the ever-winding river, day after day, past hundreds and hundreds of miles of dark forest, drifted the boat. At last, after many days, they saw on the left bank of the muddy, winding river a little, straggling city, called New Orleans. Sail- ing vessels that carried wheat and meat to the West Indies and to Europe were tied to the river bank. After the men had sold their wheat and pork, they sold the boat as lum- ber, for the Mississippi was OUR NEW WORLD so swift and deep that they could not push the flatboat, even when it was empty, up- stream with poles. The men went home by 8. Before we had railroads. — It is only since engines, steamships, and railroads have been invented that so many people in so many countries have been able to help us live comfortably in our neighborhood. Rail- roads are quite new in the history of the world, and they bring many of the things that make us comfortable. Even Abraham Lincoln, born in Kentucky in 1809, had a home almost exactly like the Douglas home (Sec. 3), and it was as good as any in the neighborhood. His family did not have a stove, nor did they have enough tallow to steamboat. Before 1810 men had to walk all the way home through the great forests. Now you begin to see why there was not much trade in the region where Lincoln spent his boyhood. At that time, most of the peo- ple of America lived in the country, where each family grew its food, made most of its own clothing, and chopped its own firewood. But now many distant parts of the world help to provide us with food, clothing, shelter, and tools. What made this sudden change, which so quickly built up a world-wide trade and made all people neighbors? OUR NEW WORLD 5 10. The great inventions. — This change was largely due to a series of great inventions. Abraham Lincoln was only nineteen years old when the first railroad in the United States was built, in 1828. The first telegraph line was used in 1844, and the first steam- ship line to Europe was started in 1836. About this period the reaper and many other new machines were invented. From that day to this, men have been inventing new machines faster and faster. The steam thresher, the tractor, the gas engine, the telephone, the ocean cable, the electric motor, the typewriter, the fast printing press, and many other machines help men to do things much more rapidly and easily than before. In Lincoln’s boyhood men used muscle, as they had done for ages; now they use machines. In those early days men drove horses ; now they drive engines. Any traveler can now go from Maine to California in less than the seven days which it took George Washington to bump along in his horse-drawn coach for 225 miles over a rutty road, from Washington to New York. Now, instead of spending weeks walking through the woods from New Orleans to Kentucky, as was necessary when Lincoln was born, the traveler can take an afternoon train at New Orleans, rest through the night in a sleeping car, and arrive in Kentucky the next day. 11. Sea trade and travel. — On the sea, likewise, inventions have made travel safe and speedy. After ships were driven by steam, it was easy for the naval vessels to catch the ships of the pirates who were such a danger to travelers in George Washington’s time. The sea is made safe not only by the naval ves- sels, but by many light- houses, and by wireless tele- photo. International Film Service, N. Y. graph, which Fig. 7. A model of the first steam- enables men boat that went up the Mississippi River. This was in 1810. to speak from Photo. International Film Service, N .Y. Fig. 8. A model of the Mayflower , the good ship which carried the Pilgrims safely to Plymouth in 1620. Would you like to cross the ocean in such a boat? ship to ship and to call for help from hun- dreds of miles away, if they are in distress. To-day, steamships leave New York and San Francisco for Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America. Steamships sail the sea as regularly as the mail comes to our doors. These ships, and the trains, too, bring us many, many things from all over the world. 12. News. — Every morning the newspaper can tell about events that happened the day before in every one of fifty countries. This is due to the ocean cable and to the wireless telegraph, which enable men to exchange ideas in a few hours with others who are thousands of miles distant. 13. Coal, iron, and oil have made a new world. — This new world of transport, trade, easy travel, and long-distance messages has come because we have made coal, oil, and water power work our iron machines for us. Coal helps by driving engines that run fac- tory machines, locomotives, and steamships. Petroleum helps by running automobiles, ships, trucks, and airplanes. Iron helps when made into engines, railroad rails, machines, freight cars, and steamships. Electricity helps by making rapid communi- cation possible for us — on the land by tele- graph and telephones, under the sea by cables, and through the air by wireless. 6 INTRODUCTION OUR NEW WORLD 7 ARCTIC CIRCLE Archangel Trieste S> Vladivostok ,':Batiim SgSSSffoV.A ft L Tobacco ■ Cigars 4 A C I F ilexandria/ (Port Said (Tripoli vBu shire Karachi CANCER ^Hongkong >¥?Bouibay tUV^ladi r Rango$n' "MARSHALL CAROLINE* IS. EQUATOR BISMARCK i — -t^ARCHIPE Banana • NEW C HEBRIDES lUplEW 5 yc ALE DON!/ M AQWpASCA> CAPRICORN 0 Lourenco ^Jjuqu es . Durban / \ Port* • VK • 0 ^Elizabeth /y. : :J BrisoSncT; Py Kauri Gum Oram 4 Flour |'T.KA OkM t*k 'Orenburg \ .Cliita- Jrkutst‘ Kobdo ~ c to ? Angora VTashdfend Bokhara SIXKIANG: "'"•O' ,QH x i \P.£kmg 3i \Tobyo-' S^^Vokohama' rai r*i a. TeheraW‘ AFCn £ IRS LA. \- istax” /Algiers^'* 18 \ ~ CEYLONi, IVE.-. V EQUATOR EQUATOR 1 SUMATRA^ A\S T BISMARCK., jldviUelj vCOXGP' COCOS IS. (Br.) V SOLOMON V- ,WI ‘Arafui R \>^ C J Benguela/ ANG< Palmerstot HEBRIDES^- [Toynsville j(Br. &Fr.) Tananarive fORTHERN SOUTH ‘MAURITIUS ! (?!-)_ iqueensla: ’tropTc ofxapwcorn IFKICA A\U S AUSTRALIA. ° »\^ Lourenco Marqvies SOUTH, AFRICA- Durban (Elizabeth NORTH I, ..^EW ^fSj^purne Melboi AMSTERDAM [/(Fr.): rr.PAOT.-l: (*•>/ (’abc Towrv, 0098 * Dunedm STEWART l.> / SOUTI- BOUNTY I (Br.) // AUCKLAND (H) 4NTIF0DES' UACQUAHRIE IS. LY TAItCt The world is round, like an orange. Maps are flat, like sheets of paper. How can we show the surface of the round globe on the flat map? That is a hard problem. The best way to get an idea of this problem is to skin an orange carefully in one piece and spread the skin out flat like this. It is not hard to do. It shows you how the surface of a globe looks when spread out flat. Professor J. Paul Goode did something like that with the skin of a globe when he made this map. He has stretched it a little to get it flat so that this map shows all the different countries and continents in true relative size, and more nearly in their true shape than any other flat map of the whole world shows them. That is why we use it here. It is the truest map there is — of the whole world — on one sheet. By permission of J. Paul Goode; Copyright, 1923, by the University of Chicago Press Fig. 10. 10 INTRODUCTION Fig. 11. The stagecoach was the fastest means of travel, except by horseback, in the days when George Washington was President. Every day hundreds of thousands of men are down in mines, digging out coal to keep this world trade going. Miles and miles of freight cars loaded with coal travel on the railroads. On the ocean, at all times, hun- dreds of steamers carry coal to places which have no coal of their own. The coaling- station map (Fig. 9) shows the routes by which vessels cross the oceans of the world, and the ports where coal is waiting for them. We can now talk to all the world by cable and wireless so quickly that we can know much more of Europe in a day than Washington could learn in a month. 14. The division of labor. — Nowadays most people, instead of having many jobs, as Dave Douglas had, have but one job, and live by trade. This arrangement we call division of labor. It is easier for a tailor to make two coats, and a shoemaker to make two pairs of shoes, and then for each to exchange his goods with the other, than it is for each man to make for himself one pair of shoes and one coat. For this reason, men have divided their labor, so that one man may do a another man may do another kind. In a similar way, trade enables us to make a division of labor among the different parts of the world, each part produc- ing those things that it can best produce, and exchanging its sur- plus for the products which some other region can best pro- duce. Since the railroads and steamships have made it easy to trade, people have been able to live comfortably in any region where they can have even so little as one industry. They ex- port the surplus product, and buy what they need from many other regions. It is trade that has helped the white man to spread over most of North America so quickly since 1810. The world is one. Trade has made it so. The different parts of the world are now connected. No longer do most of the families of the world live apart from other families, as the Douglas family did, or as the people of Lincoln’s neighborhood did. Ships, rail- roads, telegraphs, and machines have made the people of many lands our helpers. Each country now has something that we buy. Trade has also made us helpers to many other people. We help them by selling to them the things that they want. And thus it is with nearly all peoples in those parts of the world where travel has been made easy. certain ii kind of work and Courtesy of the N. Y. C. and H E. R. R. Fig. 12. The first steam railroad train in New York State, less than one hundred years ago. Contrast this picture with Fig. 122. STUDYING THE WORLD BY REGIONS 11 QUESTIONS 1. List ten articles of food in your home or in the grocery store. Where was each article of food pro- duced? De- scribe the journey on its way to your home. (Figs. 9, 10.) 2. Name some products which your community pro- duces to sell to the people from whom yourfood products come. 3. Why is it proper to call these people your neighbors? 4. Mighttheboy Lincoln have found ten such articles in his home or neighborhood? Give two good reasons for your answer. 5. Go with Abraham Lincoln on his boat trip, and report the story for your school paper. 6. Name as many great inventions as you can, and tell how each has helped to make the people of our new world neighbors. Why is 1810 an important date? (Fig. 7.) 7. Imagine that coal and iron had never been dis- covered, and tell how the life in your community would differ from what it is to-day. 8. Select three different routes by which one could travel from Boston to San Francisco by rail. (Fig. 309.) Write an account of a journey by one of these routes. 9. Describe a trip across the continent which would make use of as many as possible of the waterways of the continent, and at the same time be nearly direct. 10. What barrier prevented the people of Europe from settling North America earlier? What discover- ies led to the overcoming of this barrier? 11. For more than two centuries after the English settled at James- town, Virginia, vast areas west of the Allegheny High- land were practically uninhabited by white men. Why? 12. Did the first white settlers of the country beyond the Alleghenies live as Dave Douglas lives or as we live? STUDYING THE WORLD BY REGIONS Courtesy Continental Motors Co. Fig. 13. The little automobile motor in the lower right-hand corner, with one man to feed it gasoline and oil, can do more work with a few gallons of gasoline than all these men working as the ancients did. Can you tell what the men shown in this drawing are doing? liketheneigh- boring states or countries. If several states are alike in sur- face, soil, and climate, w e may as well study them all together. For exam- ple, look at the State of M aryland , Figs. 15, 21, and 241. It reaches from the sandy seashore o n the east to the Appalachian plateau on the west. Between seashore and plateau are three different kinds of country: 1. A wide belt of low plain near the sea. 2. A belt of hills near the mountains. 3. A belt with many mountain ranges. On Fig. 21, notice that each of these belts or sections crosses the boundaries of Maryland into the states to the north and to the south. These natural regions have their boundaries determined by climate, soil, and surface and not at all by political lines or boundaries. The eastern ends of Maryland and Virginia, most of Delaware, and southeastern New Jersey, are all parts of the same long plain. 16. Natural regions. — After all, it is not the name of the state but the kind of region that decides how men make their living, what they have to sell to us, and what we can sell to them. It makes no difference whether a sandy plain is in Maryland or in 15. Ways of studying geography. — How shall we study about this world in which all people are neighbors to one another? One way to study it is to learn about one state after another, and one country after another. This is not the best way to study geography, because many little states or countries are Delaware. It is dotted with truck farms in both of these states, as well as in other states which lie in the plain. The State of Maryland happens to contain four different natural regions that extend into other states. The best and easiest way to understand Maryland is first to study each of the ii 13 Fig. 14. U0 J West ID') • f rom 90° Greenwich 14 INTRODUCTION natural regions of which it contains a part. That is the way by which, in this book, we shall study the world. We shall divide the world into natural regions. Each one of these regions includes all of the same kind of country in one part of the world. Since the people in a natural region all make their living in nearly the same way, we may call it an economic region. There people sell the same things, buy the same things, and do the same things, and it is easy for us to study about them all at one time, even if they do happen to live in different states or even in different countries. The heavy lines on regional maps (Figs. 14, 21) show the boundaries of various natural regions. You see that one of the regions of Maryland goes far away to the south, another far away to the north. (Fig. 21.) The political boundaries on these regional maps make it easy to study political geography with regional geography. QUESTIONS 1. Locate the state in which you live, either on Fig. 21 or 91, or 210. In what region or regions does it lie? 2. In what region is your home? 3. What other states are wholly or partly in the same region as your home? (Note to Teacher: See Manual before doing Questions k and 5.) 4. As you study North America, think about the desirability of each region as a place in which to live. 5. Fill out the following chart for the continent of North America, adding to it from week to week: Region. States, Provinces or Countries Partly or Wholly in Region. Chief Cities in Region. Fig. 15. Photograph of a relief model of a part of the United States. Can you see the low level plain east of Baltimore; and the high plateau west of Cumberland; the mountain ridges and the old roads of the wagon emigrants ? n 15 Fig. 16. THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Photo. Louis R. Bostwick, Omaha, Neb. Fig. 17. A “Prairie Dog” plow and a “Caterpillar” tractor in Nebraska. Compare with Fig. 4. Can you tell why some eastern farms have been abandoned? 17. A group of nearly level regions. — In studying the world we should begin with our own continent, North America. The Table of Contents shows that all of North America may be divided into eight different groups of regions, just as some political maps show that the United States is divided into seven groups of states, such as the New England States (Fig. 216), and the South Atlantic States. (Fig. 26.) A good place to begin our study of North America is with the southern and central plains, because this area is one of the easiest to understand. From the Table of Contents, in the front of this book, get the names, and on Figure 14 point out these regions. It is a wide area of low plains, or nearly level land. It occupies the southern and central part of the United States and Southern Canada. On the north it reaches the Indian country in the Great North Woods. Southward it reaches to the Gulf of Mexico, and south- eastward to the Atlantic. In all of this large central terri- tory the only uplands are the Ozark Plateau and the Ouachita Ridge (Fig. 21). In so large a territory there are several natural regions. Let us begin with a small one, the Florida Peninsula. THE FLORIDA PENINSULA 18. How Florida appears. — If you should ride through Florida by train or automobile, you would see many lakes and many swamps, with cypress trees standing in them (Fig. 22), and big oak trees with silvery moss hanging from the branches. You would also see miles of sandy soil, and miles and miles of pine forests. In a settlement here and there, dozens or hundreds of farmers would be busy with their orchards of orange and grape- fruit trees (Fig. 25), their fields of celery (Fig. 23), beans, tomatoes, and other early vege- tables, and their fields of corn. 19. Climate. — Florida is so far south that the climate is warm, even in winter. The people rarely heat their houses. In the southern part there are some winters when no frost comes. In the central part of the state Fig. 18. The Florida Penin- sula Region. (16) u THE FLORIDA PENINSULA 17 Fig. 19. A little pond or lake in a limestone sink. Florida has thousands of limestone sinks. Many of them are dry. there are sometimes two or three frosts in winter, but they are often weeks apart, and the whole country is as green in January as the northern states are in July. The palm trees (Fig. 20) make parts of Florida look like South America and Cuba. Big black alligators sun themselves beside the rivers. 20. Warm waters. — There is an ocean current which flows into the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea, on out through the Florida Strait, and then northerly between Florida and the Bahama Islands (Fig. 327). Why does Florida have a warm, moist climate? Which of the four winds can be cool and dry in Florida? Florida has so much rain in the autumn that it beats the cotton off of the cotton plant. For this reason cotton is not grown in the peninsula, and the region cannot be included in the Cotton Belt. 21. How Florida was made. — The Florida Peninsula is one of the flattest parts of the United States. How long is it? (Fig. 26.) How wide? It is really a long, flat sand-bank, rising from the sea a foot or two to the mile. Not long ago, as time goes with nature, Florida was sea bottom. That is why so much of the soil is sand. While Florida was still under the sea, little animals called corals lived on it. Their skeletons made much of the limestone that is now to be found there. Many layers of seashells were left there by the shellfish that live on the sea bottom. These shells are now layers of soft limestone near the surface of the sand. Most limestone is made from seashells and coral. Some of this Florida limestone is made of coarse pieces of seashell cemented together by lime very much as sugar cements a popcorn ball. 22. Limestone sinks, lakes, and springs. — Florida has much rain but few rivers. The rain, sinking through the sand, soaks out holes or caves in the limestone, which dis- solves in water more easily than any other stone. (Figs. 19, 20.) The water, after sinking into these holes or caves, runs away under ground and may come up as springs, one of which, called Crystal Spring, is so large that a small steamboat floats on it. When the roof of one of these underground passages falls in, the hole is called a limestone sink, and it may become a pond or small lake. Florida has hundreds of such lakes. 23. A railroad over the sea. — West of the tip of Florida there is a long chain of coral islands, the Florida Keys, with Key West, the only town in the United States where no frost has been recorded. (Fig. 308.) A railroad 117 miles long runs on concrete bridges from island to island all the way from the mainland to Key West. From there it is only 93 miles by boat to Havana. Courtesy Tampa Board of Trade. Fig. 20. Palm trees, other tropical growth, and the water surface of a limestone sink in the Florida Pen- insula. Fig. 19 shows how limestone sinks are formed. II Fig. 21. 19 20 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Courtesy Tampa Board of Trade Fig. 22. A swamp in Florida showing cypress trees and palm leaves. Branches of the cypress roots, called knees, stick up out of the water. What makes the growth so dense? What wild things live in such places? Some of the people who live in Key West and at Tampa hunt in the neighboring waters for sponges. Standing in their boats they pull sponges from the rocky bottom with long poles. Sometimes they dive for them. An ordinary sponge, such as we see, is made of the soft skeletons of thousands of tiny sea animals that live together in one cluster. 24. Swamps and soil. — Florida is so flat that in many places the water cannot flow away; it stays and makes a swamp. In the southern part of Florida are the Everglades, the largest swamp in the United States. In periods of heavy rain, the water in this swamp rises several feet. In periods of drought much of it flows away slowly through the tall grass., Men are now at work draining parts of this and other Florida swamps to make farms. The swamp land is usually rich, because of the plants that have grown in the swamp and decayed there. The sandy soil of that part of Florida which is not swamp is fine soil for water- melons and vegetables, but unless heavily ii fertilized is not good for corn or grass. People who wanted to raise cotton, corn, or grass, had to go to other parts of the United States, so for a long time Florida remained almost unsettled. Look in the Appendix and see how many people there are per square mile in Florida. Compare it with Alabama, a cotton state; with Iowa, a corn state; or with Massa- chusetts, a factory state. 25. Winter vegetables. — In 1880, when the first railroad, the Atlantic Coast Line, was built from the northern states through to Florida, the express trains made it possible for garden produce to be sent quickly from Florida to the north- ern states. People then began to grow lettuce, cabbage, early pota- toes, watermelons, cantaloups, tomatoes, and other vegetables, which are shipped north into lands of frost during winter and spring. Thus New York and other northern places have fruits and vegetables for weeks and months before their own crops are ready. A certain truck farmer in Florida planted lettuce in November, and it was ready to send to New York in January. As soon as he sold the lettuce, he transplanted tomato plants from a hotbed to the same ground. These tomatoes he shipped in March. Then, on the same ground, he planted potatoes, which he shipped in May. He next grew a big crop of velvet beans, which he fed to the mules that worked on the farm. The rich roots of the beans helped to fertilize the ground for the three crops of vegetables that he planted the following winter. (Sec. 43.) The high freight rate for perishables from Florida to the North makes the vegetable business profitable only when the grower can get high prices. As only a few people can THE FLORIDA PENINSULA 21 pay these prices, there is often an over supply, and the shipments do not pay expenses. This is one reason why most of Florida is still forested. There is no large market for early vegetables, and profit from growing them is uncertain. The frost may come and kill the crop, and, at best, the season is short at any one place, for in a week or two after the crop begins to go to market another place farther to the north begins to ship a similar crop. Shipments from south Florida supply the market first, then in turn those from Tampa, from central Florida, and from St. Augustine. These are followed by crops of vegetables from Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; New Bern, North Carolina; and Norfolk, Virginia. 26. Oranges and grapefruit. — Oranges have been growing wild in some of the Florida woods for over three hundred years. The Spaniards, who settled St. Augustine in 1565, brought orange trees with them from Spain. No one grew these oranges to sell far away until 1880, when it was found that Florida oranges sold well, and that money could be made by shipping them to the North. Many orange orchards were then set out. Sometimes in winter the oranges freeze and the trees are hurt, but, nevertheless, orange-growing is now one of the chief indus- tries of the state. Thousands of carloads of the golden fruit are sent north each year. It is a beautiful and interesting sight to see an orange orchard bearing yellow fruit and white Courtesy of “The Country Gentleman” Fig. 23. Winter celery grown on the land from which palm trees have been removed. Where will it be eaten? Would such agriculture be possible at your home in winter? Can another crop be grown on this land in the same twelve months? chards. Why does Florida produce more oranges than Texas? blossoms at the same time. Most of the grapefruit used in the United States come from Florida. 27. Tourists. — The warm winter that helps the people grow oranges and vegetables gives Florida another industry — the tourist industry. Many people from the North- eastern and North Central states take a vacation in midwinter. They can leave the snowdrifts of Chicago, Detroit, New York, or Boston, and in two days by express train reach Tampa, Miami, or Palm Beach, where they may bathe in the warm ocean water that flows out from the Gulf of Mexico. Many stop off at Pinehurst and Southern, N. C., and Aiken and Camden, S. C. Great hotels have been built for the thousands of Northerners who play golf, bathe, fish, race automobiles, and hunt game for a few weeks in winter. Thousands also go in automobiles, camping by the wayside. 28. Lumbering. — Most of Florida is still a great forest. At times the trains run for miles through unbroken woods. Lumbering is one of the main indus- tries, and Florida is a lead- ing state in the production of rosin and turpentine, which are called naval stores. These are made from the sap of the pine trees. Ship- loads of lumber are sent to our Northern states and to Europe from Tampa, St. Marks, Jacksonville, and Femandina. 29. Tobacco factories. — Florida has a kind of im- ported manufacturing in- 22 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Courtesy Tampa Board of Trade Fig. 25. A large grapefruit grove near Tampa, Florida. What would this grove be worth if Florida could not trade with other states? Why does Florida need fast-freight train service? dustry. Many Cubans live in Key West and Tampa, making “Havana” cigars from Cuban tobacco. 30. Phosphate rock. — Florida has no mountains, but she has a mining industry; that of digging phosphate rock for making fertilizer. It seems queer, but raw material for fertilizer is dug out of beds of sand which farmers would say were poor soil. How does this happen? Once upon a time the bones and droppings of birds and other animals that lived in this region formed lime phosphate. In this form no plant can use it, so it stays in the ground until we dig it up and treat it with acid in fertilizer factories. It is then called acid phosphate, and is the most common of all commercial fertilizers. All plants must have phosphate, and few soils have as much of it as the plants need. Hundreds of thousands of tons of phosphate rock are carried away each year by the ships that sail from St. Marks and Tampa to our own Atlantic ports and to Europe. 31. Unused resources. — Florida could feed ten, twenty, or thirty times as many people as now live in the state. To do this, it would be necessary to drain the swamps, which would make many thousand acres of good farm land, to fertilize the sandy soil, and to keep live stock, as the people are beginning to do in the Cotton Belt (Sec. 44). In this way, Florida might become a great state for the production of beef, pork, and corn. At the same time she could keep on giving travelers a good time, and raising on a tiny part of her land all the oranges and winter vege- tables that northern peo- ple would buy. Do you think this stock-raising would increase Florida’s trade? Why? QUESTIONS 1. Tell briefly how each of the following natural features of Florida helps her farmers to produce oranges and early vege- tables: (a) Location in respect to great Atlantic coast cities. ( b ) Position in zones, (c) The Gulf Stream. (d) Location between two large bodies of water. (e) Surface. (/) Soil. ( g ) Rainfall (Fig. 158). 2. Would you rather live in your region or in Florida? Why? 3. Give two reasons for the fact that frost has never been recorded at Key West. 4. Suggest two causes for the development of Jacksonville; Tampa; Palm Beach. 5. How have the many lakes, few rivers, and large swamps hindered the development of Florida? 6. What is the population cf Florida per square mile? (Appendix) of your state? Can you tell some reasons for this difference in population? 7. How does each picture in the section on Florida help you to under- stand the life of the Florida people? 8. Suppose Florida were entirely surrounded by land. How would its climate differ in summer? in winter? 9. How has the development of fast-freight service helped Florida to become a source of food supply for the other parts of the country? 10. What work could the immigrants who come to our shores do in Florida that would be of benefit to the peninsula and to themselves? 11. See which boy or girl in your class can write the best letter to the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Washington, D. C., asking for a copy of the Statistical Abstract for your school library. Find from this book the amount of lumber Florida produces. Give two reasons for the great forests in the peninsula. 12. With a little pile of damp sand make a model of the Florida peninsula. Indicate in some suggestive way the important prod- ucts, cities, and railroads. (Fig. 309.) Show the Everglades, Lake Okechobee, and the Florida Keys. THE COTTON BELT 32. The cotton crop. — Cotton is one of the best of all crops. It is easy to grow, it is easy to keep without spoiling, it is easy to send long distances by train or ship. When ripe it is not eaten by moth or bug or mouse. San Francisco O P 23 West g&yCb£'°''_ k Key West ' Fig. 26 Los Angeles O 24 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Since nearly every people uses some cotton, it is easy to sell. Cotton is the main crop and the chief source of wealth in a large part of our southern states. This crop is so important that the region where it grows is often called the Cotton Belt. It is one of the largest and richest natural regions in the United States. Figures 28 and 29 show that cotton grows in several countries, and the Cotton Belt of the United States is the greatest producer of them all. It grows more than half the cotton of all the world. Which states are entirely in the Cotton Belt? Which are partly in it? (Fig. 21.) 33. Bounds of the Cotton Belt. — What is it that causes the bounds of this Cotton Belt to be where they are? The answer is climate. Cotton needs two hundred days between the last frost in spring and the first frost in autumn. It needs a warm, moist summer for growing, and dry, sunshiny weather for ripening. Look at the cotton map (Fig. 30) and see how the line of two hundred frostless days, almost seven months, bounds the Cotton Belt on the north somewhat like an imaginary fence. Notice that this line is not straight. The warm weather of the lowland near the sea pulls the line up into Virginia, but the cooler weather of the plateau brings the line down into the central part of North Carolina, while the still cooler weather of the Appalachian Mountains pushes the cotton line down into Georgia. The climate of the highland and of the lowland has the same effect upon the cotton line in Missouri and Arkansas. (Fig. 30.) We may say that the northern boundary is a cold line, because to the north of that line the cold weather of spring or autumn injures the cotton so often that it does not pay to grow it there. Such lines are not sharp, but are several miles in width because the weather is uncertain from year to year. The western boundary of the Cotton Belt is a dry line. West of this line cotton does not pay, unless irrigated, because the droughts Fig. 28. Relative Size of Cotton Crops, 1919-1920: 500-lb. bales A. United States, 12,200,000 B. Rest of World, 8,050,000 ti Fig. 30. What two facts of climate fence in the Cotton Belt? Note how the eastern grape districts cluster about the Great Lakes. Why? (Sec. 328.) keep the plants from growing well. How much rain falls at the western or dry edge of the Cotton Belt? (Fig. 158.) Why should a south wind bring rain to east Texas and drought to west Texas? Look at the rainfall map (Fig. 158) and you will see that the rainfall grows less as we go west through Texas. The eastern part of that state, with the heavy rain, has thick forests and swamps, but the western part is dry, with few streams, thorny cactus plants, scattered bunches of grass, and low bushes. One side of this state has so much rain that it is in the Cotton Belt, and the other side so little rain that it has only large ranches, with few farms, and few people, except where water can be Tfl had to irrigate the land. We shall learn the Fig. 29 . Relative Size of cause of this dryness later. (Secs. 59-71.) Cotton Crops, 1918-1919: ,, . , ,, , soo-ib. bales The Cotton Belt is a cotton belt because b’ India d States ’ ’671000 ^ * s warm an( l h as ra -i n every few days. C.’ Egypt ( 1918 ), i’262’ooo These two climatic conditions are the best THE COTTON BELT 25 for agriculture, because they enable people to grow things that are needed. 34. Cotton growing. — In February, March, and April, the farmers with their teams and tractors are busy plowing and harrow- ing the ground and plant- ing the seed. In the early part of the summer, men, women, boys, and girls may be seen with hoes, chopping out the weeds and some of the young- cotton plants. The re- maining plants stand about eighteen inches apart in the rows. All summer the mule-drawn cultivators keep down the weeds. In the autumn, the round pods, called bolls, begin to burst open and show the white cotton. Cotton-picking time, the busiest season of the year, has come. It is easy to grow more cotton than can be picked. Everybody who can goes into the fields to pick, even the cooks from the kitchen. From August until cold weather the pickers, with sacks hung upon their shoulders, go up and down the rows, pluck- ing the white cotton, of which more than half the weight is seeds. 35. Ginning and market- ing. — Before the cotton can be used for cloth, a machine called a cotton gin separates the fine white fibers from the seeds. Buildings containing cotton gins are scattered about the country only a few miles apart. To them the farmer hauls his cotton to be ginned and pressed into large bales. Through- out the autumn and win- ter one often sees wagons, loaded withbalesof cotton, going from the ginnery to Courtesy P. Geo. Maercky Fig. 32. Sixty thousand tons of pure sulphur worth one millon dollars, at one of the world’s greatest sulphur mines, near the mouth of the Brazos River in Texas. A well is drilled and very hot water is forced down several hundred feet to the sulphur bed; the sulphur melts; it is forced to the surface by compressed air; then runs into bins where it cools as hard as rock. It is then broken up by blasting and loaded quickly and cheaply by steam grab buckets. the railroad station or to the steamboat landing. In the Cotton Belt, there is rain every few days all winter, the roads are often deep with mud, and the farmer’s load must be small, unless he happens to live near an improved road. The cottonseed is also a valuable part of the crop. It is crushed by very heavy rollers. The cottonseed oil that is pressed from it is used for canning small fish like sardines, for making oleomargarine, and for a cooking oil. The cake that is left after the seeds are Fig. 31. Rainfall of Memphis — 49.11 inches per year. The figures at the left show the inches. The heavy lines show how many inches per month. How many has January? December? Why is October a better month for cotton picking than Novem- ber ? pressed is ground into cottonseed meal. This is good food for cows, because it helps to increase their milk. It is used in the dairies of many northern states and of Europe. How many navigable rivers are there in the Cotton Belt? (Fig. 80.) Name several. What ports are at the mouths of some of these rivers? Name some places to which ships go from these ports. (Fig. 21.) 36. Soil. — The Cotton Belt has many kinds of soil. In some places there are wide belts of clay, in others, belts of sand, a strip through Central Georgia having almost no cotton because sand is not rich enough. On this wide belt it is more profitable for the n 26 M N Fig. 33. p R • 27 Fig. 33. j 28 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 34. A cotton gin picking the seeds from cotton as fast as 200 men could do it. What is such a machine worth per day? Basket contains unginned cotton. farmers to plant whole fields of peas, pea- nuts, sweet potatoes and watermelons, which do well on sandy soil. The melons go in carloads to northern cities in early summer. Northwest of this sand strip is a wide belt of red clay hills. The blacker band on the cotton map shows that a great deal of cotton is grown here. The map shows other areas in central Texas and in central Alabama very, rich in cotton. Both of these are extra fine cotton districts, because they have rich black soil made of decayed limestone rock, where the farmers can grow big crops of cot- ton year after year. In Texas the limestone belt is called the “Black Land” and the man who owns a farm there is wealthy. To the east of the Black Land, the land is sandy and often poor, and there- fore much of it is still covered with forests of pine and other kinds of trees. The limestone belt in central Alabama is called the “Black Belt. is black, and so n of the people — negro tenant farmers, each renting a few acres of the rich black earth. This land sells for five or six times as much as the less fertile sandy land farther south, which, like the sandy land of Texas and southern Mississippi, is still almost all covered with pine forests. More than half of the area of the whole Cotton Belt is still in forest. The map shows that a third region hav- ing much cotton is close to the Mississippi, on the rich delta plain made by the silt (mud and sand) which the river has been bringing down for thousands and thousands of years. This river-built plain gradually filled up the Gulf of Mexico, which once extended to where the mouth of the Ohio River now is. Each year the river dumps into the Gulf enough silt to cover 278 square miles with a layer one foot thick. It built the land from Illinois to the Gulf. This soil is so rich that cotton has been grown on the same field year after year without wearing out the soil. There are no stones on this delta plain built of river silt. You can dig down a hundred feet and find only soft earth, or clay, or sand. In New Orleans, which is built on this low, flat plain, the water in Photo. Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. ’ The soil Fig- 35. Bales of cotton, covered with jute cloth, going on board steamer at a cotton port. What is a 500-pound bale of cotton worth ? (See daily newspaper.) are most Name some of the places to which this cotton might be going. (Fig. 21.) THE COTTON BELT 29 the ground is near to the surface. If a big, heavy building were set directly upon this soft earth it would sink, and the walls would crack. To prevent such trouble, piles (the trunks of trees) are driven into the ground, and on these the foundation walls are built. 37 . Surface. — The surface of the Cotton Belt helps to make it a region good for farm- ing. There are no mountains; only a part of it is hilly; and much of it consists of flat plains, which are very easy to cultivate. In fact, some of this region suffers from being too flat, for where the heavy rain cannot run away the land is swampy. There are many large swamps along the shore, all the way from the Dismal Swamp on the northern boundary of North Carolina to the mouth of the Rio Grande. 38 . Floods and levees. — When the snows melt in the North Central States and in the Appalachian Mountains, and heavy winter rains come at the same time, the Mississippi River often overflows its banks and covers large areas of the level land that it has built. To escape the floods, many people have to leave their homes by climbing out of the windows into boats that have been brought to rescue them. These floods do such great damage that men have worked for years to build big banks, called levees, along the edges of the stream, to hold the water back in times of flood. (Fig. 36.) Sometimes the river rises even higher than the banks. Sometimes a muskrat or a rotten tree root makes a hole in the bank, and there the water breaks through the levee, tears a U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 37. A Cotton Belt field with rows of bushy pea- nuts between the rows of tall corn. Who will har- vest the peanuts? (Sec. 42.) What other crops may be grown with corn? How many have you seen? great gap, flows out as a rushing river, covers up hundreds and thousands of farms, and may make a lake as big as two or three of the smaller New England States combined. 39 . Corn, sugar and truck. — Corn is the second crop in value in the Cotton Belt. It is grown on almost every farm, and it is likely to increase in quantity. Sugar cane is also grown in Louisiana at the lower end of the Mississippi delta, but the frost sometimes injures it, and this industry has not grown as the other Cotton Belt industries have. We shall read more about sugar later. (Secs. 382, 383.) Over a considerable portion of the Cot- ton Belt where the soil is sandy, early vegetables are grown for the northern market. This region sup- plies the North Central States, just as Florida sup- plies the Northeastern States, but it does not take very much land to grow all the early vegetables that are required. 40 . Peaches. — Georgia has an important fruit in- Courtesy Mississippi River Levee Association Fig. 36. How does it happen that the surface of the Mississippi River in northern Louisiana is higher than the land behind the river bank ? Xl-s 30 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Fig. 38. Map showing position of advance line of boll- weevil army as it marched through the Cotton Belt. dustry. In July she sends to northern mar- kets hundreds of carloads of peaches. In August the same varieties of peaches are being shipped from the Potomac Valley; in early September, from western New York. 41 . The cotton-boll weevil. — It is fortunate that many crops will grow in the Cotton Belt, for the cotton farmers have had a great trouble of late, caused by an insect called the cotton-boll weevil. These hungry little beetles eat their way through the unripe bolls, spoiling the cotton. They came across the Rio Grande from Mexico in 1892. Each year they have pushed their way farther and farther through the Cotton Belt, going twenty-five or fifty miles a year, injuring the cotton crops as they go. Men have not been able to stop them. Almost all that can be done is to grow cotton that ripens early. Before'the weevil came, many farmers had grown nothing but cotton, which they sold to pay for everything they used, even for the corn and hay for the mules. Cotton is such a good crop to sell! After the boll weevil came, farmers had to raise other things, thus the insect made the people change their farming by growing different crops. 42. The new, or diversified, farming. — One of the crops new to many farmers is the peanut, a plant that looks like clover and l'ipens its nut pods under ground. Some- times the farmers harvest them and send them to market. Sometimes they let the pigs run in the field and root up the peanuts and eat them. This kind of har- vesting is very cheap. Peanuts are rich food and fatten pigs very well. Another wonderful crop is the velvet bean. One velvet bean vine will sometimes cover a whole square rod of cornfield and climb to the top of every cornstalk, produc- ing great quantities of leaves and beans, which pigs and cattle come and eat along with the corn. The peanuts are often grown in between the corn rows. So are several kinds of beans called cowpeas. All are eaten by pigs, and sometimes by cattle, right where they grow. This method of harvesting is called “hogging down,” or “feeding down” crops. The practice has increased rapidly, so that towns which once sold cotton only, and bought their pork, are now sending whole trainloads of hogs and cattle to the markets. The raising of many crops on one farm is called diversified farming. 43. Legumes, food, and fertility. — Peas and beans belong to a wonderful plant family called legumes. On their roots, queer lumps are found. These lumps are colonies of little plants called bacteria. The bacteria on the roots of the legumes have the very useful trick of taking nitrogen from the air and letting the plant get it through the roots. Nitrogen mo is neces- sary to the bodies of animals andplants. People get nitroge n chiefly from milk, c h e e s e , eggs, nuts, be a n s , peas, and meat, and to a lesser extent fro m b read. The cow that gives us nitro- gen in her milk or in 1919 E33 1920 Fig. 39. Graph showing reduction in number of cases of malaria in an Ameri- can town in one year, by fighting the mosquito (Number 3) which carries the disease. Number 2 is the Mexican boll weevil which eats the cotton, and Num- ber 1 is the cattle tick which carries the Texas fever. (Sec. 44, Fig. 594.) THE COTTON BELT 31 beef gets it from the plants which she eats. When there is not as much nitrogen in the soil as plants need to grow well, we say that the land is poor and needs nitrogenous fertil- izer. We can get it in commercial fertilizer, which is costly, or we can plant legumes, which have tiny nitrogen factories on their roots. Phosphate and potash are two other foods needed by plants. These must be bought, but they are not as expensive as nitrogen. Legumes get all the nitrogen they want, and more which they leave in the ground, so that the Cotton Belt farmer now plants in the same field with his corn or cotton, helpful legumes, such as soy beans, cowpeas, velvet beans, peanuts, vetch, or clover. After the corn or cotton crop is ripe, some of these legumes continue to grow, forming a thick mat of green growth above ground and rich nitrogen lumps below. After the corn is gathered, the pigs may come in and eat the other crop. Thus the farmer raises two crops in one field, — corn and pork, — and plows under a mass of vegeta- tion the next spring. This method makes the ground richer in nitrogen and manure than it was before the corn was planted. The parts of the plants that decay in the soil make a spongy black material called humus. This gives the soil a dark color, makes it light and spongy, helps it to hold moisture better, and to break up the fine particles of rock, so the plants can get the plant food that is in them. Humus is very important for plant growth. These legumes now pro- duce large crops of rich stock food on some of the level sandy plains of South Car- olina, Geor- gia, Missis- sippi, Texas, and Other Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 42. Where dry beans and peanuts parts of the are chiefly grown in the United States. Cotton Belt and Florida. In the snowy northern states, cattle have to be fed in bams for half the year. In Mississippi, Louisiana and the rest of the Cotton Belt, barns are scarcely needed. Food grows nine or ten months in the year, and many crops, such as clover, vetch, and oats, are not hurt by moderate freezing. 44. The battle with the ticks. — The Cotton Belt is now one of the finest places in the world for producing meat. For a long while the cattle were small, sickly animals. Men have found that this condi- tion was caused by a tick. This little animal when young is like a tiny spider. It lives by sucking the blood of animals, especially that of cattle. If it sucks the blood from an animal that has a kind of cattle fever, it carries the fever germs to the next animal which it bites, and thus spreads the disease. Men now destroy these ticks by dipping the cattle, — ears, horns, nose, and all,— under the surface of a tank full of liquid, which kills the ticks. (Fig. 594.) 45. Better health. — Science does wonderful things. In many, many ways it is showing us how to raise more and better plants and animals. It is also teaching us every day Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 41. Sugar cane likes rich land. What other fav- orable conditions are present in cane-growing regions? I S3 Fig. 40. Cattle (1912-1913) A. India 115,980,000 European Rus- sia 33,260,000 Argentine B. 28,900,000 Germany 20.550.000 ' Total 82,710,000 C. United States 57.240.000 32 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Courtesy Galveston Commercial Association Fig. 43. The city of Galveston built this concrete wall to keep storm waves from rushing into the city, which stands on a low sandy island. Why are stones piled at the base of the wall ? In summer, the beach is crowded with bathers. how to take care of our bodies, so that we can have good health and grow to be strong men and women. Among many other things, science has proved that one kind of mosquito carries malaria from one person to another, exactly as ticks carry fever from one cow to another. The Cotton Belt has so much rain that some places have swamps and mosqui- toes. Since we know the cause of malaria, and can prevent it more easily than formerly, the people in the Cotton Belt have better health. The old danger of having malaria is disap- pearing. Education helps health, and the Southern states are making great advance in education. This region was the leader in starting agri- cultural high schools. 46. Lumber industry. — When white men first came, the Cotton Belt was nearly all in forests of good timber. While these splendid forests last, the Cotton Belt is also a lum- ber belt. At times it has led all other parts of the country in lumber output, and Louisiana is now second only to the state of Washington in lumber out- put. Tall, straight pine trees grow on the sandy lands of the Cotton Belt. Oaks grow on the clay hills and the rich lands along the streams. In the swamps, the curious cy- press tree can live with its roots entirely under water, if only it can manage to stick out its knees. (Fig. 22.) From the cypress timber, shingles are made that last many, many years, and cypress is es- pecially prized for use in- side houses. The wood of the southern long- leaf pine is so hard that it is good for flooring, and for many other uses. When still harder and stronger wood is needed, we use the oak. The Cotton Belt forests are on ground so smooth and level that wagons and trains can go almost everywhere at any season of the year. It is much easier to remove the lumber from these southern forests than from forests on the steep, stony, broken land in the mountains of the eastern Fig. 44. Map to show distribution of coal and petroleum in the United States. Can you find from this map the states having neither coal fields nor ^ petroleum? Have they water power? THE COTTON BELT 33 Photo. Bryant Studios Fig. 46. A petroleum refinery at Fort Worth, Texas. How many things here hold oil? Name some uses for this oil. or western regions. (Sec. 120. Figs. 253, 256.) Sawmills by the hun- dreds are scattered through the Cotton Belt, and lumber is exported from every port between Galves- ton, at one end of the Cotton Belt, and Norfolk, near the other end. One of the greatest markets for hardwood lumber is Memphis, Tennessee. A few years ago, Gulfport, Mississippi, on the Gulf of Mexico, was shipping more lumber than any other port in the world. A very small place can export lumber. All that is needed are a few wharves piled high with lumber, and a few hundred laborers to load the ships that lie alongside. 47. Manufacturing and cities. — Besides the great number of sawmills, there are many cotton mills. Indeed, the leading manufactures are cotton yarn and cloth. The cotton-mill industry has grown very rapidly since 1890. Most of the cotton mills are in the higher part of the Cot- ton Belt, around the slopes of the Appa- lachian Mountains. There the climate is a little cooler, and the rivers flowing down from the mountains have waterfalls to turn the wheels (Fig. 234). This beautiful rolling hill country near the mountains is sprinkled with thriving manufacturing towns from the northern edge of the Cotton Belt in North Carolina through the higher sections of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Almost every stream that comes from the mountains is harnessed for the work of light- ing, or of transporting, or of turning the fac- tory wheels. The South is justly proud of the fact that the number Photo. Charles L. Franck Fig. 45. Steamers along the river front, New Orleans. What may he in the sacks? These ocean steamers tell the story of world-wide commerce. of spindles in her cotton mills has grown much more rapidly in the last thirty years than it has in the northern cotton dis- tricts. Millions of Chinese wear cotton cloth from this region and the South- ern members of Congress are now much interested in shipping and foreign trade. When we study New England (Secs. 233-250) we shall see that her sup- plies of food and raw ma- terials are not so good as 34 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Fig. 47. Perspective view of New Orleans looking toward the Gulf of Mexico. The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, seen at the left, has greatly reduced the distance for shipping from the lake to the gulf. Name some things that are shipped from New Orleans. (Fig. 21.) Why do streams flow away from the river? those of the South. Indeed, no other cotton manufacturing region has such a collection of materials — food (Secs. 42, 50), wood (Sec. 46), coal (Sec. 49), water power (Fig. 234), and, lastly, the cotton itself ; for there outside the factory windows are the cotton fields. Many Cotton Belt cities and towns have mills for crushing oil out of cottonseed, and cotton presses to press the cotton into small, tight bales convenient for shipping, and almost all ports and many inland towns have fertilizer factories making plant food for the farmers. Factory products are increasing. Not only is cotton manufacturing increas- ing rapidly, but the enterprising people are making a great variety of articles. By reason of the hydroelectric development, this part of the United States is becoming a manufac- turing as well as an agricultural district. The 1920 census shows that city population is increasing faster than rural population. What does this suggest about manufacturing? Each state capital has many thousand people merely because it is a state capital Atlanta is an important railroad distributing center and cotton market. The same is true of Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, and also of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma City, each of which is a thriving city supplying a rich country, and giving increasing attention to manufacturing. The warm winter of the Cotton Belt brings thousands of tourists from the north each year. 48. Seaports and trade. — Most of the cot- ton manufacturing is done in towns and small cities. The larger cities are the seaports, which are busy with importing and exporting. Look at the regional map (Fig. 21) and at the United States map (Fig. 309) and you will see that the Gulf ports, not having mountain barriers behind them, can serve the heart of the United States quite as easily as any Atlantic port can. New Orleans has the steamboats on the Mississippi and its branches to bring it trade. New Orleans, Galveston, Port Arthur, Mobile, will have THE COTTON BELT 35 Fig. 48. Five leading rice produc- ing states in the United States. (1919-20) Bushels. A. Louisiana 22,450,000 B. California 9,510,000 C. Texas 8,270,000 D. Arkansas 7,670,000 E. South Carolina 90,000 much greater trade in the fu- ture. How will the Panama Canal help this trade? The city of Houston is a great railroad center with rail- roads reaching all of the territory between the Rocky Moun- tains and the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Galveston, the port through which much of the sea trade of this region passes, is the greatest cotton shipping port in the world. It also exports much wheat. From what states would the wheat naturally come? (Fig. 72.) Galveston and Mobile are the rivals of New Orleans as the southern gate- way to the open center of the Continent. Petroleum is found in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma, and pipe lines (Fig. 44) carry it to the steamships on the Gulf Coast for shipment to northern cities. Where else do the pipe lines go? More will be said about petroleum later. (Secs. 190, 301.) 49. The future — manufacturing. — Ala- bama produces iron at Birmingham more cheaply than any other place in the world (Sec. 280), and rivals Pennsylvania in coal riches (Fig. 44). What other Cotton Belt state has coal? The United States is now the leading sulphur country because of the recent discov- ery of rich deposits near the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas (Fig. 32). For manu- facturing there are in addition the great raw materials of wood and cotton, and an agri- culture to produce a won- derful variety of food. There is still much unused water power. The great plant at Muscle Shoals alone, near Florence, Ala- bama, will make several hundred thousand horse power and may send power to several states. L in* Fig. 49. Where rice is grown in the United States. Why does Florida with her sandy lands not grow rice? 50. The future — agri- culture. — In the public square of the town of Enterprise, Alabama, the people actually erected a monument in 1919 to the cotton-boll weevil, be- ... . , , . Fig. 50. Production cause this destructive of rice in bushels. insect had compelled A. India and Burma, them to diversify their R 667,oi6,ooo (1918) farming and get rich. ( 1918 ) This change had caused c - the district to grow le- gumes and ship hogs and cattle by the train- load (Sec. 42). This is typical of the new agriculture that is making the South a pro- gressive part of the country with great agri- cultural development and possibilities. 51. Rice and pecans. — Two new Cotton Belt industries show how these states are advancing. Rice has been grown for two hun- dred years along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. After being planted, rice needs to be flooded in order to give it moisture and to keep down the weeds. This is now done on the large level fields of Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas (Fig. 49) much more easily than in the little ricefields of China and Japan (Fig. 491). Rice land west of the Mississippi is so level that it is easy to have ricefields that cover many acres. The water is kept on the fields by means of banks, which are made by turning up a few furrows with a plow. The water itself, which is found in layers of sand beneath the fields, is pumped up by oil-driven engines. When the rice is nearly ripe, the bank is opened, the water flows away, the ground dries, and the rice is harvested by reapers and threshed like wheat. Nearly two million pecan trees have been planted in the Cotton Belt from Texas to North Carolina, since we have learned how to improve them by budding as we do apples or oranges. (Secs. 82, 87.) Make a list of the things which the Cotton Belt now exports to other regions or to 36 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS foreign countries; of the things it might export if more fully used. Make a list of the things the people there use, but do not make. QUESTIONS 1. On an outline map of the United States sketch in the Cotton Belt. Indicate the important cities mentioned in this chapter; the navigable portions of the Mississippi River system (Fig. 80); a sec- tion producing rice, sugar, petroleum, forest prod- ucts, much cotton. 2. How was the northern boundary of the cotton region determined? the western boundary? 3. Make a list of as many things as you can think of which are obtained from the cotton plant. 4. Give two good reasons for the extensive forests found in the Cotton Belt. Name three kinds of trees growing there. State the most important uses to which the wood of each kind of tree is put. 5. What conditions are favorable to the production of early vegetables? How in this respect is the region simi- lar to Florida? Why does the Cotton Belt raise fewer oranges than Florida? 6. Why do the people of the South send most of their cotton to New England or old England to be manufactured? Might they manufacture more of it at home? What condi- tions there are favorable to manufacture? unfavorable? 7. Plan a trip to a cotton planta- tion in Mississippi. How far will you have to travel? How long will it take? What kind of clothing will you need? Through what states will you pass? Over what railroad or bodies of water? Write a let- ter from a plantation telling a friend about your journey. 8. Examine each picture in this chapter very carefully and fill out a little diagram like the following: Title of Picture . Short Description. How It Helps Me to Learn About the Cotton Belt. 9. Make a list of the cities of the Cotton Belt engaged chiefly in manufacture, and state the relation which the location of each city bears to (a) source of raw material; (6) power; (c) means of transportation. 10. Put into the following outline the important facts you have learned about the Cotton Belt. You will then better understand why our country pro- duces over half the world’s cotton. The American Cotton Crop. Natural Helpers How Each Helps Size of Region Location Surface Soil Temperature Rainfall Navigable Rivers. . The Laborers Enemies How They Hinder ? ? 11. If the people of the Cotton Belt were shut off from com- munication with the people in other parts of the world, to what extent would they be able to be self-supporting? 12. Why has New Orleans become the metropolis of this region? 13. Write an im- aginary conversation which might have taken place be- tween a mosquito and a cat- tle tick that met one day on a Mississippi levee. 14. Ar- range a pantomime in your class showing how the cot- ton-boll weevil compelled the cotton farmers to raise di- versified crops. 15. What part has cotton played in the his- tory of the United States? CENTRAL FARMING REGION Part I. — The Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt 52. The work of the glaciers. — Glaciers once covered most of the land north of the Ohio and Missouri rivers with great moun- tains of ice (Fig. 53), which changed the surface and made some of the land better than it was before the glaciers came. The glaciers began to form long, long ago when the winters in North America became longer and colder for a time. North of the Great Lakes it was so cold for such a long time that the snow did not melt but lay on the ground, even in summer. Each year it piled higher and higher until the mass was many hundreds of feet high, The weight of the snow on top Fig. 51. A very large wild Texas pecan tree, a natural engine of nut production. Some idea of the immense size of this tree may be gained by contrasting it with the men beneath. THE CENTRAL FARMING REGION 37 pressed the snow underneath into solid ice. Finally the pile began to move, somewhat as a pile of soft dough or putty slowly spreads out as it lies on a table. The huge mass, or glacier, pushed its way southward for hun- dreds of miles, until it reached the place where the sun was warm enough to melt the ice as fast as it pushed down from the north. At the place where the glacier melted there are piles of dirt and stones that have been carried along with the ice. These rough places are called terminal moraines. As the glacier scraped over the basins of the Great Lakes, and out across the Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt, it wore off the tops of the little hills and filled up the little valleys with the hilltop earth, thus making the country nearly levek This process made the land easier to cultivate, because it was not so hilly as it was before the ice came. The hilly region of the Ohio Valley begins where the glacier stopped. 53. When the white man came.— About the time of the Revolutionary War white men began to explore central Ohio, central Indiana, and eastern Illinois. The country was nearly level, and much of it was covered with thick forests of big trees — oak, hickory, elm, and many other kinds. Here and there were open, grassy meadows called prairies, where buffaloes pastured and deer ran wild. For a hundred years the white man was busy cutting down these forests to make room for fields. To clear the ground, the splendid logs were often rolled into huge piles and burned. Ditches were dug to let the water drain away from the many swamps and marshes that covered the level parts of the land. Now the entire region is a land of farms and small towns, and one may often go many miles without finding even ten trees of the vast forest that once was there. To the westward, in central Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, there were . trees only along the Region. streams. I he rest Fig. 53. Map showing the part of North America covered by the ancient continental glacier. of the land was level or gently rolling, and grass covered, called prairie. Since the pioneers from the east had always lived in a country naturally forested, they thought that treeless land was worthless ; but after a time they found that it was the best land of all, being rich and ready for the plow, without requiring the hard labor of clearing off tree roots, stumps, and stones. 54. Making roads and railroads. — Be- tween 1850 and 1860, railroads were built across the Mississippi and into this treeless, grassy, prairie region. The land, which be- longed to the United States Government, was so level that surveyors from the Land Office at Washington often laid off roads in straight lines, running north and south, east and west, each road being one mile distant from the next. Thus the land was divided into blocks, each one mile square. Each of the square miles was then divided into four farms of 160 acres each, and a farm was given free of charge to any settler who would come and make his home upon it. Every year for many years, thousands and thousands of families left the hilly eastern country and moved out to these free farms on the fertile prairies. That is one of the reasons why there are so many abandoned farms in the eastern part of the United States. ii Q R S 39 PHYSICAL and POLITICAL MAP OF THE NORTH CENTRAL STATES SCALE OF MIL ES Capitals are shown thus ST. PAUL, State Boundaries REFERENCE CITIES • Less than 5,000 o 5,000 to 10,000 O 10,000 to 25,000 O 25,000 to 100,000 100,000 to 250,000 O 250,000 to 500,000 •fa Over 500,000 Fig. 54. 40 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Photo. Eugene J. Hall, Oak Park, III. Fig. 55. Barns, house, silo, cornfields, and potato field on a farm at Wayne, 111. 55. Soil and surface. — The soil of the prairies is mostly deep clay, almost free from stone, and much richer than the sandy lands of the South. It is splendid for crops, but bad for roads, because clay makes mud when there is rain. There are often no stones in the prairies with which roads can be made, and it is too expensive to bring stone from long distances. Even to this day in neigh- borhoods where land is worth as much as $200 to $300 an acre, the roads are much poorer than they are in the Appalachian Valley (Sec. 274), or in the North Atlantic Coast Plain where gravel banks make good road material. 56. The name. — This level land of fertile soil is called the Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt, because almost every farmer there grows corn and nearly always one of the small grains also, wheat or oats. Corn is the most important crop of all, partly because the soil and climate suit it so well, and partly because corn yields about twice as many Finch & Baker, U.S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 56. Com acreage of the United States and Canada. What two climate lines are close to its edge? IT bushels to the acre there as does wheat. Corn, wheat, and oats are all grown in other regions also (Figs. 56, 72, 90, 93), but no other region grows so much corn as this one. 57. Bounds. — On map, Fig. 21, find what regions bound the Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt. Which are lower than this region? Which are higher? The western boundary is set by a line where little rain or unsuitable soil stops the good corn crops. (Sec. 104). Its northern boundary is set by a region with a shorter summer, where the growing season is not long enough for corn to ripen, or where the nights are too cool for such a crop. The Great Lakes are so large and deep that their waters stay comparatively cool all summer. Because of the breezes from the cool waters of Lakes Michigan and Erie, the farmers along their shores do not grow much corn, although corn- fields thrive a few miles back from the lakes. 58. Climate. — In winter the Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt is a land of frost and snow, of sleds and skates. In the northern parts the streams and lakes are covered with ice for many weeks each year. In summer the weather is as warm as that of the Cotton Belt, but the season between frosts is not so long. It is too short for cotton, but not too short for corn. Both of these useful plants need a warm, moist summer, but cotton needs seven months while corn can grow in five months. How does it happen that the Corn Belt and the Cotton Belt have so much rain, while the region to the west has so little? THE CENTRAL FARMING REGION 41 Courtesy Studebaker Corp. of America Fig. 57. The Studebaker manufacturing plant, South Bend, Indiana. Wagons, carriages, automobiles, and machinery are manufactured here. How far is South Bend from Chicago? To understand this difference in the weather we need to know about the storms which make the rainfall in this part of the world. 59. The cyclonic storms. — Strangely enough, there is system about these storms. They work according to rules, and usually follow about the same paths. They may start anywhere between southern Texas and Alberta (Figs. 91, 94). But no matter where they start, cyclonic storms in the United States travel from the west, work easterly, and pass off to the northeast. (Fig. 65.) If you should ride above one of these storm areas in an airplane, you would see the wind blowing the tops of trees in the same direc- tion that the arrows point. (Fig. 59.) What direction is that? The wind twists around a center. Is the twist in the direction taken by the hands of the watch? The center of this storm is near Kansas City. The wind blowing toward it from the south crosses Louisiana and Mississippi, and brings moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. The wind blowing toward it from the south- west crosses western Texas, and is therefore hot and dry. The wind blowing toward it from the northwest comes from Nebraska and Dakota. It is cool and dry. 60. The rainfall. — Now it so happens that the air blows in toward the center of this storm, and then goes up a mile or two above the ground (Fig. 66). In going up the air becomes cooler. Since cool air will not hold as much moisture as warm air, some of the water is squeezed out of the air and falls as rain. Look at the northwest and southeast quarters of the storm, Fig. 59. What are the wind directions in each? Which quarter has the more water for mak- ing rain? Why? Which is warmer? Why? 61. The cyclone. — These storms are called cyclones because they turn like a wheel or cycle. They twist round and round as they go across the country. These storms are not the same as those popularly called cyclones (Sec. 72). Each one is several hundred miles across. One or two are crossing the United States all the time. They bring the rain to the Cotton Belt and to the Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt. 62. The movement of the storm. — Figure 60 shows the same storm the next day. It has moved eastward, and is now central east of the Mississippi River. Look at the place on the Mississippi River that had a southeast wind the first day. Fig. 58. Swine in the United States. Compare this with the com map (Fig. 56). Why does Illinois have fewer swine than Iowa? (Sec. 75.) 42 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Fig. 59. Cyclone center, cyclone area, and cyclone wind directions. What wind has it the second day? Where does this wind come from? Which of these two days is cooler at this place? Eastern Kan- sas and Nebraska had rain the first day. They have clear weather on the second day. But the places to the south and east of the storm center are receiving winds from the sea, winds that are full of moisture for making rain. The third day (Fig. 61), our storm has passed to the St. Lawrence Valley, and the moist rain wind is blowing across southern New England Fig. 60. The same and Nova Scotia, and the dry Fi s- 59 one clearing wind is blowing across the Great Lakes and the states to the south. 63. The storm crosses the ocean. — Figure 62 shows that the storm has gone out over the sea east of Newfoundland. It blows the ocean into waves that rock and roll the ships at sea. We can trace the path (Fig. 62) that the cyclone has followed from the Pacific Ocean, across the valleys of the Columbia, the Mis- sissippi, and the St. Lawrence rivers, and out into the Atlantic Ocean. These storms sometimes cross the Atlantic and pass over England and France, Germany and Russia, and on into Asia. Meanwhile, another storm and yet another are following along behind. 64. When a cyclone passes. — When a low pressure area is approaching, the wind is sucked in from the south and east and the weather becomes warmer. When we are in the center of an area of low pressure the winds vary, and the warm moist air of the cyclonic area, becoming cool as it rises, cannot hold as much moisture, and either rain or snow falls. When the cyclone has passed on, the cold wind blows from the northwest or west, and the temperature falls. In a few days another storm comes. Thus every few days in sum- mer the needed rain comes to the cornfields and cottonfields. Now you see why all the eastern part of North America gets good rains, and why the ocean between New England and old England is so often stormy. 65. The prevailing westerlies. — Why do the cyclones travel eastward? It is because the United States is in the cool northern zone, where the prevailing wind blows from the west towards the east. Naturally the cyclonic storms, which are just big, twisting eddies, are carried along by the more powerful stream of the prevailingwind, just as a little whirling eddy is carried along in a flowing stream of water. 66. Air pressure and the barometer.— We wonder what it is that starts the cyclone. Let us try an experiment. Light a short piece of candle and set it up in a lamp chimney or even in a paper tube. The candle heats the air, which becomes lighter, rises, and draws other air in to take its place. You can see these move- ments of the air by hold- ing a smok- ing piece of paper near the bottom of the lamp chimney. Some- cyclone as that of day later. times the Fig. 61. Where the same cyclone was two days later. THE CENTRAL FARMING REGION 43 Fig. 62. The same cyclone three days later, and the path it has followed air becomes light over a part of the earth’s surface, just as it does over the candle. The weight of the air is measured by an instrument called a ba- Kansas, and the heavy air pushes up the light air, just as it does in the lamp chim- ney. 68. Starting the cyclone. - — A cyclonic storm begins at the place where a center of air rises, becomes lighter than the air surrounding it. As it rises, the heavy air pushes it up and rushes in from all directions to take its place, as the air did in our lamp-chimney experi- ment (Sec. 66). The air, rometer. If the air is heavy, the barometer is said to be “high”; if the air is light, the barometer is said to be “low”. On the average, at sea level the air presses about fifteen pounds to the square inch. 67. The high ba- rometer and the low Fig. 63 . barometer. — If the ba- rometer is high, the pressure of the air may be fifteen and a half pounds per square inch, or 2232 pounds to the square foot. If the barometer is low, the pressure of the air may even be 100 or 150 pounds less per square foot. That is a great pressure difference. Now if the barometer in one region, let us say in Kansas, becomes low while the barometer is high on all sides, there is less pressure on the farms of Kansas than there is on the farms in Dakota or Louisiana. It is like the experi- ment with the lamp chimney. The heavy air around the lamp chimney rushed in to take the place of the lighter air. That is just what happens in our cyclone (Fig. 66). The heavy air in Dakota and Louisiana flows toward the lighter air in the center of the “low” in rushing toward this center, twists around, much as water twists when it runs out through the hole at the bottom of a basin or of a bath tub, or through a round hole in the bottom of a tomato can. These great twisting cyclones, several hun- dred miles across, are pushed along toward the east by the pre- vailing westerly wind. How long did it take those in Fig. 65 to go The same cyclone, and “H”, the cold wave 1000 miles? or high area following it. 69. The cold wave. — The cyclone, with its warm weather and its rain, is not the cause of all of the rough weather we get. The cold spells called cold waves are quite anoth- er thing. Cold waves are caused by an area of heavy air or high ba- rometer, which is, as you know, the opposite of the cy ^ The same cyclone and cold clone Or wave one day later. (Fig. 63.) 44 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Fig. 65. Paths of six lows, or cyclones, in March, 1921. Dots show center at 8 a. m.; figures give dates. “low.” In Sec. 67 we learned that a high barometer may show the air to be more than one hundred pounds heavier to the square foot than is the air in a place where there is a low barometer. When this is so, the heavy air flows out in all directions from the high barometer, just as water does when you pour it into the middle of a flat dish. As this air comes down from above it has but little water, and, therefore, it makes clear weather as well as cool weather. Fig. 63 is the same as Fig. 60, except we see also in Fig. 63 the high barometer, or cold wave, which brings clear weather to follow the low barometer, or warm rainy time. On this map, the cyclone is central in Kentucky and the cold wave is central in Montana, with a northwest wind blowing from the cool high toward the warm low or cyclone. Fig. 64 is the same as Fig. 61, with the cold wave added. We see that the cyclone has gone on to the St. Lawrence Valley, and the cold wave has reached the Cotton Belt. The north wind and the northwest wind are now Fig. 67. Paths of five highs, or cool waves, in March, 1921. Dots show center at 8 a. m.; figures give dates. blowing clear and cool where two days before the weather was warm and rainy. 70. The weather procession. — It is these two barometer brothers, the high and the low, that give us our weather, — warm with rain when the barometer is low, and cool and clear when the barometer is high. This pair follow each other across the United States in a procession that never stops, for as soon as a low goes off to sea, or dies out, a high comes along after it. The high in its turn, passes off to sea or dies out, and another low follows it. Thus, on and on, on and on they go, never stopping, for hun- dreds and thousands and millions of years. The United States Weather Bureau at Washington prints a map every day show- ing the weather as it is at eight o’clock in the morning. Such a map is shown at Fig. 156. Perhaps you can get some of these maps for your school, if you write to the Weather Bureau at Washington, D. C., for them. When you write you might also ask where the nearest weather bureau is. 71. The thundershower. — To understand how much the cyclones help the Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt, we need to know one thing more about the rain. In winter these cyclones usu- ally cause it to rain or snow all day. In the summer- time, however, a cyclone Fig. 66. The directions of air currents and the location of rain area in a cycle"' e crossing the United States. THE CENTRAL FARMING REGION 45 Fig. 68. Five leading corn-produc- ing states, 1919-20: Bushels A. Iowa 444,900,000 B. Illinois 297,580,000 C. Nebraska 219,850,000 D. Indiana 179,910,000 E. Missouri 177,104,000 often gives us hot, muggy weather, with sunshine most of the day but with a thun- dershower in the afternoon. In summer the cyclones advance eastward more slowly than in winter, because the westerly wind is weaker in summer. The air near the earth becomes very warm, because the surface of the earth is heated by the sun. The heated air expands and gets light so that a few cubic miles of it are pushed up by the heavier, cooler air, very much as a piece of wood floats in a tub when water is poured in. As this air goes up, the pressure on it grows less, with the result that it ex- pands. Expanding cools it again. To see that air is cooled by expanding, let a little of the compressed air out of an automobile tire or bicycle tire, and notice how cool the escaping air feels. Since cool air will hold less moisture than warm air, big white clouds form in the heated air that rises on a summer day, just as little clouds form over the spout of the boiling teakettle. Sometimes the water falls as rain; hence the thunder- shower. The lightning of a thunderstorm is the electricity jumping between clouds or be- tween the clouds and the earth. You can make some electric sparks by rubbing a rubber comb against a woolen cloth on a cold day. Sometimes if you Fig. 69. Bushels of com (1919-20): A. Ohio 162,440,000 Indiana 179,910,000 Illinois 297,580,000 Iowa 444,900,000 Missouri 177,140,000 Kansas 103,440,000 Nebraska 219,850,000 South Dakota 98,400,000 1,683,660,000 B. The rest of the United States 1,361,750,000 C. Europe (1912-13) 632,665,500 D. South America (1918-19) 213,790,000 Fig. 70. Five leading hog- /- — \ producing states, 1919-20: e-OarStf, o 1 ' 5 =3tefif 1 Number I — 1 1 i A. Iowa 10,416,000 S \ / ) B. Illinois 5,438,000 B C. Indiana 4,622,000 I — 1 ! _ “• D. Missouri 4,467,000 E. Ohio 4,287,000 ^ stroke a cat’s fur in cold weather you can i A - — __ see sparks of electricity and hear them snap. The sparks that you see are really very small flashes of lightning. One big summer cyclone may cause fifty or even a hundred thunderstorms to occur in a single afternoon. They may be scattered over three or four states, each one may be only two or three miles wide, but it may wet a strip many miles long because the wind blows it forward. The storm pours down rain as it goes. Often one farm will get a soaking rain, while a farm a mile away will get only a sprinkle. 72. The tornado is a very small cyclone blowing with terrible force. Sometimes when the thunderclouds form in the level country of the central part of the United States, the thundercloud rises very quickly, and the air rushing in to take its place is set whirling in a small area, like the water when it goes out of the bottom of a washbasin or out through a hole in the bottom of a can. These small whirling storms are called tornadoes; they are the most terrible storms of all. Nothing can stop them. Sometimes they blow down houses and barns, uproot big trees and carry men and horses for long dis- tances through the air. Fortunately these tornadoes are rarely more than a quarter of a mile wide, usually less than that, and ex- tend only a mile or a very Fig. 71. Hogs (number), 1919-20: <-vi A. Europe 68,596,000 1 1 B. Ohio 4,287,000 f Indiana 4,622,000 Illinois 5,438,000 c i 1 Iowa 10,416,000 S ''g Missouri 4,467,000 vf Kansas 2,143,000 b , Nebraska 3,595,000 South Dakota . . 1,713,000 36, raisin S cr0 P s in B. European regular order somewhat as follows: C. Bntish Sia 731 > 260 > 000 (i) wheat, to send away to distant India — 366,600,000 cities; (2) oats; (3) barley; (4) D Austria- 328 > 640 > 000 hay for his own horses and cows; flour, and to Duluth for shipment to our eastern cities. We do not expect to find many cities in a region so far from the sea and so recently settled as is the Northern Wheat Belt. The cities are chiefly trading cities, busy supply- ing the farmers, and forwarding the grain that comes to them from the country railroad stations. The cities are all small except three: Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Winnipeg. 99. The wheat cities. — Minneapolis and St. Paul, “The Twin Cities,” have become the metropolis of the part of this region which lies in the United States. There are two reasons for this: (1) The head of navi- gation on the Mississippi makes a natural trade center for a wide region; (2) water- wheels driven by the Falls of St. Anthony have made Minneapolis the great flour-mill- ing center. Have you seen an advertisement of Minneapolis flour? E. Austria- Hungary 244,770,000 (5) pasture for his cows. The sixth field could be one-half in beets for the cows, and one-half in potatoes for men. The 160-acre farm of this region might then yield the following products each favorable year: wheat, 25 acres, 25 bushels per acre; potatoes, 12}/2 acres, 200 bushels per acre; milk, 30 cows, 3500 quarts per cow. European lands are made to yield as much and Fig. 103. Five leading wheat-produc- ing states in the United States, 1919-20: (Bushels) A. Kansas 144,560,000 B. North Dakota 61,800,000 C. Nebraska 60,570,000 D. Illinois 52,610,000 E. Oklahoma 50,140,000 64 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS 1. Account for the fertility of the soil in the Wheat Belt. Of what advantage is its levelness? © Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Assn. Fig. 105. Falls of the Mississippi at Minneapolis, the center of the world’s largest flour-mill district. What advantages bring these mills to Minneapolis? 2. How have the Great Lakes helped this region? 3. Make the following comparisons: How I distinguish between different regions. Topic. Cotton Belt. Cohn Belt. Northern Wheat Belt. Location States in region . . . Temperature: (a) Jan.(Fig.328) (b) July(Fig.329) Rainfall (Fig. 158). Products: (a) mineral (5) agricultural . (c) grazing ( d ) forests Chief cities QUESTIONS 4. Why have the “Twin Cities” become the metropolis of the American portion of this region? Winnipeg, of the Canadian section? 5. Can you find out how alcohol may be made from potatoes? To what interesting use may this fuel be put? 6. Port Nelson and Boston are the same distance from Liver- pool. Canadians hope to ship grain to Europe by Hudson Bay ports. (Fig. 94.) How will this influence Winnipeg, Montreal, the Canadian farmer, and the English consumer? 7. Does butter require more labor to produce than beef? Why? Which costs more per pound? Which of these products belongs to intensive agriculture? THE GREAT PLAINS AND LOWER RIO GRANDE REGION Part I.— The Great Plains 102. The ranch and the plain. — What regions bound the Great Plains? (Fig. 91.) In Courtesy Winnipeg Board of Trade Fig. 104. Portage Avenue, Winnipeg. Locate the city. (Fig. 94). Why may it be referred to as the “Chicago of Canada”? more in the regions where intensive agri- culture is employed. This system is much like that in parts of Europe. It is a good example of intensive agriculture, because the land produces many crops and large yields. Compare the population per square mile in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Canadian provinces. We do not at present need such great quan- tities either of dairy produce or of potatoes; but if the price of gasoline should go much higher, we may have to use alcohol to run motorcars. If that time comes, the Northern Wheat Belt farmer may spend the winter haulingloads of frozen pota- toes to the alcohol distil- leries. 101. Manufacture. — At present there is but little manufacturing in this re- gion, although thousands of square miles of this land are underlaid with coal. Its quality is rather poor, but it could easily be made to furnish power for many large manufacturing cities. IVI N 65 Copyright, The John C. Winston Co. Longitude West 110° from Greenwich Fig. 106. 66 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Courtesy Amarillo, Texas, Board of Trade Fig. 107. ~ Cattle by a water-tank on the high plains of Texas. What does the windmill do? this vast region one may often see only wide plains without a house or a crop or a tree. Here and there a wire fence runs in a straight line to such a great distance that one can not see the end of it. A man on horseback comes riding along beside the fence. He wears a broad-brimmed hat and leggings, and on his hands are gauntlets. Tied to his saddle are a coil of wire, a hammer, a bag of staples, and a pair of pinchers. He is a ranchman, riding around his fences to see if they need to be mended. His ranch covers four square miles, but it has only about 160 cattle on it. His house is down in a little valley protected from the wind. A well has been dug and a wind- mill pumps water. Every day the cattle come to drink, and then go back again to pick their living on the distant pasture. The ranch is sometimes divided into three fields: two large ones used for graz- ing, and a smaller field in the valley where grass is allowed to Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. gTOW. This Fig. 108. Alfalfa acreage in the United j g c u £ j n States. Can you trace some rivers by the strings of alfalfa land? summer for u hay, and used to feed the cattle when snow covers the range. Why does it take so large a farm to sup- port one family? (Fig. 158.) Why is the plain treeless from Canada to Mexico, except near the streams and in the Black Hills? (Sec. 109.) The grass grows in bunches, rather than in a thick turf as it does in the Corn Belt and on the Ohio Valley hills, and is commonly called “bunch grass.” 103. Indians and buffaloes. — White men have not been long in this region. In 1869 came the first transcontinental railroad, from Omaha to San Francisco, built over wide plains and high mountains by the aid of the United States Government. (Fig. 309.) At that time the Great Plains were almost entire- ly without white settlers. Roving bands of Indians, living in buffalo-skin tents, camped here and there, hunting deer, antelope, and buffalo, millions of which made their home Fig. 109. Map showing how Kafir com, a new crop from a dry foreign land, is helping American farmers in lands of light rain. (Sec. 108.) THE GREAT PLAINS AND THE LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY 67 mm _ Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 110. Buffalo at home on the plains of Alberta. How are the animals protected from cold winds? z < -> cr c < l2< > < 2 3 D - 3 0-1- U L 1/3 C z o 1 ill ill flL III L 111 ill on these pastures. Like birds, the buffaloes migrated south in autumn, and north in spring. No one knows for how many thousands and thousands of years these animals had traveled up and down the plains before the white man, the great destroyer of nature, made a sudden change in things. At first vast herds of buffalo sometimes stopped the trains on the new railroad; but the re- peating rifle had just been invented, and in a short time the hunter, the cow- boy, and the farmer had slaughtered so many buf- faloesthattheywerealmost extinct. There still remains one small, wild herd, numbering about 300, which ran away into the forested country around Great Slave Lake in Canada, beyond the country of the white man, and away from the repeating rifle. The only other buffaloes left are those protected by men and kept like cattle in zoological gar- dens, private parks, and government pre- serves. There is a large preserve in Canada, and one in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. The buffaloes are now increasing, and may some day become again the beef cattle of the plains. 104. Surface and streams. — Much of the Fig. 111. Rainfall of Pueblo, Colo., 12.52 inches per year. This is the Great Plains type. surface of the plains is so level that it seems absolutely flat, yet careful surveys show that it slopes up toward the Rocky Mountains a few feet in every mile. The eastern edge of the plain is about 2000 feet in height. At the base of the Rockies it is from 5000 to 6000 feet high. At places in the plain, layers of nearly level stone come to the surface, making long lines of hills, or breaks like huge steps, with the plain several hun- dred feet higher to the west of the step than it is to the east (Fig. 123). In parts of the Dakotas and Montana are thousands of square miles, areas larger than New Jersey or Maryland, where the land consists of rolling hills with clay soil. In western Nebraska is another large area with hills of sand called the “ Sand Hills.” Good grass grows there on the sandy soil. Near the comer of Ne- braska and South Dakota is another kind of country called the “Bad Lands,” the soil of which is hard clay. Much of it is en- tirely bare, because Fife leSin^Stef (Site)*: most of the falling A. Colorado 190,000 water runs off B. Michigan 130,000 nnicVl v hpfnrp C. California 120,000 q u i c K i y D e I o r e D JJtah 110 ; 000 plants can get it. E. Nebraska 60,000 68 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Fig. 113 The Bad Lands of South Dakota (Sec. 104). Why was this once a hiding place for cattle thieves? Because the Bad Lands are without grass, the rain has cut their surface into thousands and thousands of little gulleys. In some of the hollows between the hills, however, a little soil gathers, and in such places enough pas- ture can be found to support a few cattle. There are not many streams in such a level land of little rain. A few rivers, fed by the snows of the Rocky Mountains, flow across the plain. In the north, where the mountains are higher and there is more snow, these streams are larger than in the south. The Missouri and South Saskatchewan are the largest streams of this great region. How much of the Missouri is navigable? (Fig. 80.) 105. Cattle raising. — Some early settlers of the plains tried to grow wheat and corn, as they had done in the Corn Belt. On account of the small rainfall, the crops failed and cattle and sheep raising were tried. These have proved successful. The bunch grass stands on the plains all winter, and is as good for the animals as is the hay in the barn, if only there is enough of it. There is so little snow that the grass is rarely covered up for long; and the cattle, like the buffalo antelope Slightly modified from Bowman, “Forest Physiography” , i , , ’ Fig. 114. Cross section from east to west through the Black Hills. It shows ana aeer, used to piCK tneir how underlying rocks pushed and bent upward the level rock layers of the Own living on the plains. Great Plains which were afterwards worn away by rains and streams. B B T\/r u t i i e-ii i is a layer of limestone. In what part of this section is it the surface rock? lviucn 01 tne land Still be- Water falling on A soaks into the ground and runs under the tight layer D, longs to the Government an( * wi H fl° w out °f wells (C) if their outlet is lower than the surface at A. , fi r 1 l S° ut .k Dakota has many artesian wells fed by Black Hills water. There are Decause tne LrOvernment flowing wells on the New Jersey coast, in Australia, and in many other places* does not give it away in tracts large enough for a ranch. Many large bands of sheep roam over the eastern parts of Wyoming and Montana, and the cattle-men sometimes fight the sheep- men, because the sheep not only eat the grass so closely that none is left for the cattle, but their feet also give out an oil that is so distasteful to the cattle that they will not eat even good grass after sheep have walked over it. 106. Irrigation water. — It is easy to irri- gate the plains where the streams bring water from the mountains. In a short time after the region was settled, all the water that flowed in such rivers as the Arkansas and the Platte, was used up near the foot of the mountains, and long stretches of good land lay dry, begging for water. The United States Government now helps with irrigation work by building large dams across the streams back in the mountains. The part of the valley above the dam fills up and becomes a lake or reservoir. Thus enough water is held to irrigate thousands of farms on the Great Plains; these farms then produce crops without rain. (See Figs. 115, 140.) The Canadian Government does the same thing. It has built large irrigation works on the South Saskatchewan like those that our Government has made on the Missouri, the Big Horn, the Platte, the Yel- lowstone, and other streams. In Montana, the Missouri River in some places flows through a deep valley, which is so narrow that there is but little land over which the water can be made to flow. But there is coal beside the stream. This is used to run engines that pump water up to the fields on the level plain back of the high banks. B BAD C 1 l THE GREAT PLAINS AND THE LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY 69 Courtesy U. S. Reclamation Service Fig. 115. An irrigation project in South Dakota. Water is carried from a river to a reservoir in another valley. Why does the North Canal wind around so much? Why is there uncultivated land in the midst of the irrigated area? The straight lines are land-survey lines one mile apart. Each square represents a section (a square mile), 36 of which make a township. One township is shown with each section numbered as on the Government maps. 107. Irrigated crops. — Alfalfa, the chief crop grown on the irrigated land of all this region, makes the best of hay. In winter, or in seasons of drought when pasture fails, sheep, cattle, and horses come in from the pastures on the dry plains and are fed from the alfalfa stacks. The farmer grows alfalfa, but he sells cattle, sheep, and horses. These are the chief products of the Plains. It is fortunate that the irrigated land is scattered in many rich valleys, so that the alfalfa stacks can be close to the ranges where the sheep and cattle eat grass to get a part of their living. (Sec. 105.) In the valley of the Arkansas River, in eastern Colorado, is a trucking district from which, in summer, the famous Rocky Ford cantaloups are sent by hundreds of carloads to eastern markets. In some of the other irrigation districts many potatoes are grown, but they are so far from the market (Sec. 96) that sometimes the pigs have to eat the potatoes. Sugar beets, which are also grown, furnish pulp for cows and sugar for men. Beets are easier to market than potatoes. 108. Dry farming. — Since the failure of the first farmers who came to the Great Plains (Sec. 105), there has been much study to find new crops or new methods by which farmers could succeed on this wide land of little rain. One of the new ways is to plow a field and let it lie bare for a year, so that there are no plants in it to use the moisture. The next year a crop is sown. It receives the rain of that year, and uses also some of the rainwater remaining in the ground from the year before. By this “summer fallow- Courtesy Colorado Agricultural College Fig. 116. A bucking horse trying to throw his cowboy rider. Note leather chaps (leggings) tanned with the hair on. 70 THE SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL PLAINS Fig. 117. Map showing where most of the world’s sheep are grown, the leading ocean trade routes and their products. ing, ” one of the methods of “dry farming,” some grain is now grown in parts of the Great Plains, and in many other regions of little rain (Sec. 133, Fig. 461). Another way to make this region more useful is to find new crops suited to dry land. Plant explorers sent out by the United States Government have found in the dry parts of China a cousin of the corn plant called sorghum, and in dry South Africa they found another cousin called Kafir corn. (Fig. 109.) Both of these grains make crops in seasons in which the corn of Illinois would fail because of drought. The crops are not often sent to market but are used for feeding farm animals where the crops are grown. New drought-resistant kinds of winter wheat are being grown in western Kansas and Ne- braska, in eastern Colorado and Wyoming, and northern Texas. 109. The Black Hills. — The rock layers of the Great Plains are usually flat except in the Black Hills. (Fig. 114.) These mountains are forest covered and have many rich gold and silver min es. Fig. 118. The five lead- ing cattle-raising states in the United States, 1919-20. Milch cows and cattle. (Number) A. Texas... 5,480,000 B. Iowa 4.360,000 C. Nebraska 3,490,000 D. Kansas.. 3,230,000 E. Missouri 2,680,000 Note | A S'" 3 cdl ,1 , 55 , 110. Cities. — Would you expect to find many cities, or any large cities in such a region? The largest city is Denver, a great trade center. The location of the city is beautiful be- cause the Rocky Moun- tains tower above it. A few miles to the south, at the foot of Pike’s Peak, is Colo- rado Springs, a famous health resort. Denver and Pueblo stand on the western edge of the plain. They are gateways from the plains into the moun- tains, and from the mountains into the plains. These cities draw support from both mountains and plains. They have many smelters, which melt ores from many moun- tain mines, and they have stores which keep supplies for the mining towns in the moun- tains as well as for the ranches and farms of the plains. The other towns of the Great Plains are much smaller, supported by rail- road repair shops on the several lines that cross the plains, and by stores which often supply people living many miles away. 111. Coal. — In several places coal is found beneath this plain. (Fig. 44.) The quality is not as good as that of the coal of Pennsyl- vania and Ohio, but the quantity is abundant. If France had all the coal of the Great Plains, she would be richer in coal than all the rest of Europe combined. Will this coal make manufacturing cities in the Great Plains? 1 12. Population.— This large region, which is from 300 to 400 miles wide and 1500 miles long, is larger than England, France, and Germany combined, but it now has fewer people than Chicago or Philadelphia. Fig. 119. The five leading sheep- raising states, 1919-20. (Number) A. Wyoming 3,600,000 B. Idaho 3,070,000 C. Ohio 2,960,000 D. California 2,940,000 E. New Mexico 2,670,000 THE GREAT PLAINS AND THE 113. Devel- o p m e n t . — Plainly, this will be a land of large ranches for many years, but it may easily pro- duce butter and dried milk if need arises. The cool nights that come with high elevation make the climate good for potatoes. If the demand should arise, the irrigated sections, which can be considerably enlarged, might grow great quantities of potatoes. Enormous quanti- ties are now grown at Greeley, Colorado. By the use of the tractor and of the new drought-resisting crops, such as Kafir corn, sorghum, Turkey Red wheat, and barley, large areas of this country may be cultivated and made to produce great quantities of food. This land should always be the home of those who love animals, the out of doors, the wind, the sunshine, and the wide spaces of the earth. Part II. — The Lower Rio Grande Valley 114. A hot, dry land. — South of latitude 32° the high plains slope down to the Rio Grande. The slope is rough, dry, and hot. The ranchers here keep many long- haired goats that supply the wool for mak- ing mohair cloth. The loWer valley of the Rio Grande is low and hot. It is made up of sand dunes, swamps along the coast, thickets of stunted chaparral and mesquite trees, and wide stretches of poor pasture land scattered with shrubs. Add water and this land blossoms with crops. Rich irrigation districts lie along the streams. Laredo and Brownsville are well known because they send onions and other vegetables to northern markets early in the spring. Several places are now growing oranges and grapefruit. LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY 71 QUESTIONS 1. Name the states and countries included in this re- gion. 2. What advantages has life on the Great Plains over life in the Cotton Belt? What disadvantages? . 3. Name the products typical of the Plains. What goods does your region produce in return for the products you receive from them? 4. Why is Denver called the “Mile-high City”? (Fig. 91.) Tell why it has become the metropolis of the Plains area. 5. Suggest reasons for considering the Great Plains as a region separate from its neighbors. 6. Measure with your map scale its length and breadth. How many countries the size of France might be placed within the Plains area? 7. Find this region on Figure 494. Will it ever have a city the size of Chicago? 8. Write the story told you by an old Indian chief of his life on the Plains when he was a boy, and of the many changes which have taken place since. 9. Find all the interesting facts you can about any one of the following: The Belle Fourche Irrigation Project; Dry Farming; the City of Pueblo; Colorado Springs. 10. Why does the rancher of the Great Plains ship his cattle to the Corn Belt? (Sec. 75.) Fig. 121. Once upon a time some men who did not know the habits of rivers made the Rio Grande an inter- national boundary. On its flood plain this stream, like all other streams on flood Dlains, flows in curves, called meanders, cuts the outside of its curve and changes its course. People along its banks are always won- dering in which country they will be after the next flood. Fig. 120. The map of New England in the center of Texas helps us under- stand how large are Texas and the regions which it helps to make. Photo. Brown Bros., N. Y. Fig. 122. An electric locomotive pulling four million pounds of freight over the Rocky Mountains. In one day this locomotive will pull over the mountains more freight than a thousand horses could pull across in a week. WESTERN MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS THE SOUTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAINS 115. What are the Rocky Mountains? — Geographers have given the name Rocky Mountains to the great mountain system that extends from New Mexico to Alaska. It is composed of many, many ranges. Name three of them (Fig. 91). Many beautiful, wide valleys lie between these ranges of the Rockies. Some of them are as large in area as one or two of the counties of an eastern state. Sometimes they are called “parks.” In Wyoming the high valley of the upper portions of the North Platte River is so wide that it is called the Laramie Plains. This valley is higher than the tops of any of the mountains of New England. 116. How the mountains appear. — The Rocky Mountains are a wonderland of high, sharp peaks and great mountain ranges, many of which are snow-covered all winter and most of the summer. To reach the top of most of these lofty peaks, a traveler must climb all day on foot, at the risk of his life, and when he has reached the top, especially in Canada, he can sometimes see nothing but other snow-capped peaks and jagged rocks. There seems to be an endless procession of peaks, in front of him, behind him, to the right, and to the left, as far as the eye can see. Below the snow-capped peaks are places where in summer there are wide pastures, and still lower down on the mountainsides there are forests of evergreens clinging to the rocky slopes. Here and there are beautiful valleys dotted with farms and mining towns. High up the mountains, in gorges and canyons, clear, cold streams tumble and roar in foam- ing white waterfalls as they rush down to flow at last into some irrigation ditch in the Great Plains far to the eastward. 117. Bounds of the region. — White men have settled in these mountains and built railroads through them as far north as Peace River in latitude 56°. In latitude 55° the Canadian Grand Trunk Railroad crosses THE SOUTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAINS 73 Fig. 123. In the Rocky Mountains, and at the western edge of the Great Plains, one can see many scenes like this. What signs of man’s work can you find ? Point out the bench land. (Sec. 124.) over from the wheat country into the valley of the Skeena River, and reaches the Pacific Coast at Prince Rupert. To the north of this white men have not settled the moun- tains, except at a few fur-trading posts. The region is left to roving bands of Indians, and to grizzly bears, caribou, and other wild animals. We call this region the Southern Rocky Mountains. 118 . Crowds and lonely men. — Although these mountains are in most places a region of few people and of lonely men, crowds of men work together at the mining towns and in the lumber camps. The lonely men are the prospectors looking for ore deposits, the forest rangers watching for forest fires, and the solitary sheep herders tending their flocks. 119 . Mining and cities. — Mining is the chief industry of this region, many deposits of gold, silver, copper, and lead having been found here. Most of the cities in the moun- tains were built at the mines. Many of these settlements began as mining camps far from a railroad. Sometimes dozens, hun- dreds, and even thousands of men have lived for a time in these tent towns, away back in the mountains where the only freight carrier was the pack mule, with bundles balanced across his saddle. The pack mule clambering over the rocks could do the work if the gold or silver deposits were rich enough to pay the high freight. The cost of living was very high at first because the men had to live on food brought from a great distance. The largest of these many mining cities is Butte, Montana, where live thousands of people who work in the copper mines in the wonderful hill of Butte. This hill is seamed through and through with hundreds and thousands of veins of copper. Anaconda, Helena, and Great Falls are busy smelting ores of copper, gold, and silver. Electric power for much of this district comes from the falls of the Missouri River at Great Falls. Cripple Creek, Victor, and Leadville are mining towns in Colorado. The town that depends upon the mine may not be long-lived, for, at best, mining is an industry that takes all of its product out, and finally leaves nothing but a hole in the ground. The future promises gigantic mining industries here. In Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, there are enormous deposits of phosphate rock which we can use when others are worked out. In the Green River Plateau at the corner of Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado is 100 square miles of shale rock several hundred feet thick and yielding a barrel of petroleum to the ton when dis- tilled (Sec. 141). We may soon find hun- dreds of thousands working here in one of the world’s greatest industries. 120. Lumbering in the mountains. — Al- though the tops of the Rocky Mountains are II— 4 74' WESTERN MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS Fig. 124. Machinery for concentrating copper ore at the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, Anaconda, Montana. Why does it take large sums of money to run a copper mine? for the most part bare rock, the lower slopes are cut into hundreds and thousands of little side valleys and gulches, wherever green trees cling to the steep and rocky slopes. Altogether these mountains have tens of thousands of square miles of forest, but because of the difficulty of taking lumber to the distant city markets, only a very small part of the timber has been used. How far is it from the Big Horn Mountains to Chicago? from West Virginia to Chicago? It is hard to take lumber from the moun- tains for two reasons: first, in many places the land is too rough for roads to be made; and, second, the streams are too rocky to float the logs. Sometimes small logs are used to build a chute or slide several thousands of feet in length down a mountainside. Upon it other logs can coast down. Sometimes the logs go at such speed that if they jump out of the chute they tear themselves to pieces on the rocks. The only way to stop them 1 - at the end of the chute is to have them jump into a pond of water. (Fig. 126.) In other Tq Fig. 125. The five states leading in gold production (1919-20): A. California $15,851,750 B. Colorado 8,931,350 C. South Dakota 4,745,550 D. Nevada 4,107,000 places the lumber, sawed into boards, is floated for miles down the rocky valley in a wooden flume or trough. 121. National forests. — Our Congress very wisely decided to keep many of these forest lands as the property of all the people. The United States Govern- ment owns many thousands of square miles of forests covering a large part of the Rocky Mountain region. A part of the United States Department of Agriculture, called the Forest Service, has charge of these forests, and is protecting them until the time comes to use the trees. The forest has two great enemies — over-pasturing and fire. Of these, fire is much the worse. The National forests are watched and protected by forest rangers. The ranger makes long lonely rounds on foot or on horseback, or more recently by airplane, looking for fires, because one fire may kill centuries of growth. He climbs high cliffs, mountain peaks, and even lookout towers, Courtesy West Coast Lumberman’s Assn. Fig. 126. A Rocky Mountain lumber camp, log chute, and storage pond. Could you move a log in a pond? THE SOUTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAINS 75 so that he can look far, far away across the forest. If he should see through his spy- glass the smoke from a small fire, he would signal for help to put out the blaze before it could spread. The fire fight is all planned in advance. Axes, shovels, and other tools are in readiness. The places to work have all been planned, but even with the best of care the fires sometimes leap through the tops of the evergreen trees and run with the wind, killing millions of fine trees. Careless camp- ers, miners, and sheep herders start some of the fires, and some are started by lightning. The forester tries to protect the forest so that it will be a forest for all time. 122. Vacation land. — The Rocky Moun- tains are a glorious vacation land for. those who love mountain scenery, and who enjoy wild, uninhabited places. On the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains near Colorado Springs is Pike’s Peak, to the top of which runs a railway that enables people easily and comfortably to reach its summit, over 14,000 feet high. If you love high climbing, there are snowpeaks and glaciers waiting for you. If you love to climb only a little, there are wooded spurs and lower mountains to explore. Courtesy National Park Service Fig. 128. Campers having a vacation on Bear Lake, Colorado. Where do they cook? If you like to fish, you can wade up the rocky bed of trout streams in which perhaps no other person has fished for a year. Many of the more beautiful and wonderful places of this region have been set aside as parks by the American and Canadian governments. In this way such places belong to all the people for all time. The Yellowstone Park, in the corners of three states, is larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware com- bined, and is one of the most famous of the National parks. Since no one may hunt there, bears, elk and bison, abound, and some are as tame as cows, and come close to visitors to be fed. Yellowstone Park has wonderful geysers, and there also are waterfalls and volcanic mountains of glass-like rock. The won- derfully colored walls of the canyon of the Yellowstone River are more than 1000 feet high. It is too bad that, for most of the people of the United States, it is such a long journey from home to this land of de- light. Fig. 127. Lake McDermott, a lake in the Glacier National Park, Montana. Can you see the timber line on Grinnell Mountain? Similar views may be had in other parts of the Rockies. In this part the Government has made roads and camps so that tourists can live in the mountains very inexpensively. Where would you like to camp, and what would you do here? 76 WESTERN MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS 123. Agriculture. — When the first miners came to the Rocky Mountains food was very expensive because it had to be brought from such great distances. The first farmers in valleys near the mining towns or camps sold their fruits and vegetables at prices that were several times as high as prices in New York or Chicago. This made farming very profitable in the mountain valleys and more farmers came, until finally there was a sad day when the crops were so large that the home market did not need all that there was to sell. Some had to be sent away across the Great Plains to the eastward. Before that time the farmer in the mountain valley had been able to get eastern market prices for his produce, plus the railroad freight and the wagon haul to the mining camp. But when he sent his goods to the eastern mar- kets, he had to take the eastern price, less the cost of carriage to that market. This cut into his profit so much that he now raises grass and hay in many Rocky Mountain valleys. He could produce many other crops if only he could market them profitably. 124. Bench lands and fruit. — When moun- tain glaciers covered some of the Rocky Mountains and reached down to the plains, many of the smaller mountain valleys were lakes. Some of these glacial lakes were filled with sand and earth that was washed down from the hills. Since the glaciers disappeared, the streams have cut valleys in these filled-up lake beds, leaving step-like land called ter- races or benches (Fig. 123). Bench land makes very fine farms. It is level, smooth, and free from stones, and the good soil is many feet deep. Many of the benches can be irrigated by water from mountain streams. In some of the valleys, orchards of peaches, apples, and cherries have been planted; in others, hay and grain are raised. In some ? , valleys there is not enough water for irriga- tion, but wheat is grown by dry farming (Sec. 108). 125. Crop rotation. — One irrigated Colo- rado bench farm has the following system: first year, potatoes; second year, wheat; third year, barley. After the barley, al- falfa is sown, which makes hay during the fourth, fifth, and sixth years. In the seventh year the land is again plowed, and the rotation begins with potatoes. The tem- perature of the mountain valley is just right for potatoes, and there is plenty of water, so that an acre of land very often yields 400 Courtesy “ The Country Gentleman” Fig. 129. An irrigated peach district in the Rocky Mountains. Find the orchards, shade trees around the houses, a river, and two irrigation canals. The large one with the bridge over it leads into a tunnel. The smaller canal at a higher level is in a wooden flume. Its water can be seen at the left and at the right of the picture. Why would you say the cliff at the right had layers of hard rock and layers of softer rock? THE SOUTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAINS 77 ■SLACK Tf" (mi~ssoQR» rwer . f R LOWER yellows; 'HEAD [o NVT ^H elena BELLE EOUaCHt ESERVOIF la math |? G *Ni>0 J^INIDOKA PATHRNDER 1 ^RESERVOIR STRAWBERRY yALLEW Denver! 5AROEN If y OU watch the moisture con- dense on a plate of ice 5^077 cream in hot weather, you if may see some of it freeze into tiny spikes, or crystals, Fig. 157. The rainfall on the two sides of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, of ice. They are frost — The shaded part is land. Elevations shown by figures are at the surface of f rr >von motor , ra nnr WW the land; the amount of rainfall per year, by vertical lines and figures at the 1 P ‘ ^ tops of the lines. Thus Wadsworth, about 25 miles east of Reno, 4077 feet does frost, instead of dew, high, has 4.25 inches of rain per year, less than one-fourth the rainfall on f nnri nn the Farallon Islands, about 25 miles from the entrance to the Golden Gate. . n m Iaa Account for the rainfall at Sacramento, Cisco, and Reno. (Sec. 154.) and spring? SIERRA NEVADA 51 16 , 47.01 PACIFIC § OCEAN 0*fi.7r SEA LEVEL 2S MILC6 SO 157. 92 WESTERN MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS Figs. 158 and 91 and make a figure like 157 from a line east and west through Seattle or Portland? Does the rainfall map show why nearly all the towns of Utah are in a string on the plain at the foot of the Wasatch Moun- tains? 159. Uneven distribution of rain on the Pacific Moun- tains. — Lower California is so far south that cyclonic storms occur there only in the winter. In summer it is a hot, dry region. There photo. Brown Bros., n. y. f s so little rain that the Fig. 159. A rotary snowplow used to dig a way through mountain snows. mountain streams rarely 158. Rain in the western states. — Now we reach the sea. The rainfall increases as we are ready to see why the Pacific Mountains go north, but even at San Diego there is have much rain and snow, while ^ less than twenty inches of rain a the Basins have so very little. When the west wind blows moist air from the Pacific Ocean toward Nevada, it has to cross two mountain ranges, and one of them is very high. (Fig. 157.) As the air climbs higher and higher it becomes cooler and cooler, and the moisture, or water vapor, condenses as it does in the case of the cold glass or the blades of grass. These little drops of water in the air are like those we see in the little cloud which forms above the mouth of a boiling teakettle. As the air goes higher and becomes still cooler, the little drops gather to- gether making drops so large that they fall as rain. If the weather is cold enough, frost is formed instead, and falls as snow. Look at the rain- fall map of the United States (Fig. 158). How many belts of rainfall can you pick out in each of the Pa- cific States? What makes them? (Figs. 91, 157). How much rain falls in Nevada? year, and men must irrigate the land in order to grow most crops. But in northern California, Oregon, and Washington, the west winds drop nearly a hundred inches of rain a year on the mountains. The winter snowfall is heavy. Sometimes it is piled up to the eaves of mountain houses. The railroads can run only by having snowsheds built over the tracks.. At Donner, California, near the summit of the Sierra, the average snowfall is sixty-eight feet a year. From the northern end of Van- couver Island around to the Alaskan Peninsula, the Pacific Coast is in many places a rugged wall of moun- tain, rising so directly from the sea that rarely is there room for a town or a farm (Fig. 165). The sea winds hurl moist air, warm from the ocean, against these mountain slopes. This Fig. 160. Fir trees, causes very heavy rain and snow. So Baker County, Ore- gon. Did you ever see a tree with so U. S. Forest Service much snow falls on the high moun- tains that glaciers bring millions of How much on the g h to tr ^ n ^- i ^ 15° tons of ice down to the sea, where it Sierra? Can you get facts from make good lumber? melts in the warm water of the Japa- THE PACIFIC MOUNTAINS AND THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST 93 Courtesy West Coast Lumbermen's Assn. Fig. 161. Splitting a Sitka spruce log for airplane wood in western Washington. Can you tell why split pieces may be stronger than sawed pieces? Men cut the tree in a day. It needed three hundred years to grow. nese current (Fig. 327). Because of this cur- rent the temperature along the Alaskan coast is much warmer than that of eastern North America in the same latitude. 160 . Forests and snowfields. — In Lower California the climate is so hot and the rain- fall so slight that there is only a little forest on the top of the high mountains near the northern end of the peninsula. The moun- tains are often only bare, dry rocks, with a few bushes clinging in the moister places. The forest begins at 5000 feet on the moun- tains of southern California. The valleys are treeless. In the Great Valley the western slopes of the southern Sierra Nevada are grass-covered for the first fifteen hundred feet, then scattering trees appear. At three thou- sand feet the Sierras are covered with a solid forest of splendid trees, which extend upward to the 6000-foot level. The farther north one goes the greater is the rainfall and the lower this forest line on the mountains. The Coast Ranges, which are lower than the Sierra, do not have much forest south of San Francisco. What is the rainfall of the Coast Ranges? (Fig. 158.) In northern California, Oregon, and Washington the heavy rain makes the coast forest so thick that it seems almost like a great dark building beneath the trees. The great tree trunks stand like the columns of a temple. Between them stand masses of ferns as high as a man’s head, and in winter they are dripping wet in this ocean climate. Large areas of these Pacific forests are cov- ered with redwood, sugar pine, and Douglas fir. The Sitka spruce flourishes in the wettest lands along the coast from Oregon to Alaska. Its wood became so important during the World War, when it was used for making parts of airplanes, that special railroads were built in western Washington to get out the great logs of this strong, light wood. No other part of the world can rival the mountains of the Pacific Coast in richness of lumber supply. One may walk for miles along mountain slopes in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, winding his way in and out among the trunks of trees that are four, five, six, or seven feet in diame- ter. The first limb of these trees may be fifty or even a hundred feet from the ground. Nowhere else in the world does one acre of forest yield so much lumber. (Fig. 160.) It is on the west slope of the Sierra that < Courtesy The H. K. McCann Co. Fig. 162. Felling a Pacific Coast tree. Why may this be called “mining” lumber? About how old is this tree if it has added one quarter inch to its diameter each year? II. 94 M N O P Fig. 163. THE PACIFIC MOUNTAINS AND THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST 95 we find the famous “big tree” or giant Sequoia. Millions of years ago these trees were very common; now they grow only on a few hundred square miles of this region, and the largest trees are now in a park. (Sec. 163.) The mild winters, the plentiful rain, and the absence of hard winds permit these ancient giants to prosper. Some of them have lived since the time of Moses. 161. From the for- est to the lumberyard. — Since lumbering is the chief occupation of this region of wonder- ful mountain forests, most of the population is made up of lumber- men. Here in the woods they live for a time in camps and work, busy with tem- porary railroads, log chutes, timber flumes, donkey engines, and teams. Washington State leads all others in lumber production; Oregon is third. The lumber is sent by thousands of carloads to eastern cities, and by shiploads to every continent. 162. Forests of the northern mountains. — The splendid forest that we find in Wash- ington extends on into British Columbia and Alaska. Most of the Alaskan shore, and many steep islands, in- cluding Kadiak Island, Alaska, are at low elevations, green with forests of Sitka spruce and other evergreen trees. In this northern latitude the upper timber line is not high up. Above it are thousands of square miles of bare rocks or Courtesy U. S. Forest Service Fig. 164. A forest fire killed these big trees in one of our western national forests, and left them standing. Later a second fire killed the young growth and burned deeply into the old dead trees. Compare the value of this stand of timber with that shown in Fig. 160. fields, from which come the glaciers (Sec. 159). This Pacific Mountain Region includes Mt. McKinley, Mt. Logan, and Mt. St. Elias, the highest mountains of North America. 163 . National forests and national parks. — Since nearly all of this mountain region is too rough for farms, our Government has very wisely set aside much of the American part of the land as national forests, to be protected by the forest rangers, and to be kept for the use of all the people for all time. In sum- mer, sheep are allowed to pasture in some of the forests as they do in the Rockies. Lum- ber is cut to meet the needs of the people who live near, but the Forest Service tries to keep young trees grow- ing, so that the forest may always yield a harvest. The art of protecting and caring for forests is called forestry. Many of the most beautiful parts of the Pacific forests have been set aside as na- tional parks. Roads have been built which lead to them, and trav- elers may go to them to camp, tramp, and enjoy the wild out-of-doors. (Figs. 128, 168.) Many citizens have spent much time, working without pay, persuading Congress to pass good forest and park laws, and our Presidents to enforce them. Public-spirited citizens had to work very hard to get a grove largest of the Sequoia trees set aside 96 * WESTERN MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS Photo. William Thompson Fig. 165. Pyramid Range, Sitka Harbor, Alaska. Why is the bottom forest-clad, the top snow-clad, and the mid-height cloud-clad as the west wind blows ? Rivers on this coast are salmon streams. as Sequoia National Park. The wonderful Valley of Yosemite, on the Merced River in California, is now the Yosemite National Park. In Oregon, a road eighty miles long per- mits the traveler to visit Crater Lake, famed for its high cliffs and clear water of matchless blue. This lake is five miles across and stands in the top of an old volcano, where once the lava boiled and bubbled. In western Washington is Mt. Rainier National Park, where snow-capped Mt. Rainier can be admired from great distances. The government of British Columbia has set aside national forests and national parks as our government has done in the United States and Alaska. 164. Minerals. — This mountain region has another source of wealth: minerals. Gold was first found in California in one of the streams of Sacramento Valley, in 1848. The early miners washed the sands of the rivers in pans. To get the golden grains, they even scraped with spoons the crannies in the rocky beds. After the miners had taken all the gold out of the stream bed, they found that small quantities of gold could still be washed from banks of sand and gravel lying along the streams, by a method called placer mining. Finally the miners followed the precious trail up to its ancient source in the mountain rocks. There deep mining in the solid rock began. In some places valuable orchards have been tom up by dredges digging up meadows to get gold from ancient river beds. The meadow becomes a pile of stones. There is gold in the Alaskan part of these mountains also. At Juneau are the Tread- well and Alaska- Juneau gold mines. The Treadwell, far below sea level, had produced millions of dollars worth of gold before the sea broke through and flooded it. This disaster prevents its being worked now. From the Alaska-Juneau mine is taken eight thousand tons of ore-bearing rock every working day, yielding only a little gold per ton, but enough to pay men for working it. 165. Railroads and cities. — Southern Alas- ka has deposits of copper and coal, and the United States Government has built a rail- road to help the mining industry. In sum- mer the terminus of this road is at Sunrise, Fig. 166. Six leading lumber- j-j 1 producing states (1919): A. Washington 4.961.200 ft. B. M. B. Louisiana 3,163,900 ft. B. M. C. Oregon 2,577,400 ft. B. M. D. Mississippi 2,390,100 ft. B. M. E. Alabama 1,798,800 ft. B. M. F. Arkansas 1.772.200 ft. B. M. n 01 97 AmuSka ■ a Q. O z Fig. 167. 98 WESTERN MOUNTAINS AND PLATEAUS Courtesy Seattle Chamber of Commerce people will receive future benefits. In the national forests the ranger fights fire, in order that people may have wood to use ten or a hundred years hence. The parks are planned to last forever. Water power plants are being built along- side of mountain waterfalls in order to send power to Seattle, San Francisco, and dozens of other cities. These power plants and irrigation reservoirs are Fig. 168. Mt. Rainier, sometimes called Mt. Tacoma, 14,408 feet high, called being built with the future by the Indians “The Mountain That Was God.” It is not far from Puget • • u Sound, Tacoma, and Seattle. The tents are those of campers, who have the view ’ Decause tney muse privileges of the mountains, which are part of Mt. Rainier National Park, run for many years before near the head of Cook Inlet, but when the in- let freezes over in winter, the trains must cross the Kenai Peninsula to the port of Seward. Skagway, at the head of a long, narrow inlet, has a railroad that crosses the moun- tains to connect with the steamers on the upper Yukon at White Horse. These steamers carry supplies to mining settle- ments and trading posts on the great Yukon. We shall study about them later (Sec. 348). Prince Rupert, at the mouth of the Skeena, will probably be the largest city of this region north of Vancouver. It is the terminus of the new Grand Trunk Railroad that has been built by the Canadian Government to give the northern part of the wheat region an outlet on the Pacific. 166. Preparing for the future. — These moun- tains reach from the land of blazing sun to driving snow, but everywhere they are mountains, producing only pasture, wood, minerals, water, or recreation. They are not suitable places for the permanent homes of many people. Most of those who live there stay only for a time, and then move away. They are lumbermen, miners, for- est rangers, or campers seeking a summer vacation in the cool mountains. (Fig. 168.) Though men live here only temporarily, it is the intention of the Government to use the resources of the mountains wisely, so that | they can pay for themselves, and they can keep on furnishing water and power to valley dwellers for generation after generation. These Pacific Mountains have almost as much water power as all the rest of the United States combined. They have as much power as is used by all the factories east of the Mississippi River. Some of this power is in the Coast Range, but more of it is in the Cascades and the Sierra. All of it is within Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 169. This Indian on Albert Bay, Vancouver Island, builds his house white man’s style, but h>e tells his family history with totem poles carved from tree trunks, North Pacific Indian style. a THE PACIFIC MOUNTAINS AND THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST 99 easy reach of the cities of the valleys and the coast and the Basins. If we take proper care of our continent, we shall keep these mountains in forest to furnish wood, to hold the soil, to store water in the soil, and to shade the snow so that it will not melt too soon. In many of the narrow canyons, dams will some time be built to provide water for irrigation and electric power. Show one way in which waterfalls are better than coal fields. 167. Alaskan resources. — The mines of Alaska promise to yield large quantities of coal, copper, and gold ; they may keep many thousands of workmen busy for a long time. Salmon canneries at river mouths along the coast will continue to be busy in the canning season ; that is, if we do not destroy the sal- mon by too much fishing, as we have done in some other rivers. On the Pribilof Islands in Bering Sea our government owns and cares for the largest herd of fur seals in the world. The men who live there to protect the seals also have fox farms, where they raise the blue fox for its valuable skin. There is some farming land along the Alaskan coast waiting for the time when we may need to use it. Grass grows to great height. The long summer days let potatoes, oats, barley, and many hardy vegetables ripen. The forests of the Alaskan coast region contain a vast amount of timber, and will soon be of use. In 1921 the United States Forest Service leased a large tract of land in a national forest near 56° north latitude to a paper company which promised to build a large paper-mill at once. Who will use that paper? How will it reach the market? The interior, with its maze of unmapped mountains, offers attractions to daring per- sons who like to join the Indians and tramp where few have tramped before; who like to fish and to hunt mountain sheep, caribou, and grizzly bear, far from the homes of men. 168. The conservation of resources. — These mountains will be one of the tests of our government and of our civilization. In some parts of Spain the firewood cutters went out long ago and cut down the trees. Then the goatherd came along with his flock, and every little tree was eaten. Then gullies started and now they are deep enough to hide a house. Nothing grows on those mountain- sides and no one makes his living there. In parts of China the same thing has happened. The forest is gone from the mountainside, the earth is gone from the mountainside, and even worse yet, the dirt and stones have been spread over the good farm lands of the valley and have ruined the valleys also. Shall we do better than this? In some places we have already done the same thing in our new continent. (Fig. 82.) Most of our western mountain lands belong to the government. Shall we elect to government positions people who work for the public good, and then keep them in their positions? In a very short time that choice of officials for such positions will be made by the boys and girls now in our schools. What organ- izations are there in your neighborhood that work to make it a better place in which to live? QUESTIONS 1. Determine with your map scales the length of this great mountain wall. (Sec. 152.) What states and provinces does it cross? Locate and give the ele- vation of four great mountain peaks. What important mountain ranges form the system? 2. Make a list of the good effects of mountains; the bad effects. 3. Will it make any difference to the people of a city on the Atlantic Coast if fires and lumbermen waste timber on the Pacific Mountains? 4. Give three reasons why these mountains should be kept in forest. 5. Why is there more rainfall in the northern part of this region than in the southern? 6. Why should the governments of the United States and Canada, rather than private individuals, own great areas in these mountains? 7. Compare the west coast of North America and the east coast as to nature of coast line, width of coastal plain, distance of mountains from the sea, average height of mountain areas. 8. Write to the National Park Service at Washington for a booklet about the national parks. 9. What appeals to you as the most beautiful sight one would see traveling through this region? the most interesting? 10. How may the waterfalls in these mountains do as much for the people who live there as anthracite has done for Pennsylvania? 11. Subject for debate: Resolved, that the forests of our country are a greater source of wealth than our gold mines. 12. Find from some good encyclopedia, facts of interest about the Yosemite, Mt. Rainier, Crater Lake, the big trees of California. Fig. 170. Looking down from Smiley Heights upon the orchard-clad slopes above Redlands in the southern California orange district.' Compare with Figure 1. Can you tell why a lot of snow on the mountain in the springtime makes the valley people feel rich. THE VALLEYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST 169. The four Pacific valley regions. — On the Pacific slope there are four valleys, each of which is separate from all the others. The four valleys differ greatly in character; so much, indeed, that each of them must be considered as a separate region. Two of these valleys are in California; one is in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia; and the fourth, which this chapter describes, lies near the mouth of the Colorado River north and east of the Gulf of California, in Mexico, Arizona, and California. THE LOWER COLORADO REGION 170. A great delta oasis. — The lower valley of the Colorado River is often called the American Egypt. This so-called Ameri- can Egypt is naturally desert, but a great river flowing from other regions makes the land productive in much the same way that the Nile River saves Egypt from being a desert. The climate of the two regions is similar, and crops such as the date, Egyptian cotton, alfalfa, Kafir corn, and early vege- tables are produced in both places. The people of Yuma, Arizona, sometimes say that they have eleven months of summer and one month of late spring. How far north of the equator is Yuma? Cairo on the Nile? 171. A wonderful delta. — The Colorado delta is a piece of new land. It is much the largest tract of good farm land in this region. Once upon a time, long ago, the Gulf of California reached about two hundred miles farther to the northwest than it now does, and the Colorado River flowed into the east side of it. The dirt that the river cut from the Grand Canyon was gradually spread out into a delta that reached across the Gulf. The river, as rivers do in deltas, flowed now here, now there, sometimes into the gulf as at present, sometimes into a cut-off piece of the Gulf, the remainder of which is called Salton Sink or Sea. (Fig. 171.) When the Southern Pacific Railroad was built through that region, and white settlers began farming there, the Colorado flowed directly into the Gulf, and the Salton Sea was so nearly dried up that it was only a small body of salt water surrounded by many square miles of THE LOWER COLORADO REGION 101 their great food tree, the date palm, loves to grow with its feet in the water and its head in the fires of Heaven. Then the Imperial Valley is a natural home for the date. The great Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey river Fig. 172. A desert in the Lower furnishes Colorado Region. The only water within ten miles is under the boards plenty Of beside the bush. No water flows water and awa y from the spring. Many such ’ springs have been marked by the the rays Of United States Government to make the the sun do desert safer for travelers. Can you tell , why travelers might cross this desert? seem almost as hot as fire. The thermometer is 105° in the shade every day for weeks at a time, and if the sun shines on a pipe filled with water, the water in it will get hot enough to burn one’s hands. Orchards of date trees, brought from Africa and Asia, are now thriving and bearing good fruit in what was recently the burning desert of California and Arizona. It is claimed that these dates are sweeter and better than old-world dates. 174. Truck farming. — Cantaloups from this district ripen weeks before those grown on the Atlantic Coastal Plain. For a month they are shipped (three hundred carloads a day, in 1920) to nearly every state in the United States. Sometimes the price is high, but sometimes there are too many canta- loups grown, and the price drops so low that it does not pay the growers to ship them. 175. Cattle and cotton. — The Imperial Valley and the Salt River Valley are also good for cattle. No crop thrives better under irrigation than alfalfa. This forage, along with Kafir corn (Sec. 108), is grown and fed to many dairy cattle; so there is butter to sell. desert land lying below the level of the sea. How much is below the sea level? (Fig. 171.) 172. A fight with a river. — Imperial Valley is the correct name for the American Egypt. The Americans built a canal to carry water from the river toward Salton Sink, to irrigate the rich delta land. By accident they nearly drowned the valley. Heavy floods made the water flow so swiftly that it dug the canal deeper, and finally 87 per cent of the Colo- rado River flowed down into Salton Sea. New channels washed good fields away. The sea rose and flooded the railroad and some farms. How much land would it have flooded if it had not been stopped? (Fig. 171.) It took three million dollars and many months of work to stop this break and make the river flow again into the Gulf. Many miles of railroad bed were under water when the river was con- quered, and many farms were threatened. Now a great farming region has arisen there, for the soil is level, rich, and deep, and the hot sun makes plants grow with great speed. 173. Date farming. — The Arabs say that Fig. 171. Map showing the delta (alluvial fan) of the Colorado, and the Imperial Valley which it made. Where was the upper end of the gulf before the delta reached across it? California has many such alluvial fans. 102 THE VALLEYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST the Gulf of California. — This is a low plain with steep mountains at its eastern limit. This coast plain shimmers under the blazing sun and, like the lower Col- orado Valley, is nearly rainless and often bare. (Fig. 172.) In some parts there is so little rain that no streams reach the sea. They flow instead into little salt lakes or salty sand plains. Even the mountains for the first four or five thou- sand feet up are hot, and bare of all growth except cactus and scattered desert bushes. Pine forests, encouraged by the greater rainfall of the heights, cling to the high, wild slopes. The white man knows but little of these tangled masses of mountainsides and hidden valleys, but the Indian has climbed there. Some of this wild region is still occupied by the Yaqui Indians. This brave tribe has been at war with the Spanish- speaking people of Mexico for three hundred years. An American railroad has been built the whole length of the plain and it extends on up into the plateau. (Fig. 91.) At a few places there is enough water for irrigation, where food crops for the natives, and a few early vegetables for the American market are grown. About Christmas time some tomatoes come into the United States from this frost- Roosevelt dam. (Fig. 130.) All of the cotton now grown in this valley has come from the seed of one extra fine Egyptian cotton plant that grew there in 1910. Because this cotton has such long fibers, it is used for auto- mobile tires, and sells for a big price. The Salt River Valley produces good oran- ges, grapefruit, and olives. Many of the farm labor- ers in this region are Japa- nese, Mexicans, and Indians. They seem to endure the hot climate better than can white settlers * Courtesy The Southern Pacific Ry. Fig. 174. Irrigating young date palms, Imperial Valley, near a boundary town 176. The east coast Of called Calexico. What is the man doing with the shovel? Courtesy W. L. Paul, Coaehilla, Calif. Fig. 173. A date garden thirteen years old at Coaehilla, California, a short distance from Salton Sink. Each year the tree drops some leaves and gets taller but not wider. The United States Department of Agri- culture tried experiments with Egyptian cotton, and now many thousand acres of this cotton are grown each year in the Imperial Valley, and in the Salt River Valley, near Phoenix, Arizona. This productive valley, once desert, now has a rich agriculture much like that of the Imperial Valley, since it has been irrigated by the waters from the famous THE VALLEY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 103 less land. The chief freight for the railroad is the minerals, which are sometimes brought down several days’ journey on backs of mules from mines in the mountains. 177. Unused resources. — Much water can be stored in some of the gorges of the Colo- rado and its branches, and in the gorges of the rivers in the Mexican mountains. Great canals can lead this water out to irrigate the lowlands of the United States and Mexico. If this is done, the American Egypt will be one of the four great oases of the world. The other three are Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the upper Indus Valley. If fully used, this region will also be a land of mines where minerals can be found ; and of ranches, where the pasture, though scanty, will be sufficient for sheep and goats. A great deal of water power can be de- veloped along the Colorado River. QUESTIONS 1. Name the chief products which the valley pro' duces. How may these be increased? 2. How may the Colorado River be said to have built the Imperial Valley? 3. Why is the Lower Colorado Region con- sidered a separate region from the southwestern plateaus and mountains? 4. Give reasons for two of the names applied to this region: (a) The Ameri- can Egypt; (b) The Imperial Valley. 5. What is the annual rainfall for this district? The average tem- perature for January? for July? (Figs. 328, 329.) 6. Compare its latitude with that of Egypt? How has the Roosevelt dam made last year’s rain useful to the farmers in Salt River Valley? 7. Catalog the pictures in this chapter as follows: Photo. Putnam’s Studios Fig. 175. Eucalyptus trees near Pasadena. These swift-growing Australian trees are only 20 or 25 years old. They are wonderful wood producers. THE VALLEY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA See on the map, Figs. 91 and 163, how this region lies in the southwestern corner of California, in a kind of hollow made by the mountains as they bend westward toward the seacoast. How high are the mountains that form the eastern and northern boundaries? Title. Description. What It Tells Me. 8. Compare as follows: the Colorado and Mississippi rivers Navigability. Scenery. Utilization of Waters for Power. Irrigation. 9. Describe the journey which the Imperial Valley cantaloup must take to reach your town. Could it be shipped through the Panama Canal to New York? 10. In what way has the growth of cotton in the Colorado Basin lessened the cotton imports of the United States? 11. Why was this good farm- land so long unused? Fig. 176. Southern California, Would they be more valuable to this rather dry valley if they were twice as high. (Sec. 158, Fig. 157.) 178. Bounds and surface. — This region consists of a narrow coast plain and several valleys, of which the largest is the Los Angeles-San Bernardino Valley. This is the smallest district we have studied, but it has more people than several districts of larger area. The population of the city of Los Angeles alone has reached 576,673 (1920 census), ranking tenth among the cities of the Uni- ted States. Pasadena has 45,344, and San Diego 74,683 people. 179. Climate and scen- ery . — W hy are there so 104 THE VALLEYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST Courtesy R. G. Dun & Co., N. Y. Fig. 177. Getting ready for a photo-play at the Triangle Big Ranch in the attended. Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles. Where may these films be used? many people in this small region? The reasons are two: climate and scenery. The people like to speak of their country as a land of delightful climate and of beautiful landscapes. The ocean winds are so warm that frost is rare in the coast district. In the summer these sea winds seem cool because the land is warmer than the water; in winter they seem warm because the water is warmer than the land. (The temperature of land near the seacoast is usually pleasant.) At night it is so cool, even in summer, that people sleep under blankets, or even enjoy sitting by a fire. But only a short distance inland the summer temperature some- times reaches 100°. From 1875-90 (9496 days) there were at San Diego 9181 days with the temperature not above 80° nor below 40°. 180. Climate and occupa- tions. — Wonderful climate is the chief resource of Southern California, for climate makes possible the three great occupations of the region: the growing of fruit and vegetables; the search for health and pleas- ure ; and the making of mov- ing-picture films. Many thousands of tourists go to Southern California each winter to escape the bliz- zards and snows of the northern and eastern sec- tions of the United States, and to enjoy the beautiful scenery. Many other thou- sands go to live there per- manently. Recently the people who had moved from Iowa to Southern California met together for a picnic near Pasadena, and twenty- seven thousand persons Many such pic- nics could be held by those who have moved there from other states. In this region one may see orange groves, blooming roses, fields green with grain and alfalfa, and in the distance mountains with pine trees on their slopes and glistening snows upon their summits. The warm Pacific near by invites to bathing and boat- ing, and to journeys by boat to Santa Catalina and other islands near the coast. It is no wonder that so many people go to California to improve their health and to have a good vacation. 181. The moving picture industry. — Man- Fig. 178. A view of part of the harbor of Los Angeles. THE VALLEY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 105 ufacturers of films for moving pictures have found that the pleasant climate and beauti- ful and varied scenery of Los Angeles and vicinity are ideal for their enterprise. The seashore, cities, palm trees, orchards, farms, hills, and mountains furnish suitable back- grounds for almost every kind of scene that can be needed. Thousands of people in or near Los Angeles are engaged in this indus- try, and almost every moving picture theater in the United States shows films made in this locality. 182. The winter rains. — It is a misfortune of this region that the rain falls chiefly, in the winter and not at all for three months in summer. Why does it so happen? During the winter, the land is cooler than the sea, and the sea wind, cooled by coming to the land, drops some of its moisture as rain. (Secs. 155, 158.) This fact causes the rainy season, which begins in November and con- tinues until April. From April to November the land is warmer than the sea. The sea wind is then warmed as soon as it strikes the land, and thereby becomes a drying wind instead of a rain-bearing wind (Sec. 155). For weeks and months at a time in summer, the sun shines and there is rarely a shower. Compare Figs. 180 and 89. The dust flies and settles everywhere, even on the leaves of trees. Fields become brown, except where water can be had for irrigation. Irrigated spots make patches of bright green in the brown land. On the higher slopes of the mountains, enough rain and snow fall to keep some forests growing. (Sec. 160.) 183. The struggle for water. — The climate is so good for oranges, lemons, and other valuable fruits that growers make a great effort to get water. If water can be had, an acre of bare land worth only $100 can be made into an orchard worth $1500 or $2000. Water! Water! Water! Every- thing depends upon getting it. Deep wells are dug and long tunnels are driven back into the hillsides, and the water thus captured from streams far beneath the surface is pumped to the places that need it. To keep the water from soaking into the earth before Courtesy Prof. Chas. F. Shaw, U. of Calif.and U. S. Bureau of Soils Fig. 179. Map of a section of valley near Pasadena, showing how streams flowing from two canyons have built up a wide-reaching alluvial fan with gentle slopes (Sec. 194) good for frost drainage (Sec. 184) and irriga- tion. The lines with figures (contour lines) show the ele- vations. What is the elevation at the Santa Ana River? at the highest lemon orchard? Crops are in three bands: beets, grain, and alfalfa, the most frost-resistant, are at the bottom; then peaches, apricots, and grapes; and finally oranges and lemons. The rough mountain on both sides of the valley is in national forests. it reaches the trees, it is often carried in pipes or in cement-lined ditches. Great sums of money have been spent to build 106 THE VALLEYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST the dams, ditches, and pipes needed, but the large crops make it profitable. 184. Frost drainage or thermal belts. — To grow oranges in this region two things not easy to get at the same place are required. One is frost drainage of the uplands, and the other is irrigation of uplands. which carry water out on the South- ern California slopes, where orange groves bedeck the foothills on both sides of the San Bernardino Valley as in Fig. 179. Below on the floor of the valley, instead of fruit trees there are fields of alfalfa, wheat, barley, and other crops that frost Frost drainage is a curious part does not injure. Where the foot- of the climate of hills and moun- 15.62 inches per hills cannot be irrigated, grapes On cold nights, when there Cahfon L an ' are sometimes grown, because the Mediterranean type. . 0 ’ vines are able to send roots far tarns. is no wind, the coldest air, being heaviest (Sec. 66), runs down into the valleys, which thus get colder than the hillsides above. If the valley does not have time to fill up with freezing air before sunrise, the hilltops and higher slopes do not freeze. A place having frost drainage is sometimes called a thermal belt. It does not reach very high up the mountainside. As the hillsides and hilltops are safer from frost than the flat valleys below them (Fig. 179), many orchards in Southern California and elsewhere in the world (Sec. 283) are planted on the slopes and tops of hills (Fig. 244). Orchards on the slopes in dry countries must be supplied with water by irrigation. With much labor, ditches have been dug into the earth, and thus they get the small amount of necessary water. 185. Very intensive agriculture. — Agricul- ture is more intensive in this district than in any other region of the United States. Many families support themselves by selling the oranges, peaches, grapes, tomatoes, celery, cabbage, or vegetables which they grow on five or ten acres of irrigated land. In some localities the sugar beet is grown. This crop requires much work, but it gives a large har- vest. The farms are so small that the farm- houses are close together. As one rides along the road, one seems to be passing through a village which extends for miles, but really the buildings are just a suc- cession of farmhouses. THE VALLEY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 107 Photo. Jas. N. Btedsoe Fig 182. Los Angeles water-supply aqueduct crossing a deep valley. What does the picture tell you about the rainfall of this region? What does the small picture tell you about the size of the steel pipe? 186. The fog and the beans. — Near the seacoast there is a heavy fog every summer morning for weeks at a time. Foggy weather seems to suit lima beans, and nearly all the beans that are dried and sold in the United States are grown in this district. The rain- fall is only ten or fifteen inches a year, but the beans grow without irrigation because the fog dampens the ground each night. 187. Hillside pastures. — Flocks of cattle, sheep and goats pasture on the slopes above the irrigation line, and above the pastures the moun - tainsides are clad with for- ests of oaks and evergreens. 188. The need of forests. — The people of these valleys insist that the Government shall keep all mountain summits well cared for and forest-clad (Sec. 168), so that there may be water for irrigation. 189. The Los Angeles aqueduct. — Years ago the people of Los Angeles found that the city must have a new and larger water supply. This supply was secured at great labor by building an aqueduct through moun- tains and over hills, valleys, and plains, in order to bring water from Owens River near the foot of Mt. Whitney, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, two hundred and forty miles away (Fig. 182). This new water sup- ply is one of the things which has helped the city to grow so rapidly. Hydroelectric power plants have been built at points where the aqueduct comes down the mountainsides. The power is sold in cities to help repay the twenty-five millions of dollars spent in build- ing the aqueduct. (Fig. 194.) 190. Fuel and cities. — There is so little coal on the Pacific Coast, that ships coming to California for grain formerly brought coal from our Atlantic Coast, from Australia, and even from England. Then petroleum fields were found in Southern California and in other parts of the state. (Fig. 44.) This oil is a much cheaper fuel than the coal that was imported. It is used instead of coal on Pacific railroads and many steamships and United States Government war vessels. The manufacturers in Los Angeles can now run engines as cheaply as they can be run near the coal fields of the eastern states. This is one of the reasons why Los Angeles grew more rapidly between 1910 and 1920 than any other large American city except De- troit. Los Angeles is the trade center of this region. It has a good harbor, steamship lines on the Pacific, and is growing as a manu- facturing center. 191. Future. — Much more land may be irrigated by preventing all waste of water. What was said in the study of the South- western Plateaus (Sec. 151) about crops that grow on unirrigated land? Will the delightful climate of this section continue to attract people from other regions? What does the success of the film industry indicate as to the future of other manufac- turing industries? 108 THE VALLEYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST Courtesy U. S. Geological Survey Fig. 183. The low fan-shaped hill, spreading out from the foot of the gulch, is an alluvial fan covering a few acres. It was built up of soft, rich earth washed out by the water flowing from the gulch or canyon. Alluvial fans miles across are shown in Figures 171 and 179. Can you find them? The sides of the Great Valley in California are a long series of wide fans reaching outward from the mountains. Millions of people live on alluvial fans. QUESTIONS 1. Would you prefer to winter in Southern Califor- nia or in Florida? Give your reasons. 2. Imagine that you are an actor or an actress in a moving-picture company in Los Angeles. Write a letter to a friend in the east, telling of your work, and of the advantages which - this region offers for the taking of moving pictures. Is it better for this purpose than Florida? 3. Make use of the following chart to explain the importance of Southern California: How Nature’s Helpers Aid the People of Southern California. THE VALLEYS OF CEN- TRAL CALIFORNIA 192. A large valley and four smaller valleys. — Look at the maps (Figs. 91, 163) and see how the wide val- ley, called the Great Val- ley, lies between the high Sierra Nevada on the east, and the Coast Ranges on the west. It is about four hun- dred miles long and from fifty to sixty miles wide. Near San Francisco are four smaller valleys, all nestled in among the Coast Ranges. Find Santa Clara south of San Francisco, and Santa Rosa and Napa to the north of it, each in a valley of the same name. The Salinas Valley, opening directly to the Pacific near Monterey, is the largest of the four smaller valleys. All the smaller valleys combined are not nearly so large as the Great Valley. Like Southern California, this part of the state was first settled by the Spaniards, and many places still have Spanish names. In recent years many peo- ple from Europe and many eastern states have come to make their homes in this land Names of Helpers. How Each Helps. The Ocean The Mountains The Mountain Streams. . The Mountain Snows.. . . The Mountain Forests. . . The Weather The Soil 4. What effect has the Panama Canal upon the commerce of Southern California? 5. Account for the difference between the climate of 'Southern California and that of the Imperial Valley. 6. Compare the reasons for planting trees on the hill- sides in California with the reasons for planting trees on the hillsides in the Ohio Valley. 7. If the mountain wall to the east were no higher than the Appalachians, what would be the conditions to-day in Southern California? 8. How many ways can you think of by which neighboring regions might help people to make a living in California? 9. How does California pay these neighboring regions? 10. Which region is benefited most? of fertile soil and pleasant climate. 193. Climate.— All these California valleys have a very mild winter climate because the Sierra Nevada Mountains are high enough to shut off the cold winds of winter from the interior, and the Coast Ranges are low enough to let in the warmer winds that blow from the Pacific. (Sec. 158.) Thus the city of San Francisco passes winter after winter with- out a single freezing day, yet in summer the daily sea wind is so cool and so constant that strangers from warm countries wear an overcoat even in August. While people are wearing ^ Ihe Valleys of Cen _ their overcoats in tral California. THE VALLEYS OF CENTRAL CALIFORNIA 109 San Francisco, the temperature of the Great Valley, only fifty miles away, is sometimes 100° in the shade. This is because the sea winds do not reach far into the Great Valley. The rainfall, like that of Southern Califor- nia, occurs in winter and not in summer. For this reason few crops, except wheat and barley, can be grown without irrigation. But the dryness of the summer helps the fruit industry, which is remarkably developed in the four valleys. Because the summer days are rainless, California fruit will dry in trays on the ground, and for this reason California produces more dried fruit than all the rest of the United States. Many millions of dollars’ worth is sent annually to eastern states, to Europe, and to other continents. The dryness of the air makes the flesh of the fruit more firm than the flesh of fruit which grows in moist climates. For this reason California cherries will keep so well that they can reach New York City in better condition than can cherries grown in New York State. For the same reason the Cali- fornia peach is so firm-fleshed that it can be quickly skinned for canning by dipping it into hot lye water, a process which turns an Eastern peach to mush. Hence canning peaches, in which she excels the eastern states, is one of the great industries of California. 194. The Great Valley of California is one of the important agricultural regions of the world; the amount of its production is steadily growing. This whole valley was once a large gulf, like the Gulf of California. But streams cut valleys into the mountains along the sides of the gulf, and carried down the sand and mud until the whole gulf was filled, except at the bay near San Francisco. This water-borne soil made the valley nearly level, fertile, and free from stones. Thus the land is easy to cultivate. Also it is very easy to irrigate, because the streams, in filling up the valley, have spread the earth out as streams do when they build deltas — in wide, fanlike slopes, called alluvial fans. (Figs. 171, 179, 183.) Most of these fans make very gentle slopes, which reach from the foot of the mountain down to the river 11-6 in the valley. The irrigation canals can be built along the upper sides of the fields on the slopes, and, when the side gates are opened, the water will flow gently across the fields that lie below the canals. The Kings River, flowing out of the Sierra, built its fan higher than did the other rivers, and dammed the upper part of the San Joaquin River. The water above this dam is Lake Tulare, a lake without an outlet. In dry seasons its water is very low, and in wet seasons it rises and floods hundreds of square miles of land around its shores. Sometimes the farmers try to raise wheat on these muddy lands. If the water rises, the fields become a lake. If it does not rise, a rich crop may be harvested. 195. How the industries have changed. — The industries of the California valleys have changed from time to time since gold was discovered in 1848. Then, in a single year, thousands of men rushed to San Francisco from the eastern states and from many foreign countries. For a time gold was almost the only product of the state. Later it was found that wheat, winter wheat (Sec. 89), grew well during the season of rain. After the reaper was invented, vast fields of wheat were planted in the level lands of the val- leys, and vessels loaded with wheat sailed to England by way of Cape Horn. 196. Fruit is king. — Fruit is now the king of California crops. This new industry began to develop when the first railroad from San Francisco to Omaha was completed, in Courtesy Oakland Chamber of Commerce Fig. 185. The storeroom of a fruit-canning factory in the Great Valley. Where might this fruit be eaten? 110 THE VALLEYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST Photo. Ewing Galloway, N. Y. Fig. 186. San Francisco — looking across the bay toward the Berkeley Hills. To what cities may the ferryboats be going? (Fig. 196.) San Francisco Bay is a safe harbor. How far is it up or down the coast to another such inlet to the interior? (Fig. 163.) 1869. Within a few years the people of California were sending packages of excellent fruit from their gardens to eastern markets. The fruit sold well and the people of the California Valleys planted more orchards, until, finally, the fruit trade was established. The chief wealth of the state is now neither in flocks and herds, nor in the gold and wheat of former days, but in oranges, lem- ons, raisins, plums, prunes, pears, apricots, peaches, cherries and other fruits, and nuts. California sends out enough oranges to make twelve big trainloads a day, for four months of the year, each train having thirty cars. In addition, many thousands of tons of canned fruit, vegetables, and dried fruit are shipped annually from California. Not long ago the people of our eastern cities were buying prunes, raisins, oranges, and lemons from Spain, Italy, and Greece. Now we get what is needed from California, and sometimes there is some left to be export- ed to Europe. The trees and vines to start these crops were brought from southern Europe, where the climate is mild and the summers are dry like those of California. 197. New crops are constantly being estab- lished. A few old trees of olives, almonds, figs, and English walnuts did so well that many more such trees are’ being planted. The English walnut industry of California has grown very rapidly, and the almond industry is steadily increasing. 198. Blossom time. — Nothing can be more beautiful than these valleys in the spring of the year. (Fig. 1.) The valley is then green with fields of alfalfa, wheat, and barley. On the lower slopes of the mountains the orchards are covered with pink and white blossoms. Their perfume fills the air, and bees and insects buzz and hum as they fly from flower to flower. On the higher slopes, flocks of sheep and cattle graze on green, flower-decked pastures. Still higher on the mountains is the darker color of the ever- green forest, reaching upward toward the snow that glistens on the mountaintop. Many travelers visit the Valleys of Central California to enjoy their beauties, and to es- cape the harsher winters of their home states. 199. Cooperative methods. — It is a help to the fruit grower if his neighbors grow the same kind of fruit that he grows. One advantage is that everyone in the neighbor- hood will then know how to do that kind of work. The stores will keep the needed tools THE VALLEYS OF CENTRAL CALIFORNIA 111 and supplies. Full carloads of fruit can be shipped out because neighbors can send their fruit together. Another great advantage is gained when many growers join in building packing and storage houses for the use of all. To secure the advantages derived from cooperation, California fruit-growing is cen- tered in spots, to an unusual degree. For instance, nearly all of the plums and prunes, and many of the cherries and pears are grown in the Santa Clara Valley. There is a long belt of orange orchards on the sloping alluvial fans that spread out from the foot of the Sierra, southeast of Lake Tulare. North of Lake Tulare, around Fresno, nearly every- one raises grapes to be shipped fresh to eastern markets, or to be dried as raisins. In 1920, Fresno County alone grew over two pounds of raisins for each person in the United States. A little farther north, one peach orchard joins another for miles and miles. Along the cool shores of Monterey Bay are more than a million apple trees. In two small valleys north of San Francisco Bay, the Santa Rosa and the Napa valleys, there are many orchards of apples and pears, and also many vineyards. Cooperation has helped to make the fruit industry succeed and grow so large. 200. Working together at harvest time. — Fresh fruit that is sent to market is first taken to one of the cooperative packing houses. Through these community enter- prises or associations, thousands of farmers Courtesy Sacramento Chamber of Commerce Fig. 188. A California power plant in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. See the pipe that brings water down the mountainside from a stream or canal. Where will the power be used? work together as one company or organiza- tion. The association buys its supplies wholesale, packs its fruit in uniform packages, sends it in carload lots to distant markets, sells it, and returns the money to the grower. The associations even advertise California fruit in other states, so that people will know about it and buy it. Harvest is a very busy time for fruit- growers. Fruits, such as peaches, apricots, plums, and grapes, are spread on trays and put in the sun to dry. When dried, the fruit is sorted and packed into boxes. Many of the fresh fruits are taken to the canneries to be canned by thousands of women and girls. 201. Vegetables and the tule lands. — Near their mouths, the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers flow through many miles of swamp. This swamp is often overflowed in May and June, because the streams rise with floods of snow water that rush down from the high mountains. It has latelybeen discovered that when dikes are built to keep out the floods, these marshes may be made into the best of farmland. These lands, called “tules,” are low, moist, rich, flat as a floor, and especially suited to growing vegetables. Each spring, carloads of California lettuce, tomatoes, 112 THE VALLEYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST onions, celery, and asparagus go from the tule lands east of San Fran- cisco to many eastern cities. In some places one may find FINCH A BAKER U.S. DEPT.AGR. ^ Single fl6lcl Fig. 189. Where California and f • • Oregon almonds and walnuts are containing a grown. thousand acres, in which there is only one kind of crop. Much of the asparagus which is canned for the world’s market is grown here. 202. Rice. — In 1909 a venturesome farmer north of Sacramento tried an experiment. He opened the dike that surrounded his low land and let the water flow into a field of newly-sown rice. He reaped a splendid harvest. The neighbors then experimented with their fields, and by 1916 there were 67.000 acres in rice. In 1920 there were 162.000 acres in rice, and California sur- passed all other states in yield per acre. 203. Other agriculture. — In order to plant more land in fruit, the people have divided the old Spanish ranches having ten, twenty, or thirty thousands of acres into many little tracts of five, ten, or fifteen acres each. Thus hundreds, and even thousands, of people now live on the land that in 1870 or 1880 was just one big sheep or wheat ranch. Wheat-growing has declined until Cali- fornia now imports some wheat from other states. Barley, in a dry climate, thrives a little better than wheat, so barley is the chief grain which is grown in this region. Most of it is fed to the ani- mals, for Cali- fornia has little corn. Corn is not grown much because the summer is too dry, and Fig. 190. Where California lemons and Florida limes are grown. Where the land. can be irri- gated, other crops often pay better than corn un- less it is grown for table use. California once imported butter from - FINCH & BAKER U.S. DEPT.AGR. , f . ^ Fig. 191. Where California and east Ol Florida pomelos (grapefruit) are Rocky Moun- grown. tains, but now she sends butter back to the East. She has butter to export, because the irrigated alfalfa fields of the valleys, and the unirrigated barley fields on the slopes produce enough feed for many dairy cows. Since corn is scarce, hogs also are scarce. In spring many sheep pasture on the slopes above the orchard and farmland, but in summer they are taken up into the moun- tains, often above the timber line, where their owners rent pasture in the national forests. 204. Cities, trade, and manufacture. — San Francisco is the natural metropolis, or leading city, of this region. It is located on a fine harbor, in the gateway to the Great Valley. How many people live in the cities on San Francisco Bay? Many railroads center there, and steamship lines reach out to Asia, Alaska, Australia, and South Amer- ica. Lines of steamers go from San Fran- cisco, through the Panama Canal, to the eastern states and to Europe. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle are rivals, because each city wishes to be the metropolis of the Pacific coast. The Panama Canal has greatly aided the people of the Pacific coast to market their produce in eastern cities. But Pacific steamship s , which used to unload Asiatic goods at Paci- ~ ~ ® Fig. 192. Where California and HC ports, to be Arizona olives are grown. THE VALLEYS OF CENTRAL CALIFORNIA 113 sent across the continent by rail, now some- times carry their freight on to the Atlantic ports. It seems that San Francisco and the neighboring cities of Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley, will grow as their manufacturing increases, and as the valleys that are back of them increase their crops. The other cities of these valleys, Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose, and Fresno, are busy with canneries, fruit-pack- ing houses, and stores which supply the things that fruit-growers need. The cities of Central California, like those of the southern part of the state (Sec. 190), have lacked coal, and therefore no iron has been produced. Materials for the steel shipyards, foundries, and machine shops at San Francisco have been imported from the East or from Europe. This lack of coal and iron held back the growth of manufacturing for a time, but cheap oil has of late been a great advantage. San Francisco has made machinery for local use, but her manufactured goods for export have been chiefly the things for which the native materials of California may be used, such as lumber, articles of wood, meat, and canned, dried, and preserved fruits and vegetables. Her manufactures are steadily increasing in variety. 205. Unused resources. — Plans are made to build a great irrigation canal at a high level along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. It will extend from north to south for several hundreds of miles, bend around the southern end of the valley, and go up the western side. By this plan, water that now floods the marshes can be put to work; and idle land now producing only jack rabbits, homed toads, and a few sheep, can multiply the California fruit crop five-, or even ten- _ fold, if the fruit is needed. ' It is fortunate that water to be used for irrigation can first be used for power. Thus storage of water for the field also increases the supply of Fig. 193. Value (1919 and 1920 average): A. California Fruit Crop $235,932,000 B. California Grain Crop 87,910,500 Courtesy Journal of Electricity and Western Industries Fig. 194. Can you locate in this area from Fig. 163 an important city that is not on an electric power line fed by a mountain stream? See the many lines from the Sierra mountains to the San Francisco district, and the long straight line to the Los Angeles-Pasadena district. What power sources does the Columbia Basin have? water for the power plant, and therefore the two great industries of agriculture and manufacture help each other. QUESTIONS 1. Fill the blanks in the following sentences: (a) The five valleys of Central California are (6) The soil of these valleys was from the by the (c) The temperature of the valley lands is in winter, and in summer. (d) The rainfall (Sec. 193) is ,and comes for the most part in - Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. (e) Frost occurs Fig. 195. The California rice area, the newest rice district. 114 THE VALLEYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST FARALLONE ISLAND; tieXj.Cq-SOlfrH AMERICA - K£w YORK *HD iff - ' ALCATRAZ I ’angel ISLAND |T£RS POINT GOAT I. Fig. 196. Perspective view of the northern end of San Francisco Bay looking toward the Golden Gate. Note the location of the cities around the bay. San Francisco is the largest, but appears small because it lies in the distance. What is the population of the four largest cities? (See Appendix.) (/) The mountain streams furnish water for.. and ( g ) The products of the valley orchards are..... (h) The products of the valley farms are.. ( i ) The products of the tule lands are O') The important cities are 2. Model in damp sand the State of California. Show the surface features and cities. 3. Complete the following chart: How My Maps and Graphs Help Me to Under- stand the Central Valley Lands. Figure Number. Title. What It Tells Me About Central California. 4. In what way has man’s ingenuity added to nature’s gifts to California, to make it a productive country? 5. Define hydroelectric power. What will its further development mean to these valleys? 6. Name two ways in which the dry California summer is helpful to fruit growers? 7. How have the California valleys helped to make our country independent of southern Europe. 8. Why has San Francisco become the metropolis of central Cali- fornia? 9. What lessons might the people of your locality learn from the California Fruit Growers’ Associations? 10. The California Valley farmers are glad to see heavy snow on the mountains in spring. Why? 11. Make a catalogue of the pictures on this region, as follows: Title. Short Description. What It Tells Me About Central California. Fig. 197. The Willamette- Puget Sound Valley. 12. Write a story describing all the good things the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers have done for the people in their valleys. THE WILLAMETTE-PUGET SOUND VALLEY 206 . Another great valley. — The Pacific mountains again divide in Oregon, Washing- ton, and British Columbia, thereby making room for the Willamette-Puget Sound Valley. This valley is to these states what the Great Valley of California is to that state. Between these two great Pa- cific valleys there is a wild region THE WILLAMETTE-PUGET SOUND VALLEY 115 of forested mountain, through which passes the one railroad, connecting the north and the south Pacific coasts. 207. Climate. — The Willamette- Puget Sound Valley has more rain than the Cali- fornia valleys, more frost in winter, and a cooler summer. The climate here has brac- ing winters and delightful summers, a combi- nation such as cannot be found in any other large part of the United States or Canada. We must go to France and southern England to find its match. It is hard for people living in a certain latitude on the Atlantic Coast to Fig. 198. Rainfall understand how different per year. Wiiia- the climate exactly west on mette-Puget Sound the Pacific Coast can be. pare e5 tms P with C F^" Roses bloom at Christmas- 180. Can you ex- time at Portland, Seattle, plain why these ^ , , ,, , types are different? Tacoma, and at other places in this region. In much of this valley snow at sea level is a curi- osity, rain in July or August is rare, and thunderstorms are so nearly unknown that many people are greatly frightened when one occurs. In the summertime a person in the sunshine rarely feels hot, and he always feels cool in the shade. The people are right in claiming that their climate is wonderful. Indeed, a geographer, Dr. Huntington, of Yale, says that this climate is the best in the world to keep people healthy and to make them active in mind and body, because it has frequent small temperature changes with the passing of cyclones. It is warm enough in winter to tempt people to go out of doors. It is cool enough in summer to make people want to do things, rather than to sit in the shade. 208. Forests and lumber. — This valley, once forest-covered, is now an island of farm- land in a sea of forests. The mountains on both sides of the valley are buried deep be- neath the dark shade of the most wonderful forests in the world. For miles and miles the tramper must make his way between trunks of pine and fir that are four, five, and six feet in diameter, and reach up seventy-five or one hundred feet to the first limb. Splendid forests still cover part of the valley floor. Trainloads of logs wind down from the mountains. Log rafts float upon the bays and rivers. Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and many smaller towns have big sawmills. This is the greatest lumber-manufacturing region in the world, and it is also close to the reserves of the choicest standing timber to be found in any place that is easily accessible. (Sec. 162.) 209. Agriculture. — The summer is too cool for corn, but wheat, barley, oats, and potatoes thrive amazingly. In the Willamette-Puget Sound Valley there are many cattle and much poultry, for which fields of barley, oats and clover furnish good food. Pastures are green all the year. To supply the large de- mands of Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Olympia, and Tacoma, many dairy farms and market gardens are needed. Fruits grow bountifully. Strawberries are equaled only by those of France. Cherries grow to great size. Plums are abundant, Photo. Brown Bios., N. Y. Fig. 199. Sawmill at lone, on Muddy Creek, Washing- ton. Why are the logs stored in the water? Where is the endless chain that takes the logs into the mill? and many prunes are dried. Many of the fruits of California are grown here, but the chief commercial fruits are of the more northern kinds — plums, pears, cherries, and 116 THE VALLEYS OF THE PACIFIC COAST Courtesy Portland Chamber of Commerce Fig. 200. A bird’s-eye view of Portland, Oregon, and Mt. Hood. Of what use is the snow on Mt. Hood? Why is Portland a large city? apples. These fruits are also grown in the British Columbia part of this lowland — Vancouver Island — and on the opposite shores of the mainland. Many shipments of beautiful fruit are sent each year to eastern markets. Loganberries, raspberries, and blackberries also thrive abundantly in these valleys. From the canning factories, the fruits are sent in jam cans to grocery stores, and, in the form of syrups to soda fountains in all parts of our country. If all the suitable land of this valley were cleared and used for intensive farming we should have an agriculture like that of France and England, whose climate is moist and cool. In those countries, barley, potatoes, forage beets, dairy products, hogs, poultry, fruits, and vegetables are largely produced, and the production of such things may be greatly increased in the Willamette-Puget Sound Valley. 210. Fisheries. — There are oysters in Puget Sound, which, though smaller than those of the Atlantic waters, have a delicious flavor. All the rivers of this region are visited each year by the salmon, one of the most valuable of food fishes. The salmon lives in the sea, and each year the full-grown fish come up the rivers to lay eggs. At this time they are easily caught. Salmon canning on the shores and rivers is an important industry. 211. Manufacturing and resources for manufactur- ing.— The cities of this val- ley have grown rapidly, and are thriving centers of manufacture, with saw- mills, shipyards, machine shops, and many factories, some of which can fruits and fish, and others make products of wood. What is the population of each of the four largest cities on Puget Sound? The resources for manu- facturing a great variety of articles in the Willamette- Puget Sound Valley are remarkable. These are: (1) Climate. (Sec. 207.) (2) Lumber. (Sec. 208.) (3) Power. The high and rainy mountains near by have more water power within easy reach than can be found in the whole of any three countries of Europe. (Fig. 194.) There is also a coal field, with coal of fair quality. (4) Abundant food. The farms within the valley can produce milk, potatoes, vegetables, and fruits for a much larger population, and still have a surplus for the canning and syrup factories. East of the Cascades are the apple orchards of the Hood, Yakima, and Wenatchee valleys. In the Columbia Basin is the great source of bread and meat supply. (5) Nearly all manufacturing districts im- port some raw material. The Willamette- Puget Sound Valley has the all-reaching sea and splendid, safe harbors as natural trans- portation facilities, as well as good trans- continental railways. 212. Foreign trade. — The valley has a large ocean trade. Among the many advan- tages for it are Puget Sound, a deep and beautiful body of water, which has enough harbors to hold ten times the ships of all the world. At Bremerton, the United States Government has a naval base and yard where large war vessels are sometimes repaired. THE WILLAMETTE-PUGET SOUND VALLEY 11 ? Ocean steamers come with ease to the excel- lent Puget Sound harbors of Seattle, Ta- coma, Everett, and Bellingham, and up the Columbia and Willamette rivers to Port- land. These seaports provide splendid facilities for a large and rapidly increas- ing foreign trade. There is a rich hinterland (land that lies back or beyond), and many trade routes reach into this rich interior. The Willamette- Puget Sound Valley opens not only toward the west, but also toward the east. No other Pacific valley has this double advantage for trading with the interior. Look at the loca- tion of Portland, Oregon, on the map of navigable rivers (Fig. 80). Explain how ocean steamers and river boats make Port- land the natural place for a city. Transcontinental railroads bring freight over the Cascades from Spokane and the Columbia Basin, and from Chicago and eastern points. The trains that carry lumber and fruit to the East sometimes bring back Texas cotton and eastern manufactures for export across the Pacific. Vancouver is the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which is the great transcon- tinental line that serves the Canadian area between Lake Superior, Winnipeg, and Puget Sound. Unfortunately, the country back of Vancouver is so rough that there is not much room for farms, but the region has great lumbering and mining resources. The steamships from Puget Sound carry food and manufactures to Alaska. Lum- ber, machinery, cotton, and flour are shipped to Japan, China, and the Philippines from Washington and Oregon ports. Central and South America, South Africa, and Australasia draw some of their supplies from this region; and there is a heavy export through the Panama Canal to the Eastern States and to Europe. What do the return- ing steamers bring? QUESTIONS 1. Why are there so many steamship lines froirfthe Puget Sound region? 2. What conditions exist in this valley, favorable to the development of manu- facture? of dairying? Why have these industries not yet been fully developed there? 3. How does climate give the cities of this region a lumber industry? 4. Make a comparison of the Pacific Coast valleys. Topic. Impe- rial Valley. Valley of South- ern Calif. Valley of Cen- tral Calif. Willam- ETTE- PuGET Sound Valley. Location and bounds Temperature Rainfall Important rivers Products of orchards Products of farms . . . Products of forests. . . Products of pastures . Products of mines . . . Important cities Advantages for trade with the interior. . . For foreign trade . 5. As a member of the United States Bureau of Forestry, write a letter to the Puget Sound lumber- men suggesting better methods for protecting and cutting their forest areas. 6. In what Pacific Coast city would you settle for trade with the Far East? Why? Photo. Brown Bros., N. Y. Fig. 201. View of Mt. Rainier, or Mt. Tacoma, from the heart of Seattle. What do the people in the street tell you of the size of the buildings? Courtesy Boston & Maine R. R- Fig. 202. Portland Head, Maine, one of the hundreds of rocky points that line the coast from Boston to the Arctic Ocean. Such a rocky coast is not found anywhere on the sandy shores stretch- ing from Long Island to Vera Cruz. The white mist at the right is the splashing water thrown up by a wave as it throws itself upon the rocks. The changing wind and sun, the passing clouds, the ris- ing and falling of the tide give this rocky coast an unending charm. THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST DISTRICTS THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 213. How this land was made. — Once upon a time, a very long while ago as men count time, but a very short while ago when time is reckoned by the age of the world, what is now the eastern coast of North America was down under the sea. Then very, very slowly it was lifted up, so that what had been sea bottom became dry land, flat and level, made of clay, sand, and mud that had been washed down by the eastern rivers of North America. One can dig a deep well in the plain and not reach solid rock. The plain thus made extends from Cape Cod all the way around to Mexico. There are many such coastal plains in the world. That part of our coastal plain north of the Cotton Belt we call the North Atlantic Coast Plain. 214. The beach and the fall line. — At the eastern edge of this region is the sea, with its waves ever beating upon the sandy beach. At the western edge of the coast plain lies the hilly Piedmont region. What is now the surface of the Piedmont was once deep down under the earth where the great pressure of the overlying rock helped to turn sand and clay into hard stone. But it has been above the sea level for ages and ages, and the streams and weather action have worn it down till it is not much higher than the surface of the Coastal Plain. Look on the map (Figs. 21, 241) and see how the streams and rivers, as they flow down toward the sea, cross first the hard, rocky Piedmont earth, then the soft, sandy earth of the Coast Plain. In the rocky region the stream wears away its bed very slowly, but in the earth of the plain it quickly digs a much deeper channel. Because the streams wore away the sandy soil so much more easily than they did the hard rock, a wide ledge of rock is left in every stream along the eastern edge of the Piedmont. Each stream that enters the Coast Plain from Fig. 203. The North Atlantic Coast Plain. ( 118 ) M N O P Q 119 Fig. 204. 120 THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST DISTRICTS Courtesy H. J. Heinz Co. Fig. 203. Harvest-time in a Delaware truck field. If this picture was taken at twelve o’clock, what do shadows tell about direction of rows? the Piedmont region tumbles over the last rocky ledge in falls or swirling rapids. This chain of rapids is called the “Fall Line.” It extends from New Jersey to a point at least as far as Augusta, Georgia. Boats going up the rivers have to stop when they come to the ledge of rock where the rapids are. This fall line is a natural place for men to make towns. Why? Throughout its length it is now marked by a row of cities, sometimes called fall-line cities: Trenton, on the Delaware; Philadel- phia, on the Schuylkill; Baltimore, on a creek called Jones’ Falls; Washington, on the Potomac; Richmond, on the James; and Raleigh, on the Neuse River. These cities, except Baltimore, we shall study in connec- tion with the Northern Piedmont Region. (Sec. 264.) The Coast Plain includes Long Island and Cape Cod, both of which are as sandy as any other part of the plain. 215. A climate boundary. — The southern boundary of the North Atlantic Coast Plain is a climate boundary, and it is found at the place where the growing season is long enough to let cotton ripen and become an important crop. 216. Waterways and harbors. — After the North Atlantic Coast Plain had been raised n out of the sea, and the rivers had cut valleys in it, a part sank fifty or sixty feet, and, of course, the sea flowed back into the river valleys. Look at the map, and you can see that the ocean water filled up the Susque- hanna River valley and made Chesapeake Bay, and you can see that it filled the lower parts of many branch valleys that now make the arms of the big bay. On another part of the coast the water joined two little valleys which have become Long Island Sound. Look at the map (Fig. 26) and tell how two valleys filled with water made the State of Delaware a part of a peninsula. How can boats pass from the Chesapeake to the Delaware? Many steamboat lines go from Baltimore to Norfolk, Fredericksburg, and to York- town, and to many, many other places on both sides of Chesapeake Bay. These boat lines have greatly helped to make Baltimore the large, prosperous city that it is. Many counties in the CoastPlainsection of Virginia have, even now, no railroads, but depend upon sailboats, launches, and steamboats. 217. Unused land. — Part of the Coast Plain was settled very early, but strange to say, much of it is still unsettled. If you walk inland from Tuckerton, north of Atlantic City, you will not pass a house or a field in seventeen miles. You will see only woods, where the big trees have been cut for lum- ber, and the little ones have been badly injured by forest fires. Much of eastern New Jersey and other parts of the Plain are still a great forest. Why is this land empty of people when it is so near the sea, and when parts of it were first settled so long ago? The answer is given in two words: poor soil. Sandy soil is generally poor soil for grass and grain crops. Farmers who cut down the forests and tried to raise wheat, corn, and THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 121 grass on the Coastal Plain, found that the crops were too poor to pay them for the work. For better land they went to the westward, leaving many of the Coastal Plain farms to be overgrown again with pine trees. 218 . Truck farming on sandy soil. — Four new things have recently changed farming conditions in the Coastal Plain: (a) Big cities which need more vegetables; ( b ) express trains to take produce to these cities; (c) canneries for preserving food; (d) com- mercial fertilizers to make sandy land productive. Soil so sandy that it will not produce good grass may be made good for peas, cabbages, strawberries, watermelons, and other garden crops. We learned in Sections 25 and 39 how people in the Cotton Belt and Florida have learned to grow good truck crops on sandy soil by using commercial fertilizer and by planting legumes. The people in the North Atlantic Coast Plain follow the same method. Sandy fields which in 1875 were not worth keeping for wheatfields were allowed to grow up into forests of pine and chestnut. They have since been cleared again, and are producing splendid crops of melons, vegetables, and small fruit and sometimes com. 219 . Marshes and cranberries. — Parts of the coast plain are called saltwater marsh, because they are under water at high tide but are left dry at low tide. This marsh is covered with coarse grass. Other parts of the plain are so level as to be swampy near the streams, and there the cranberry — a little, low vine — grows wild. Many farmers grow cranberries on Cape Cod and in New Jersey. In order to keep down the weeds, they build dams so that they can flood the cranberry bogs for a part of the season; then they let the water off at picking time. The fields are again flooded in cold weather to keep the plants from freezing. 220. The journey of the harvest-time. — We saw in Section 25 that harvest- time travels northward through Florida and the Cotton Belt. It travels in the same way from North Carolina to Maine. At Norfolk, in the month of May, the boats and trains daily carry away thousands of barrels of new potatoes and thousands of crates of straw- berries. About the end of May, the harvest crosses the mouth of the Chesapeake. Then the southern counties of Virginia are busy sending their potatoes north, south, east, and west, as far as Maine, Louisiana, and Michigan. At that time no other place in the East is harvesting many new potatoes. Harvest-time then moves northward into Maryland, and successively on into Dela- ware, New Jersey, and Long Island. The strawberry harvest crosses the Chesapeake one month ahead of the potato harvest. During the summer, hundreds of city families move to the country, where they camp in little houses built for the purpose, and work on the truck farms. Men and women, boys and girls, spend several weeks picking strawberries, peas, beans, raspberries, blackberries, and other crops, as one after the other the crops ripen for the market. 122 THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST DISTRICTS Photo. N. F. Davis Fig. 207. An oyster boat. See the steel dredge which the man at the wind- lass is pulling over the side of the boat. It is filled with oysters which it scooped up as it was dragged along the oyster bed at the sea bottom. Some- times the oysters are taken from the bottom with long-handled tongs. 221. Getting the produce to market. — On a road that leads to Philadelphia or New York, one may see in a single day hundreds of auto-trucks loaded with produce rumbling toward town. At scores of railroad stations, freight cars are being loaded for distant places. Steamboats loaded to the limit go up and down the rivers and bays carrying garden truck to the cities. Sometimes there are not enough carriers to haul the produce. Sometimes so much produce is raised that it cannot all be sold in the cities. Then heaps of good things may spoil upon the wharves. 222. Canning factories. — At nearly every little town in the trucking section there are canning factories, where food is saved for distant peoples to eat at future times. In these frame buildings hundreds of women and girls work early and late to can the food, so that it will keep for months and may be easily carried to all parts of the country and to foreign lands. So many boat lines carry fruits and vegetables to Baltimore that this city is the greatest canning center in the world. 223. Fish and oysters. — In the wintertime, the canning factories of Baltimore are busy canning oysters, for which Baltimore is the greatest market in the world. The oyster lives at the bottom of shallow waters, from 224. Oyster -farming. — Recently men have begun what is called oyster-farm- ing. The baby oyster swims around in the water until it finds a pebble or an old oyster shell, or even a stick of wood, on which it can settle safely and be Courtesy Maryland State College of Agr. Fig. 208. Scores of cans of vegetables being lowered by a crane into a cooker. The big lid will shut down, and the steam under pressure will make a heat greater than that of boiling water. the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. The chief oystering centers (Fig. 207) are the Chesapeake and Delaware bays and Long Island Sound. Every au- tumn and winter, hundreds of boats, ifiostly two- masted schooners (Fig.223), go out on these waters to bring back oysters. Fresh oysters are sent in their shells or in buckets to many parts of the United States. Like vegetables, they are also canned. THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 123 out of the mud. Here it sticks fast and rapidly makes a shell, eating whatever the currents bring within reach. If the baby oyster happens to settle in the mud, it is smothered. If it fastens to something firm and hard, and all goes well, it will grow big and may lay a great many eggs, which hatch into other little oysters. The oyster-farmer leases from the state a piece of sandy-bottomed bay, though no oysters may be growing there. Then he drops overboard the branches of trees, or old oyster shells. The little floating oysters will settle on such things, and in a few years the oysters will have grown big enough to be taken up with dredges and sent to market. (Fig. 207.) 225. Seashore vacations. — Another important city in this region is Atlantic City. It has just one industry — that of tak- ing care of people who want a vacation beside the sea. It is the largest city in the world where the only industry is that of taking care of visitors. Peo- ple love the ocean. They love to walk along the beach, to smell the salt air, to feel the fresh cool breeze, to pick up shells in the sand, and to watch the tide creep up and down, as it does twice a day on all the seashores of the world. They love to bathe in the cool ocean and to be tossed about by its never-ceasing, roaring waves. The shores of New Jersey, Long Island, and Cape Cod are fast becoming rows of towns where people from the hot interior seek refuge from summer heat. 226. Sea breezes. — The sea beach is a place where one can nearly always be com- fortably cool. When a stranger who is staying at the seashore in the North Atlantic Coast Plain takes a walk about 9:30 o’clock on a summer morning, he is almost sure to think, “ It is getting hot. I fear this will be a very hot day.” Suddenly he feels a breeze blowing in from the sea. It is a cool breeze, and it blows all day. What has happened? As the hot morning sun beats upon the sea and upon the sand, the sand becomes much hotter than does the water. The sun’s rays sink deep into the sea, so they cannot warm its surface very much; but they heat the surface of the sand, partly because they cannot sink into sand as they can into water. Besides, it takes more heat to heat water than it does to heat earth to the same temperature. Thus an hour or two of sunshine makes the sand very hot, while it heats the water only a very little. Because the sand of the beach is heated, the air over it becomes hot, too, and begins to expand (Sec. 66). After a few hours the heat has expanded the air on the beach so much that it is lighter than the cooler air over the sea near by. Then the heavy air over the sea pushes the lighter air upward and flows toward the land to take its place. The lighter air over the beach rises just as a cork in a dish rises when water is poured in. When the cool sea air flows in to take the place of the hot beach air, we have a sea breeze. The sea breeze blows on the seashore of nearly all warm places, and so the seashore is much cooler in summer than places inland. When people are sweltering from heat at Philadelphia, Washington, or Pittsburgh, on a summer day, a cool, pleasant breeze may be blowing along the seashore. A cool sea breeze may be enjoyed from Cape Cod to North Carolina, from North Carolina to Florida, and on thousands and thousands of miles of seashore in all warm continents, on many, many islands, and on the shores of many lakes. 227. Landbreezes. — As sandcoolsoff much faster than water, the seashore sometimes gets cooler at nights than the sea. Can you explain how it is that there is a breeze from land to sea at that time? Sometimes the west wind blows so strongly in the North Atlantic Coast Plain that instead of a sea breeze there is a land breeze by day. It is a hot breeze, and it blows millions of mosqui- toes out of the swamps. It is not pleasant XI Photo. N. F. Davis Fig. 209. A Maryland oyster shell covered with dozens of tiny oysters. 124 M N O P 90 ° REGIONS ■■-—■— Boundary of Region — — — Subdivision of Region B Cotton Belt T1 Ozark Plateaus C Central Farming Region U Northern Highlands Cl Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt V Basin ot the St.Lawrence and the C2 Ohio Valley Great Lakes D Northern Wheat Region V2 Upper Lake District 0 Nortfi Atlantic Coast Plain VI Lower Lake District and St.Lawrence P New England-Canadian Maritime District Valley 0 Coasts ol Labrador and Newfoundland W Erie Canal Belt R Northern Piedmont X Great Northern Forests S Appalachian Region Si Appalachian Ridges and Valleys S2 Appalachian Plateaus T I 5 ^=“'3 -15 ,-TC^ A P°rt Ar/hur'o; ^ \z% * o Vi^g ~ S V P £ # ^ M , ?j[ 7/.^i o Ma,,ine£te ^ * ^ s JKTb^t— — IN /*f-J^h; Greeri BavU , Appietonn^ 0 / ^ ^hKcshb^/7 S @Pp-ap rncht Dans Longitude West: Fig. 210 R S T U 125 Fig. 210 Comparative Latitude Lisbon o o Madrid o Marseilles &o Paris o g 0 LondonO 126 THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST DISTRICTS Photo. International Film Service, N. Y. Fig. 211. A shipwreck on the North Atlantic coast. The life-saving crew- fired a shot carrying a small line over the ship. Then a larger line was drawn on board, and people went ashore in a breeches buoy running on a pulley on the big rope. See the foaming white waves and the rocks. Is the wind blowing from the sea or from the land? Which do sea captains like? then to be at some of the beach towns. Fortunately the land breeze does not often blow. 228. Resort cities. — People in Pennsyl- vania, the Ohio Valley, Chicago, and many other places in the interior of North America find that the seashore resort they can reach most easily is somewhere along the shore of the North Atlantic Coast Plain. Although Atlantic City is the greatest of them all, there are many other resorts. In fact there is a chain of them along the New Jersey shore, from Cape May at the south to Sandy Hook at the north, and there are seashore towns on Long Island too. On Cape Cod are thousands of cottages where families go to spend a pleasant summer. 229. A good rainfall. — The sea breeze does not blow far inland. It does not disturb the big cyclones (Secs. 59-70). Since the cyclones come in summer and in winter, the Coastal Plain has rainfall through- out the year, and its climate is very well suited to agri- culture. n 230. Cities for manu- facture and trade. — There are but few cities on the North Atlantic Coastal Plain. Other than shore re- sorts, the largest cities are near Hampton Roads, at the mouth of the James River. There, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Newport News cluster around one of the finest harbors in the world and have a growing foreign trade. During the World War this harbor was one of the great naval bases for sending supplies to the armies in Europe. Newport News has one of the largest shipyards in the world. Norfolk is a great trucking center and also a great peanut market, because there are many peanut farms on the neighboring coastal plain. There is plenty of raw material for the glass industry in some parts of the Coastal Plain, for glass is made of little else but melted sand. At Glassboro and other towns in southern New Jersey, skilful glassblowers make wonderful glass retorts and queer- shaped bottles that are used in chemical laboratories. Glass is blown or molded into shape while it is still soft like molasses candy. Baltimore, at the edge of the Coastal Plain, is much larger than any c-ity on the © Atlantic Foto Service Fig. 212. Atlantic City, New Jersey. The beach and surf with bathers, the famous “Boardwalk,” or promenade, beach-front hotels, and a pier built out into the sea. On the pier are amusement buildings. THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST PLAIN 127 plain. It is a distributing center for supplies which are carried out by many small steamboats and sail- boats. It also has ship- yards, iron furnaces, steel mills, and many factories. Its furnaces are supplied with coal from Penn- sylvania. Some of the iron ore comes from Cuba. 231. The future of the North Atlantic Coast Plain. — The possible future of this sandy land is indicated by a garden made on sandy Cape Cod by a college pro- fessor of botany. When he first started to make it, the neighbors told him that the soil was so sandy that he could not make a garden there. But the professor kept on planting. Then the people shook their heads and told one another what a stupid man he was, because no one could make a garden in such sand. But for two years his garden had big, strong, green potato plants, and fine corn. Then you may be sure the neighbors came around and asked him how he did it. This is how it happened. The professor had found out from old books how the Indians raised com there. He learned that they dug trenches in the light sand, and in the bottom of each they put a layer of seaweed from the beach and a fish for each hill of corn. Then they put back the sand, and planted corn. The professor used seaweed and dried sheep manure. The rotting seaweed not only holds moisture, but it helps to furnish phosphorus, potash, and nitrogen, the things that plants get from a complete fertilizer. By some- what similar treatment, that of plowing under green crops, millions of sandy acres may be made to produce crops where now there is only a poor, burnt forest or a swamp. 232. A land for meat and milk. — The truck crop yields so much per acre that a small part of the Coastal Plain can grow all the vegetables which the neighboring city markets will take in a season. From our study of Florida (Sec. 31) and the Cotton Belt (Sec. 43), how do you think this region might become a land of meat and milk? The climate of this plain is so good that it is a pity for men to let any of the land remain covered with only poor pine trees. The swamps that now raise so many mosquitoes should be drained and turned into fields. QUESTIONS 1. A merchant agrees to supply a hotel with fresh raspberries throughout the season. Where would he obtain his berries at different times? 2. What deter- mines the boundaries of the North Atlantic Coastal Plain? 3. What is its average elevation? character of surface? nature of soil? 4. Make a list of the important products. Why is so much of the plain unused? 5. Name and locate the chief cities. Give a fact of importance about each. Why are there so few cities on this plain? 6. A little boy lost his balloon at Atlantic City. Which way would it blow in daytime? at night? Do these air movements explain why the seacoast is cooler in summer and warmer in winter than Philadelphia? 7. What service is rendered the coastal area by its many navigable rivers and deep bays? 8. How is the truck farmer aided by (a) nearness to the great eastern cities? ( b ) fast express service? (c) the canning industry? 9. Why has the New Jersey coast become a great vacation land? Plan a day’s pleasure at the seashore. 128 THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST DISTRICTS Fig. 214. Canadian THE NEW ENGLAND-CANADIAN MARI- TIME DISTRICT 233. A rugged coast. — North of Cape Cod the seacoast does not have the long, straight, sandy beaches that we find between Cape Cod and the Rio Grande. Instead, from Massachusetts to the Gulf of St. Lawrence (Figs. 210, 216) most of the coast is rocky and crooked, with deep bays and many rocky islands along the shore. In the Bay of Fundy the water is so deep at high tide that big ships can then sail over places where there is bare sand or mud at low tide. In most places the tide rises only a few Tne New England- lset, but the shape Maritime District. 0 f the Bay of Fundy makes the tide there rise forty or fifty feet, which is the highest tide in the world. (See Appendix.) 234. Fishing. — There are many shallow places called fishing banks off the shores of New England, Nova Scotia, and Newfound- land. The water is so shallow that cod and other fish can be caught from the bottom of the sea, and cold seas are richer in fish than warm seas. From the earliest settlement of this region many of the people have made their living by catching cod and other fish. Gloucester and Boston in Massachusetts, and Halifax and Yarmouth in Nova Scotia are the chief fishing ports. The rugged coast is full of harbors. 235. A rugged land. — Instead of a stone- less and level plain like that of New Jersey or Carolina, the New England-Canadian Mari- time District is a land of stony soil, rolling hills, and tumbling streams. What are its bounds? The glaciers that once covered it sometimes dammed up the streams, often turned their valleys into lakes, and forced them to flow in new channels, often down rocky hills. In watercourses such as these there are many waterfalls. Since much of the land is rocky as well as hilly, it could not be plowed easily, so trees still cover most of its surface. 236. Changing industries. — The first set- tlers who came to this hilly country made their living by farming on small stony farms. At first they made nearly everything they used. But when the factories were started in the towns, many of the farmers went to work in them, and abandoned their rocky, hilly farms. Other farmers left this region to go to the corn and wheat belts of the MiddleWest, when they were opened to settlers. There was still another period when farms were abandoned. This was during the World War. Then factories were rushed and wages were high because war supplies had to be produced. It is not hard to see why this section has changed from a farming to an industrial region. The harbors have made it a good place for fishing and trading, and the water- falls have furnished power to factory wheels; hence this beautiful country has become a land of towns, rather than of farms. 237. Changing people. — People from many parts of the world are living here. The early settlers of the New England-Canadian Mari- time District were chiefly English and Scotch. The name Nova Scotia means New Fig. 215. The average annual snowfall of the Eastern United States. How do you explain the great difference in snowfall in different parts of Maryland? of New England? Comparative Latitude M N O P 129 Fig. 216. THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST DISTRICTS Courtesy New Bedford Board of Commerce Fig. 217. A spinning room in a New Bedford cotton factory. Each of these long machines has hundreds of whirling spindles, each of which spins a thread which is wound on a bobbin (white spools in the picture). The bobbin is then placed in a loom to supply one of the threads for a piece of cloth. Scotland. After the Revolutionary War, many of the New England people who pre- ferred to stay under English rule went from New England to New Brunswick, where the people are still very much like the English. When the New England factories needed more workers, many people came from Ire- land, and later others came from Italy, and from the French-speaking province of Quebec in Canada. More recently still, many workers and their families have come to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Con- necticut, from Portugal, Poland, and Syria. 238. Factories and cities. — Early in the morning the mill whistle in hundreds of towns and small cities blows a long, loud blast that can be heard for miles. This is a call to the workers to get up. A little later the whistle blows again, and thousands of workers start for the factory. At another toot from the whistle all start to work at their machines. In no other part of North America do so many of the people live in cities. In Massa- chusetts and Rhode Island over nine-tenths of the people are city dwellers. There are many small cities instead of a few big ones. This is because most of the manufacturing cities have grown up around waterfalls, and there are so many waterfalls and so many harbors ii that there are a great many cities. 239. Hardware and the peddler. — Factories which make the same product tend to be located in the same towns or cities. The manufacturers who make a large part of all the hard- ware sold in the United States have their plants in Connecticut. In the town of New Britain, little but hardware is made. In the Naugatuck Valley, scores of factories are working in nothing but brass. How did these centers grow up? The peddlers started it more than a hundred years ago. Farmers, having little work to do in the winter sea- son, would buy a quantity of pots, pans, axes, cowbells, door latches, and other articles that the blacksmiths had made in their shops. Each would load some of these articles into the farm wagon, or into the sleigh, or on a pack horse, and start off on a long journey to sell the things. The next winter Courtesy Vermont Marble Co. Fig. 218. A storage yard of a Vermont marble quarry. The crane can pick up a stone at one end of the yard and carry it to the other end. How does it do it? Note the tracks. Quarrying of marble, granite, and slate is an important industry in New England. THE NEW ENGLAND-CANADIAN MARITIME DISTRICT 131 Pboto Brown Bros., N. Y. Fig. 220. Printing the designs with indelible ink on cotton print-cloth, Fall River, Mass. What is the other way of getting design in fabric? are each one watching ten or a dozen clack- ing looms that work away by themselves. But if one of the hundreds of threads on a machine breaks, the whole machine stops. Then the weaver quickly ties the broken thread, and starts the machine making cloth again. A single company at Manchester, New Hampshire, turns out 300 miles of cotton cloth in a day. At that rate enough cloth could be woven to reach from the factory to Europe in the same length of time in which a steamer would make the trip. Seacoast towns, led by New Bedford and Fall River, Massachusetts, were once busy with the whale-oil industry, because whale fishermen outfitted their ships there, and brought their cargoes to these ports. But whaling has become a small business since the coal-oil lamp, gas light, and electric light have come. Now the people of these towns are busy in cotton mills, the machinery of which is driven by coal brought by sea from Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Norfolk. Another great cotton-manufacturing town is Pawtucket, Rhode Island. It has water power from the Blackstone River, and on the same stream boats can go down to each would start out with another load which the blacksmith had made during the sum- mer. When the railroads came and made it easy to trade with distant parts of the country, the village blacksmiths could not make things fast enough to supply the demand. Hardware factories were built. Now many thousands of people are engaged in this industry, and there are whole districts where but little else is produced. 240. Cotton and woolen goods. — The people living in the valley of the Merrimac River are equally busy making cloth. At Lawrence and Lowell in Massachusetts, and Nashua and Manchester in New Hampshire, there are such high waterfalls that enormous power is furnished, and the factories are so huge that we are amazed at their size. The people here know little about work in metals, but they know how to make cotton and woolen yarn, cotton and woolen cloth, and carpets. They know their trade as thoroughly as children know how to play tag. In the towns of the valley of the Merrimac, thousands of spinners stand be- fore long spinning machines; each machine is spinning hundreds of threads and winding each thread on a bobbin ready for weaving. Other thousands of workers, called weavers, Courtesy Boston Chamber of Commerce Fig. 219. Looking down State Street, Boston, at the old State House, now surrounded by modern business buildings. 132 THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST DISTRICTS THOMPSON,' ’GOVERNORS I SPECTACLE 1^ FTSMILPV- PEOOOCAS I. GAU.U*'? NAHANT CALF EGG ROCK BREWSTER •BOStCW. 'ISLANDS AILERTOM THE GRAVES JjyPEPARK Fig. 221. An airman’s view of Boston and vicinity with its many cities. How many lakes do you see? Ships are well-sheltered in Boston harbor. What signs indicate that the bay is on a sunken coast? Providence or Fall River. The chief cotton- manufacturing towns of New England are New Bedford, Fall River, Pawtucket, Lawrence, and Lowell. Some cities specialize in woolen rather than in cotton cloth. Lawrence and Provi- dence are two leading cities that have developed this specialty; while Danbury, Connecticut, makes Australian rabbit furs into felt hats. 241. Making machinery. — Much machin- ery is made in New England. It is an advan- tage to have big, heavy machines made near the place where they are to be used. Why? It is natural that textile machinery, shoe machinery, and many other kinds of machin- ery should be made in quantities in New England. Worcester, Springfield, Provi- dence, and Boston are important centers for this industry. 242. Shoes. — Long ago, when the Con- necticut farmers were peddling the black- smiths’ goods around the country, a few cobblers made shoes in a village in eastern Massachusetts. A peddler took some of the shoes away to sell. This started the shoe industry, and later factories were built and machines were made to do the work. New England now makes more than half the shoes used in the United States. Most of the work is centered in eastern Massachu- setts, where the cities of Brockton and Lynn are respectively the first and the second shoe- manufacturing cities in the country. Shoes are also made in the neighboring cities of Haverhill and Boston. Within a few city blocks in Boston you can find the offices of three hundred different shoe factories, the plants of which are scattered through the neighboring region. There are many other special centers for manufacturing, such as Providence for jewel- ry; Danbury, Connecticut, for hats; Holyoke, Massachusetts, for fine writing paper; and Augusta and Bangor, in Maine, for wood products. 243. Centers of manufacture. — Why do the factories which make the same article gather in groups in the different towns and neighborhoods? If you want to start a new shoe factory, can you do it more easily in some little western town, or in Brockton? 133 THE NEW ENGLAND-CANADIAN MARITIME DISTRICT Brockton stores keep the supplies which a shoe manufacturer needs; the western town does not have them. If the machinery breaks, there are men in Brockton who know how to repair it; not so in the western town. If you want to start a shoe factory, you will need to find men who know how to use shoe-making machinery. Thousands of such men live in Brockton; the western town has none of them. Retail merchants who want to buy shoes to sell go to Brockton, not to the western town. If you were a shoe worker looking for a job, Brockton would be a good place for you, because it has fifty factories where you might find work; the western town has none. You see, there are many advantages for the employer and for the worker in an established center of manu- facture. We shall find many such centers as we study the different manufactures of the world. Boston is a center of both trade and man- ufacture. Boston Basin is a low plain fairly dotted with manufacturing cities (Fig. 221) whose sea trade goes through Boston harbor. Boston has a famous public library, and many other interesting buildings. It is also a great educational center with many col- leges near it. 244. Manufacturing in Maine, New Bruns- wick, and Nova Scotia. — There is not so much manufacturing in Maine as there is in southern New England, and there is less in the Canadian part of this district than in Maine. Yet the Canadian district has one great advantage over the American part — there is coal near Sydney in Nova Scotia. There is also iron ore a short distance away in Newfoundland, and now iron manufac- ture is rapidly increasing in Nova Scotia. Wood pulp for paper is the most impor- tant manufacture of the Canadian part of this region. There are also many small woolen and cotton mills there. Nova Scotia has sometimes been called “the land that was passed by.” Like New England and New Brunswick, it has some water power, but it is separated from the rest of Canada by so long a journey that © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 222. Trimming and polishing heels in a Massachu- setts shoe factory. It is surprising how many kinds of shoe business signs one sees on the streets of Lynn. the products of its factories have not had as good a chance to reach their home market as have those of the factories of New Eng- land. Then, too, the Canadian market, with less than ten million people, is much smaller than the American market with over a hundred million people. There are some cotton and woolen mills in southwestern Maine, but the chief indus- tries of this state are lumbering and the manufacture of wood pulp. The raw mate- rials come from the forest which covers most of the state. 245. Milk for the cities. — In the New Eng- land-Canadian Maritime District, agriculture is much less important than manufacturing, partly because there is so much manufac- turing, and partly because so much of the land is not suitable for plowing. Milk for the factory towns is the chief thing sold by the New England farmer. Hay to feed the cows covers more ground than all other crops. Another reason why hay is grown is that much of the land is too stony to be easily plowed, yet if the surface stones are picked up, the mowing machine can cut hay, and the crop costs but little. 246. Vegetable growing. — Market gardens are important because every city needs fresh vegetables. Many of the new immi- grants who were farmers in their old homes II— 7 134 THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST DISTRICTS Photo. Ewing Galloway, N. Y. Fig. 223. Fishing schooners, barrels of fish, and fish warehouses, Great Fish Dock, Halifax, Nova Scotia. At the right is a two-masted fishing schooner. in Europe are tending market gardens near New England cities. 247. Agricultural centers. — Agricultural centers are scattered throughout this region, but, as in manufacturing, each center has its own specialty. (1) Sugar corn . — In southern Maine are many neighborhoods where every farmer has a field of sugar corn. The summers are too short and too cool for corn to ripen fully, but while it is still green its sweet ears are made into the famous Maine canned corn that is sold in grocery stores in many states. The cornstalks and husks are chopped up and put into the silo, to feed the dairy cows in winter. (2) Tobacco . — Much tobacco is grown on some of the level parts of the Connecticut Valley. To make growing conditions just right, a tent of cotton netting or very thin cloth stretched on posts and boards is put over the whole tobacco field. This is ex- pensive, but it pays, because tobacco thus grown is of unusually fine quality. (3) Apples . — In western Nova Scotia is a long, narrow valley called Annapolis Valley. It is famous in England and Scotland for the excellent apples that it produces. In this valley, that extends for miles and miles, nearly every farmer has a big apple orchard, and in some years as many as a million barrels of apples are sold. (4) Potatoes . — On Prince Edward Island the people grow more potatoes to a family than at any other place in America. The crop is just suited to the sandy soil, and to the cool climate made by the cold waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. (5) Fox farms . — In Prince Edward Island is one of the new industries of the world — fox farming. (Sec. 318.) (6) The Cape Cod cranberries are in the Coastal Plain. (Sec. 219.) 248. The vacationist. — The healthful cli- mate and the pleasure to be found beside the sea and in the woods and hills, tempt thou- sands of city people to this region to spend their vacations in farmhouses, cottages, camps, and hotels. Taking care of these strangers may almost be considered as one of the industries of the region. 249. Trade and transport. — (1) Traders. The people of New England and of the Maritime Provinces of Canada have been great traders since the first settlement of the country, three hundred years ago. The strong boats in which they went to the fishing banks were seaworthy enough to make the trip to Europe, and to the West Indies. In 1840, the merchant ships of Boston and Salem were bringing tea from China. From the shores along the Pacific Ocean they brought goatskins, to be used by the shoemakers of eastern Massachusetts. Whalers of Nantucket and New Bedford were cruising in every ocean. Then, as now, coasting vessels went up and down the whole length of our Atlantic and Gulf coasts, taking lumber, granite, and manufactures; bringing cotton, sugar, molasses, lumber, and tobacco to New England. (2) Railways . — To enable Boston to have a shorter railroad connection with Buffalo and the West, the long Hoosac tunnel was dug through the mountains of western Massa- chusetts. Since the Canadians did not want to be left behind in the opportunity for trade, their government helped to build the Canadian Pacific Railroad from Vancouver to St. John, New Brunswick; and to Yarmouth and Halifax, Nova Scotia. To make a LABRADOR AND THE COASTS OF NEWFOUNDLAND 135 shorter cut from the Atlantic to Winnipeg, a great bridge has been built across the St. Lawrence at Quebec. (Fig. 210.) (3) Ocean liners . — Each year hundreds of ocean liners call at Halifax and St. John, Portland, and Boston, and connect with the railroads that reach to the heart of the conti- nent and to the Pacific Ocean. Hundreds of factory towns in this New England- Canadian Maritime District now have an extensive trade by land and sea. A town making cloth or paper or shoes can send its product to many cities, and with the money received from the sale of its one product, the town can pay for the thousands of other things that it buys from all parts of the world. 250. Future. — What is the future of this region? (1) Food . — Only a small part of this region is in farms. How would the tree- crop agriculture thrive here? (Sec. 87.) The stone-covered glacial fields often have rich, deep soil underneath their rough surface. Would more trees make the country more or less beautiful than it now is? If we ever need to use our land as closely as the Swiss use theirs, this region can be made to yield large quantities of dairy prod- ucts, potatoes, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. (2) Manufacturing . — Much more water power can be developed. Some of it can come from waterfalls, some from tides along the coast; but best of all, even the coast towns can use the millions of horse power that can, if needed, be brought by wire from the St. Lawrence River, from Quebec, and from plants beside Pennsylvania coal mines. The New England-Canadian Maritime Region can keep on buying food, fuel, and raw materials, and paying for them with the fine goods which her skillful and indus- trious people know how to make. QUESTIONS 1. Make use of the following chart to explain how Nature helped to make this region a land of fishermen, traders, and manufacturers. Climate. Rugged Coast. The Roll- ing Hills. ' 03 “ 2 0 r % . Water- falls. 2. Make a list of the chief productions under the following heads: (a) Products of the farms; (6) Prod- ucts of the waters; (c) Products of the mills; (d) Prod- ucts of the forests. 3. What are the advantages of the Maine coast for a vacation? 4. Can you suggest from Fig. 221, why Boston has become the metropolis of this region? Name the events connected with the early history of our country which took place in and about Boston. 5. What products are made in New England from the following list of raw materials: a light ball of rabbit fur; a bale of cotton; a few pieces of steel; a handful of gold or silver? What cities manufacture each product? Why should such prod- ucts be made rather than farm machinery? 6. Why have so many more foreigners come to this region than to the Cotton Belt? 7. Write a letter that might be sent from the United States Department of Agriculture urging the New England farmers against abandoning their farms, and suggesting the possibilities of tree-crop agriculture. 8. If you had $10,000 with which to start manufacturing in New England, what product would you make? 9. Where would you locate? 10. What methods of manufacture would you use? 11. Where would you obtain raw material? labor? power? 12. Where would you sell your product? 13. How has the great glacier decided what men shall do in the Corn Belt? in New England? 14. What are the advantages of the factory method of manufacture over that in which one person per- fox'ms the entire operation? 15. With coal in Nova Scotia and iron near by, what new industries may come to help the “land that was passed by”? 16. Why were the first attempts to cross the Atlantic by airplane made from Nova Scotia? 17. Compare a factory in Lawrence, Mass., with one in Greenville, S. C., from the following standpoints: material manufactured; source of raw material; factory workers; their nationality; their skill; grade of product. 18. What are New England’s necessary imports? Name the region upon which she must depend for each. LABRADOR AND THE COASTS OF NEWFOUNDLAND 251. A cold, damp land. — It is not far from the potato fields and dairy farms of Prince Edward Island to Newfoundland, across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But this short distance takes us into what may almost be called another world. (Fig. 14.) It is another world in industry, because an Arctic current brings cold water and icebergs to these shores, and makes the climate so cold that farming cannot be an important occupation. It is another world in govern- ment, because Newfoundland and its depen- dency, the coast strip of Labrador, are independent of Canada. Newfoundland is a colony of the British Empire; its governor 136 THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST DISTRICTS is sent out from London. Like Canada, Newfoundland has a Parliament elected by the people. This cold land has a rough, rocky, and treeless coast. The icy water makes the shore so cold that trees will not grow there. In winter ice freezes in the sea. The waves break it up; it is then called pack ice. Then it freezes together again in chunks as big as a table or even as big as a house. When the wind blows from the land, the pack ice is swept out to sea. When the wind blows toward the shore, the ice comes back and fills the bays and piles up on the shore. The ice-cold Labrador current flows from Davis Strait down the coast to the southeastern tip of Newfoundland. In sum- mer the current is dotted with icebergs that float past Labrador and Newfoundland, and melt where the cold Arctic current meets the warm waters of the Gulf Stream off the eastern coast of North America. Some of this current creeps in through the Strait of Belle Isle, so that the island of Anticosti in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, less than two hun- dred miles north of Prince Edward Island, is too cold for farms, although it has a fertile soil. Newfoundland is not much better for farming, and has for this reason only one farmer to twenty fishermen. 252. People. — Of the few people who live in Newfoundland and Labrador, most are British, but there are still a few of the south- ern Eskimos on the northern Labrador coast, and a few bands of Indians rove around the interior of that large, almost unexplored region that lies between Hudson Bay and the ocean. There is an Indian tribe in this region which no white man or English- speaking Indian has ever seen. The stranger, before he can get to their tents, is always discovered in time for the Indians to run away and hide. The visitors who have examined their skin tents say that they cook fish by boiling them in buckets made of bark, in which water is heated by hot stones dropped into the buckets. They do not have any of the white men’s utensils or goods. 253. Fisheries.- — Fishing is the chief work and produces the chief wealth of all these people. Summer on the coast of Labrador is a busy time. Thousands of fishermen from Newfoundland go north to camp for the summer, while catching and drying cod. Only four thousand people live on this coast in the winter time, and the Newfound- landers call them “ Liveyeres.” When the pack ice fills their little harbors, and the biting blizzards blow, the little settlements on the bleak and rocky coast of Labrador must be desolate indeed. Only by dog-team and on foot can people travel in winter. These people were so few and so far apart that traders coming there for fish often imposed upon them by pay- ing less than the fish were worth, so that sometimes the people had scarcely enough to eat. A brave physician named Wilfred Grenfell has spent many years on the Labrador coast, helping the fishermen to have schools and hospi- tals and better ways to market their fish. In the winter the men of Labrador and Newfound- land catch seals that lie on the pack ice along the shores. But seals are not Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 224. Fishermen’s homes on the island of Saint-Pierre. LABRADOR AND THE COASTS OF NEWFOUNDLAND 137 Fig. 225. Fishing off the treeless coast of Newfoundland. nearly so important as cod- fish, which are the chief source of the wealth on this cold coast. 254. A French colony and European fishermen. — The codfishing in this region is so good that many fisher- men sail across from Europe each year. French fisher- men from Brest and the other ports of Brittany catch fish and dry them along the coast of Labrador. France still owns the two little rocky islands, Miquelon and St.-Pierre, just south of Newfoundland. Before the Revolutionary War, France gave up all her Canadian colonies to England, but she was allowed to keep these two little islands. They are not fortified, and are only used by fishermen as a place for fitting out their vessels, and for salting and drying fish. At St.-Pierre this industry is so impor- tant that at the beginning of the season the fishermen gather in a great procession and carry a dory or fishing boat into the church, that it may be blessed at the opening of the codfishing season. Fish! Fish! The whole town smells of fish. It seems like a town in France, with French goods in the shops, French wooden shoes on the feet of the people, and the French language on their tongues. 255. Agriculture. — Gardens are a rarity in Labrador, and people who try to raise vegetables often have to cover them at night with canvas to keep off the frost. The scanty crops grown by the few Newfoundland farmers are crops of the north: potatoes, turnips, oats, cabbages, and hay. The chief farm animals are sheep, which can live on grass, turnips, hay, and oats. 256. Unused resources. — (1) Iron ore is mined near St. Johns, and sent across to Cape Breton and Nova Scotia to be smelted. Some of it comes to the United States. The iron ore deposits of eastern New- foundland are large enough to last British America for several hundred years. What may we expect from this fact? (2) Since the interior of Labrador is a plateau, its streams can be made to yield much water power as they fall down to the sea. Would you expect factory towns to grow on such a shore, or smelters for iron or other ores, or electric nitrate plants? (3) Those who like to fish in cold water and feel bracing cold breezes in July may go there for vacations far from the mainland heat. QUESTIONS 1. Compare the North Atlantic Coast Regions: Topic. North Atlantic Coastal Plain. New England- Canadian Maritime District. Newfound- land and Labrador. Location and bounds Character of coast. . Nature of soil Nature of surface. . . Climate Products of farms . . Products of waters . Products of mines Products of forests Chief cities 2. Can you explain how the rising price of meat in your own locality will make Labrador and Newfound- land more important to us? 3. What is a fishing bank? Why are great quan- tities of fish caught off Newfoundland and few off New York? 4. How many reasons can you name why the people of Labrador and the coasts of New- foundland fish rather than manufacture? 5. Would you care to live at St.-Pierre? (Fig. 224.) Explain. 6. Can you find out something about the work of Dr. Wilfred Grenfell? 7. Describe the hardships and dangers of a Newfoundland fisherman. Courtesy Surpass Leather Co., Philadelphia Fig. 226. Trimming goatskins in a Philadelphia tannery for kid gloves and shoes. As goats live in dry countries, many of the skins come from North Africa, India, and China. Where may the shoes be made? Where worn? THE EASTERN AND 257. Boundaries. — With the map before you, look at the group of regions just west of the New England Maritime District and the North Atlantic Coast Plain. (Fig.210.) Name the regions. The coloring shows that most of these are high lands. On Fig. 14, compare them in height with the Rocky Mountains. Which highland area is higher? Which is larger? Now look again at Fig. 210 and find a low place where we might get through the eastern uplands. Of this group of eastern up- land regions, we shall study the smallest first; the one marked R on the map — the North- ern Piedmont. THE NORTHERN PIEDMONT Trace its boundaries on the map. In Section 214, we learned that the eastern boundary is marked by the fall line. Why is this boundary the head of navi- CENTRAL UPLANDS • gation on all the streams which flow across it? The word piedmont means “ at the foot of the mountains.” See on the map, Fig. 15, and on Fig. 241 how this region is bounded at the west by the steep Blue Ridge Mountains, which extend almost like a wall nearly all the way from New Jersey to South Carolina. At the northern end, near the Hudson River, the Piedmont is narrow. Toward the south it widens out. Its southern boundary is the Cotton Belt. The clay hills of the Northern Piedmont continue into the Cotton Belt, but since cotton is so important to the people living there, we call that sec- tion of the Piedmont a part of the Cotton Belt. 258. Fall-line ports and man- ufactures. — The fall line was the natural place for the early set- tlers to locate their towns. Their boats could ascend the rivers Fig. 227. The Northern Pied- mont Region. ( 138 ) THE NORTHERN PIEDMONT 139 Fig. 228. Rolling hills of the Northern Piedmont, thirty miles southwest of Philadelphia. only to the head of navigation, and there they often met the Indians with whom they traded goods for furs. Many of the towns on the fall line were built on the sites of these Indian villages. The falling water at such places can furnish power for mills, and that is the other reason why there is a fall line industrial town on almost every large stream that passes from the Pied- mont into the Coast Plain. Trenton stands at the fall line on the Delaware; Philadelphia marks the point where the last rapids appear in the Schuylkill River; Wilmington is situated by the rapids of the Brandywine, a branch of the Delaware; Baltimore lies where a creek called Jones’ Falls tumbles into Chesapeake Bay; Washington is by the rapids of the Potomac; Fredericksburg is at the head of navigation on the Rappa- hannock; Richmond and Raleigh, capitals of two states, are also fall-line cities. In every case the falls fixed the point for the head of navigation, and cities which were started at these points could thrive and grow. 259. A land of rolling hills. — If one should ride west in an automobile across the Coastal Plain, the car would run along roads that are very level. For miles and miles one would not see a hill as high as the top of the car. There is no hard rock by the road- side, but only sand and gravel. But where the road leaves the Coastal Plain and enters the Piedmont, hills appear, some of them higher than houses. Now the road runs up over the top of a hill and down on the other side into a little valley, then up the next hill and down again, up and down, up and down, never away from the sight of hills. The clay soil of the Piedmont is heavier and harder than the sand and gravel soil of the Coastal Plain. In the sides of the high banks beside the hilly roads solid rock is often seen. Sometimes the fields are stony and sometimes the fences around them are made of stones that have been cleared from the fields. When the automobile has followed the hilly Piedmont road for several hours, there appears in the distance a long, blue mountain range. The color of the mountains changes to green as one approaches, and the traveler sees the forest-covered wall of the Blue Ridge, rising to a height of a thousand feet or more. There are cultivated fields on some of the lower slopes. This Blue Ridge mountain range, which bounds the Piedmont on the west, has several narrow gaps where rivers have worn sharp notches in the mountain range. Through these gaps the rivers drain the Great Valley west of the ridge. Name some of the rivers (Fig. 15). From the Maryland boundary to Reading, Pennsylvania, the mountain is not so high as it is farther south, but beyond Reading it rises again into a sharp ridge that extends to northern New Jersey. 260. Climate. — The climate of the Pied- mont is much like that of the Coastal Plain, except that its elevation of 300 to 1500 feet makes its winters somewhat colder. The 140 THE EASTERN AND Courtesy The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co. Fig. 229. Old-fashioned mule-drawn canal boats on the Delaware Division Canal along the Delaware River at Upper Black Eddy, Bucks County, Penna. This picture shows the way the Erie and other canals appeared, when built between 1815 and 1850. winter east wind is colder when it reaches the Piedmont than when it leaves the ocean. The summer brings no sea breeze to the Piedmont. (Sec. 226.) 261. A home of great men. — Being near the shipping ports at the fall line, the Piedmont was settled early. It was a very important part of the United States at the time of the Revolution. Philadelphia, then the national capital, was the home of Benjamin Franklin, one of the great founders of our country. In those early days the homes of other great men were established in the Piedmont section. President Jefferson’s old home (Fig. 230) may still be seen near Charlottesville in the central part of the Virginia Piedmont; President Monroe’s old home, near Leesburg, is in the northern Virginia Piedmont. Mount Ver- non, which was the home of George Wash- ington, is but a few miles distant from the Piedmont. 262. Agriculture. — It is interesting to see the differences between the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont. In the sandy soil of the plain most of the forests are of pine trees. In the rich, clay soil of the Piedmont there are oaks, hickories, poplars, walnuts, and other broad-leaved trees. In the fields of the Coastal Plain small fruits and truck are raised, such as strawberries, blackberries, melons, cabbage, and peas. In the Pied- mont fields are corn, wheat, clover, and grass for pasture. Many horses and cows are to CENTRAL UPLANDS be seen eating the grass or standing under the leafy shade trees. Since the products of the Coastal Plain are sold immediately, the farmer there needs only a small barn in which to keep his team and tools. As the products of the Piedmont are mainly stock and grain, the farmers need big barns to provide shelter for the animals and to keep feed for winter. 263. Diversified farming. — (1) The farm- ers in this region nearly all follow diversi- fied farming. They grow wheat, corn, and hay. They have pasture fields, orchards, gar- dens, chickens, horses, pigs, and some kind of cattle. But these farmers often have one special crop that is their main dependence. (2) Since the large city markets north of the Potomac River require much milk, many Piedmont farmers keep herds of dairy cows, which in summertime pasture on some of the fields, and drink at clear little streams running from the hillside springs. In winter, the cows eat the hay and corn that was grown on the farms and stored in the barns. (3) In northern Virginia, the Piedmont farmers raise fine horses especially suited for cavalry use. It takes two or three years for a horse to grow up, and the large, rolling, well-grassed fields of the Pied- mont make a very good place for them to Courtesy Jefferson M. Levy Fig. 230. Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, standing on a high hill overlooking Charlottesville and the University of Virginia. What did Jefferson do? THE NORTHERN PIEDMONT pasture. The Uni- ted States Army has officers there nearly all the time buying horses. (4) In the central part of the Virginia Piedmont many apples are grown, especially on the hillsides and in the coves at the foot of the Blue Ridge. About the year 1840, a citizen of Virginia who repre- sented our govern- ment as Minister to England gave Queen Victoria some Albemarle Pippin apples. The Queen liked the ap- Fig. 231. Map of Philadelphia, Trenton and vicinity. Philadelphia is at the junction of two important valleys. Find the rivers for which they are named. pies so much that thereafter she always used that kind. Since then some of these apples have regularly been exported to England. (5) In the Piedmont of northern North Carolina and of southern Virginia, the far- mers, not having city markets near, to which they can send milk and butter, raise tobacco instead. It is a crop which keeps well, and can therefore be sent to distant markets. Tobacco takes so much plant food from the soil that the crops have to be planted in new places, or heavily fertilized. This tobacco district has many abandoned fields and gul- lied hillsides. This part of the Piedmont does not have the herds of cattle or the big red barns that are seen in the Maryland, Penn- sylvania, and New Jersey part of the region. 264. Cities. — The Piedmont has two classes of cities: port cities and inland cities. Because boats can sail on the larger Coastal Plain streams, people in the port cities can receive raw materials and ship freight more cheaply than can be done in the inland cities. For this reason the port cities are much larger than the interior cities, which, being distant from the sea, must depend upon railroads and highways for transport. The fall line cities have more people than live in all the rest of the Piedmont, most of whom make their living by working in fac- tories whose smokestacks may be seen thickly dotting the cities of this region. Trenton, Philadelphia, Chester, and Wil- mington have much the same advantages for manufacturing. (1) They have coal and iron, because they are near the coal fields and the iron furnaces of Pennsylvania (Secs. 277, 287). (2) They are all situated beside the navigable Delaware. (3) They are all on the main lines of the railroads running to the south and west. (4) They all have an abundant food supply furnished by the dairy farms of the hilly, clayey Piedmont, and by the truck farms of the sandy, level Coastal Plain. Fruits, vegetables, and other foods are brought in boats, wagons, and trains to the city markets. All of these cities manu- facture much machinery, and all of them except Trenton have important shipyards. 265. Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, is famous for its manufacture of dishes and other articles of pottery. This industry first 142 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS developed in Trenton because there were deposits of clay near by, and because coal with which to burn the clay could be brought in canal boats down the Delaware and Lehigh rivers from the Pennsylvania coal mines. Formerly the Delaware River and the canal from Trenton to New York were important waterways, and it was by these routes that the products of Trenton found their way to market. But now the Pennsylvania and the Reading railroads have main lines running from New York past Trenton to the south and to the west, thus permitting products to be shipped at almost any hour of the day to any part of the United States. The Trenton factories no longer depend on the near-by clay pits. Indeed most of Trenton’s clay now comes from Europe in the vessels that have gone there to take grain and lumber. Trenton (Sec. 243) holds her im- portant place in this industry because the city has become an established pottery center. 266. Philadelphia is much larger than all the other cities on the Delaware combined. In size it is the third city of the United States. What is its population? It was founded by William Penn, a renowned English Quaker. Courtesy Link-Belt Co. Fig. 232. Machinery from this Philadelphia machine shop is sent to many states and foreign countries. The Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution of the United States was drafted in famous old Independence Hall, the home of the Liberty Bell, in Phila- delphia. The work of most of the people of Philadelphia is in some way connected with its varied manufactures. Many railroad and boat lines give Philadelphia, a wide mar- ket for the sugar and oil from its refineries. It is the leading city in the United States for the manufacture of drugs, chemicals, and textiles. Great quantities of woolen cloth, cotton goods, and carpets are produced there. Philadelphia started its career as a leather center because tanbark was easily procured from the Pennsylvania forests. The industry continued to develop, partly because a new process of tanning leather with a chemical (chrome) was invented by a Philadelphian. The city is famous as a great center of publishing, and for the manufacture of machine tools, which are used in other fac- tories to make other machines. The Baldwin Locomotive Company, with works in Phila- delphia and its suburbs, is the greatest manufacturer of locomotives in the world. Many cars for railroads and trolleys are also made in Philadelphia. The Delaware is the leading shipbuilding river of the United States, and Philadelphia is the leading shipbuilding center of our country. There are shipyards not only within the city limits, but also in the sister city of Camden, across the river. Music from Camden is heard in every land, for Camden exports great numbers of phonographs. Camden also cans vegetables and fruit grown on the Coastal Plain. Chester and Wilmington make ships and machinery and have many other industries. In Thomas Jefferson’s time, two French brothers named du Pont went to Wilming- ton and there began to manufacture gun- powder. Now the du Pont Company makes not only gunpowder but also paint, chemi- cals, dynamite, artificial leather, and many other things, and employs scores of chemists who study how to make new things. You read about Baltimore in Section 230. THE NORTHERN PIEDMONT 148 Fig. 233. One of the largest cranes in the world putting locomotives on board a ship at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. They appear tiny beside the great crane. Philadelphia locomotives, machinery, and ships go to all parts of the world. 267. Washington. — When our-Go vernment was formed, New York was made the first capital of the United States, and Philadel- phia was the second. Con- gress soon decided to move to a more central place, and a spot was chosen that was almost the exact center of the original thirteen states. It was in the woods, beside the little city of George- town, at the head of navi- gation on the Potomac River. To this tract, com- prising about sixty square miles, the name of the Dis- rict of Columbia was given. The land was a gift from the State of Maryland. A French army officer, Major L’Enfant, and General Washington made the plans upon which the city was laid out. Washing- ton became a very beautiful city, having many parks and wide, shady streets. In the magnificent white Capitol building the laws of the United States are made. Many thousands of people are employed in the great offices of the ten secretaries who con- stitute the President’s Cabinet, and the various courts and commissions that carry on the government work. Almost all the business of Washington is connected with government work and with taking care of the people who do this work. Because Wash- ington is the center of the government, many wealthy people have winter homes there, and many go there on government business. Travelers visit the national capital to see Congress in session, and to enjoy the beau- tiful buildings of the city. Every American schoolboy and schoolgirl should see the White House, the National Capitol, and the Con- gressional Library, the greatest library in America and one of the most beautiful build- ings in the world. 268. Richmond. — The city of Richmond, Virginia, is located at the falls of the James River, and is on the main line of railroads running north and south. Among its im- portant industries are loco- motive works, machine shops, and many tobacco factories which manufac- ture the tobacco grown in the region to the south- west. The steamboats run- ning up and down the James River carry a great deal of freight. 269. Smaller Piedmont cities. — The inland Pied- mont cities, having no im- portant minerals near them, and no access to ships, are WATE8 POWEB STATIONS • 6-TEAM STATIONS ■ Courtesy Southern Power Co . Fig. 234. Map showing electric transmission lines from water power and steam power stations through North and South Carolina. If one plant stops, others on the same wire can keep up the supply of electric current. 144 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS Courtesy U. S. Air Service Fig. 235. Airman’s view of Capitol Hill, Washington. Can you find the Union Station, the Capitol, the white office buildings for the Senate and the House of Representatives, and, at the right, the Congressional Library Building? all smaller than Richmond, Wilmington, or Trenton. The largest is Lancaster, Penn- sylvania, situated in the center of a rich limestone district which is the best culti- vated agricultural section in the whole Piedmont. Lancaster has many factories, and books and magazines are printed in her printing shops for the publishing houses in New York and other cities. York, Pennsylvania; Frederick, Maryland; and Charlottesville, Virginia, are in the midst of good farming country. Each has many stores, some factories, and two or three railroads. Charlottesville is an impor- tant shipping center for apples. It was there that Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia. This southern part of the Northern Pied- mont region is one of the greatest tobacco growing regions in the world. Lynchburg and Danville, Virginia; Durham and Win- ston-Salem, North Carolina, are busy with tobacco that is growm near by. Did you ever see an advertisement for Virginia tobacco? for North Carolina tobacco? The product of these tobacco factories goes to almost as many states and countries as does the cotton of the Cotton Belt. Cotton mills and furniture factories have grown up very rapidly in Greensboro, High Point, and other Piedmont towns. Recently a North Carolina man traveling around the world rode in High Point trolley cars in Rome and Peking. The oak and other hard wood lumber of the Southern Appalachians is excellent furniture and car material. 270. Future — manufac- turing and water power. — Since coal is getting so costly, and engineers have learned to harness the big rivers and carry power on wires, the Piedmont has a new source of power. Every river that crosses the Piedmont may be made to send power to cities many miles away. Name some of these rivers. Baltimore now gets power from the Susquehanna River, and the Southern Power Co. (Fig. 234) is already the second largest hydroelectric power maker in the world. 271. The future — agriculture. — The roll- ing hills of the Piedmont are beautiful and the climate is healthful. If the fertile hillside soils could be held in place by grass and the roots of fruit and nut trees, and if the level uplands and valley lands were intensively cul- tivated, this district could comfortably sup- port many more people than now live there (Sec. 87). In some places the soil-saving tree- crop agriculture has been started by the grow- ing of apples in grass-covered unplowed land. QUESTIONS 1. Name the pleasures you could have on a farm in the Northern Piedmont at different seasons of the year: Spring. Summer. Fall. W INTER. 2. What does a boy in Florida do in wintertime? Why are not the books and the toys of a Penn- THE APPALACHIAN REGION 145 Bylvania boy and a Florida boy as different as their sports? 3. Define piedmont; fall line. 4. Name and locate the fall-line cities. How do falls in a river help make a city? 5. What use is being made to-day of the waterfalls in the Piedmont district? (Fig. 234.) 6. Compare the North Atlantic Coast Plain with the Northern Piedmont as follows: Topic. North Atlantic Coast Plain. Piedmont. Average elevation Surface Soil Climate Products Chief' cities Your choice for a home. . 7. Is the Piedmont a good place for the new tree- crop agriculture? 8. Why do the larger cities of the Piedmont lie at the edge rather than in the center of the region? 9. Give three good reasons suggested to you by Fig. 231 why Philadelphia has become the metropolis of the Piedmont. 10. What difference do you find between a Piedmont farm and one in the Northern Wheat Region? 11. Collect pictures and postcards of Washington and Philadelphia, and give a talk on these cities from them. THE APPALACHIAN REGION 272. Mountains, valleys, and beautiful landscapes. — If you climb to the tops of the forested Blue Ridge Mountains (Fig. 241), you can look down on the fertile Piedmont lying to the eastward ; to the westward you can look down many hundred feet upon a land that is still more fertile. If it is spring or early summer, you can see dark green patches of narrow valleys, some of which are canoe-shaped. made. Note especially the American part of the St. Lawrence Valley. r\ orchard and woodland, and fields showing the rich brown color of freshly-plowed earth or the varying colors of wheat, corn, clover, and pasture. You can discover bits of road, big farms, farmhouses, and sometimes a bit of river shining in the sunlight. Twenty or thirty miles west from the Blue Ridge you can see another ridge. The lowland which lies between these two ridges is the Great Appalachian Valley (Fig. 241), and the distant ridge is its northwestern edge. Beyond that is a narrow valley, then another ridge, then another nar- row valley, another ridge, another val- ley, in a series called Fig". 238. The Appalachian the Appalachian Region. Ridges and Valleys. (Fig. 15.) After thirty or forty miles of these narrow ridges with val- leys between them, lies what seems to be the last ridge. From its top the highland of the Appalachian Plateau stretches away towards the west so this last ridge has no western slope. It is the Allegheny Front. (Fig. 241.) Thus the northern Appalachians have the Great Valley on the east, then the narrow valleys and ridges, and then west of them, the plateau (Fig. 241), which stretches from New York to Alabama. Part I.— The Great Valley 273. A great valley highway. — The Great Appalachian Valley is a very long one, fur- nishing a continuous open road north and 146 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS Coast Ranges Sierra Croat Basin Colorado Plateau Green R. Southern Rockies Great Plains High Plains Pacific Fig. 239. A section from Pacific to Atlantic, to show the elevation of the country. The line passes near St. Louis, and see how many of the regions you can pick out. Green River Canyon is a branch of the Grand Canyon of the south through the eastern highlands. It is a king of natural highways. One may travel over its entire length, from the Hud- son Valley to the Cotton Belt, and not cross a single mountain ridge. All the way one may see to the east and to the west, mountains which run parallel to the Great Valley but never cross it. Look at Figs. 15 and 21, and see the towns that mark its course — Bir- mingham, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Bristol, Roanoke, Staunton, Hagerstown, Harris- burg, Reading, Bethlehem. What river drains the land where each of these cities stands? At Birmingham, Alabama, the open valley extends for some distance into the Cotton Belt. The Great Valley has long been a route of travel. Even in the days before the Revolu- tionary War, its open surface tempted the English Quakers and the German colonists of eastern Pennsylvania, who traveled and settled in this valley all the way down to the headwaters of the James. Later this route helped other settlers on their way to the valley of the Ohio. Some left the Great Valley near Shippensburg in southern Pennsylvania, and went over the mountains to Pittsburgh. From this point flatboats drifting down the Ohio River took settlers to points in Ohio, Indiana, and Ken- tucky. Other settlers from Maryland, Vir- ginia, and North Carolina, bound for Ken- tucky, drove on down the Great Valley to the headwaters of the Tennessee. In the Cumberland Mountains, which in this region form the western wall of the valley, there is a gap called Cumberland Gap. It is close to the place where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky join. The gap provided an easy passage in the mountain wall, through which the wagons of the early emigrants made their way into the forested country of Kentucky. For many years after the Revolutionary War one family an hour, on the average, drove through this gap seeking a new home to the westward. 274. Limestone and roads. — The Great Appalachian Valley became the great high- way for several reasons. First, it is nearly level, and therefore easier to travel upon than is the Piedmont where there are hills, or the Coast Plain where there are many deep rivers to cross. Sec- ond, limestone is plentiful here, and out of no other stone can good roads be made so easily. The Great Valley, therefore, has many miles of good stone roads. If you have read about the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg in our own Civil War, you can see how this valley was the roadway by which the Southern armies went north and the North- ern armies went south. 275. Limestone and val- ley making. — Indeed, it was Fig. 240. A concrete bridge across a Pennsylvania valley to improve the grade of an anthracite-carrying railroad so that one locomotive can haul more cars. The gap in the distant Appalachian ridge was cut by a river. THE APPALACHIAN REGION 147 Central Lowland Burlington . Mississippi R Escarpment St.FranciS tots . Appalachian Folded Plateaus Appalachians ^ Blue Crass Alleqheny Blue ■■.Region Fronts Ridge Piedmont Coastal Plain Slightly modified from Lobeck Mo. The elevations are greatly exaggerated. The black parts show the oldest rocks. Compare with Fig. 14, and Colorado. The western edge of the Colorado Plateau is a high cliff, called Hurricane Ledge. (Fig. 241.) limestone that made the Great Valley. Once upon a time, a very long while ago, the whole region was a plateau. Limestone wears away or dissolves in water (Sec. 22) more easily than does any other stone. For this reason the lime- stone district has been worn down more quickly than the hard sandstone, and therefore has a lower surface. In this way the limestone strips became valleys, and the strips of harder stone remained as ridges. (Figs. 236, 241.) 276. Limestone and agriculture. — The limestone rock of which the valley floor is made breaks up into a very fertile clay soil, which is good for wheat, corn, and hay. Many of the people of this region make their living by farming, and the rich valley fields are covered with grain or dotted with grazing animals. Each year fat cattle and great quantities of corn, wheat, and dairy produce are shipped to the cities of the north and east. 277. Limestone and iron. — Limestone is a raw material that goes into the iron fur- nace along with iron ore and fuel. Much West Virginia limestone is sent from the Great Valley to the Pittsburgh iron furnaces. The early settlers found iron ore in many places because limestone sometimes helps to cause deposits of iron ore. In the early days many mines were worked and a great iron- making industry developed, but after a better grade of ore was found in northern Michigan and Wisconsin (Sec. 334) most of the Great Valley mines were closed. Iron fur- naces still thrive at Bethlehem, at Lebanon, and near Harrisburg in Pennsylvania; at Roanoke in Virginia; at Birmingham in Alabama, and at other places. 278. Limestone and cement. — Limestone is a raw material used in cement-making. There are cement plants at several points along the valley. The greatest cement center is in the Lehigh Valley, near Allentown and Bethlehem. (Fig. 204.) In that local- ity the industry is especially flourishing, because the great port cities of Philadelphia and New York are only about a hundred miles away. These port cities use much cement, and they ship quantities of it overseas. 279. Rivers. — Certain parts of the Great Valley have local names often taken from a riverdrainingthatsection. Near the Delaware River it is the Lehigh Valley; in northern Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley; the part between the Susquehanna and the Potomac is called the Cumberland Valley. Name a town in each of these sections. Before there were railroads, the rivers that flow out of the Great Valley were most useful to farmers. They were the highways along which wheat, by much hard labor and risk of wetting, was taken down in flatboats to the fall line. The flatboat has been displaced by the rail- roads. Which river of the Great Valley is now navigable for boats? (Fig. 80.) 280. Towns and town location. — The Great Valley gives us a good chance to study how towns grow. A town often begins at a place where there is some local advantage, such as a deposit of some mineral, rich farming land, or some other natural resource. The Allegheny Allegheny Plateau Front Appalachian Great Blue Ridges va//ey Ridge Piedmont Fall Line AtlanticOcean Slightly modified from Lobeck Fig. 241. A cross section of the country from western Maryland to the Atlantic Ocean. Elevations greatly exaggerated. The oldest and hardest rocks are shown in black. Can you see how the Piedmont streams made falls at the Fall Line? (Sec. 214.) How many of the regions shown in Fig. 210 can you pick out here? 148 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS What would you say caused Hagerstown, Roanoke, and Knoxville to grow larger than the small towns near them? (Fig. 21.) Why does Chattanooga have such an excellent location? The largest of all the Great Valley cities is Birmingham, Alabama, which, although it i". in the Cotton Belt, is also at the southern end of the Great Valley. (Fig. 21, dotted lines.) Here we find a rare thing hap- pening: this one place has the three things needed to make iron. They are coal, iron ore, Fig. 242. The Lehigh Valley cutting its way through the Appalachians at „ j limpcfrmp Npnrlv pvphj Mauch Chunk, Pa. How many kinds of transportation can you see in elllu iNeany eveiy- (this picture? Anthracite coal passes this way to New York. where else in the world one at town becomes a city when the locality is favored with a large degree of one or more of these advantages and has, in addition, easy communication with the outside world. The Great Valley has no large cities like New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, but it has many smaller ones. A town or a small city is to be found at almost every place where railroads cross the Great Valley and enter the plateaus to the westward, or the Piedmont to the eastward, because cross- roads are good places for people to meet and to buy and sell goods. At such places stores, shops, and garages are built, and villages grow. The cities of Allentown and Bethlehem are situated where the advantage of natural resources is combined with that of ease of communication. Look at the map (Fig. 204) and see how the Lehigh Valley enables rail- roads to pass out of the Great Valley into the coal fields. These two cities are throb- bing with manufacture and busy with cement, iron, and steel mills. The thriving city of Reading is at the place where the Schuylkill River gives an easy route to Philadelphia. The city of Harris- burg arose where the Susquehanna Valley makes a break in the highlands. (Fig. 15.) There the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad from Baltimore to Buffalo crosses the line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. least of these things has to be carried long distances to the place where one or both of the others are found. At Birmingham you can stand at one place and see the mouth of the coal mine, the quarry for the limestone, and the open pits in the hillside from which the iron ore is being dug. At no other place in the world can iron be made so easily. So Birmingham, busy with its iron furnaces, has grown very rapidly. It is now as large as Richmond, Virginia, but its English namesake still far surpasses it in size. At Chattanooga there are iron and steel plants, machine shops, wood-working plants, and cotton mills. In any large town in the Jj'ig. 243. Dumping cars ot antnracite coal into oarges at Hoboken, N. J. Where may the barges go? THE APPALACHIAN REGION 149 Great Valley may be found one or more such plants. 281. Future of the Great Valley. — The towns of the Great Valley have many things to make them prosper. The local mines and quarries have plenty of material for cement plants and iron furnaces; the mountains can furnish wood; the plateau to the westward can furnish coal; and the railroads that come through from the south can bring cotton for the spinning, weaving, and knitting mills that are already established in many valley towns. The rich valley land can be made to yield much greater quantities of food if town markets demand the milk, fruits, and vege- tables. Part II. — The Appalachian Ridges and Valleys 282. Places difficult to reach. — To the west of the Great Valley the country changes suddenly. There, one sharp ridge stands so close to the next sharp ridge (Sec. 272, and Figs. 15, 241) that in some of the little valleys there is scarcely room for a wide field. Some of the ridges are so sharp that there is not room on top for even a small field, and the soil is much less fertile than that of the Great Valley. Although some of these valleys are thirty or forty miles long, very little of the land is fit for farms, and not many people live there. Therefore many of the valleys are very much isolated, and some people have abandoned their farms to go to the more level land in western states, or to mines or towns. Some valleys, however, open out into wide coves of fertile limestone soil, with room enough for a dozen or twenty farms, which may be miles and miles from a railroad. One of these valleys, fifty- three miles long and four miles wide, is shaped like a canoe (Fig. 236). The only way to get into or out of it II— 8 without climbing over a high ridge is to fol- low the one stream through Logan’s Gap, in one of the mountain walls. In these valleys the only cities are Cumber- land, Maryland, and Altoona, Pennsylvania. Each is at a place where a river cutting through the ridges has made a gap through which a railroad line passes across the ridge country to the plateau. The chief industry in both of these towns is repairing cars and engines. 283. Thermal belts and orchards. — The Appalachian Ridge district is one of the best places anywhere in the United States to grow fruit, because each ridge is a thermal belt; that is, it has frost drainage. (Sec. 184.) Sometimes the frost line is so sharply drawn that the buds on the trees along the lower side of an orchard may be frozen, while those a little higher up escape frost and make a good crop. Fruit trees on these hillside farms have grown so well that many thou- sands of acres of peach and apple orchards now cover the mountainsides near the Potomac River. Orchards are situated at points where the through lines of railway give the fruit farmers a chance to ship their crop eastward to the cities on the Atlantic slope, or westward across the plateau to Pittsburgh and interior cities. 284. Unused land. — There is room enough in the thermal belts on the hillsides to raise many more peaches and apples than the Photo. J. Horace McFarland Co, Fig. 244. Part of a 700-acre apple orchard on the slope of an Appalachian ridge near the Maryland-West Virginia boundary. How does the Potomac Valley help to make these ridges a good place for a commercial orchard? 150 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS making a second layer of peat. Then more mud and sand came on, making an- other layer. This process continued a very long time. The pressure of all these layers helped to turn the peat into brown coal or Fig. 245. A cross section of a valley, with its bent and twisted rocks, in the lignite, and then into soft anthracite region of Pennsylvania. In the center is a river, with a town beside it. i „„ii pr i Uitii. The building at the left beside the white mine shaft is a coal breaker. The . ’ heavy black layers are coal seams. Why does the earth over old mines minous coal, and to change sometimes cave in? markets require. As our population increases, these ridges, with their favorable climate and thousands of square miles of sloping land, may become continuous orchards of crop- yielding trees of many kinds (Sec. 87). They could support prosperous villages which might be connected by good stone roads running the whole length of each valley. We find such wise use of land in Corsica, and in many other European places, even where nature has not given man a climate as helpful as that of our own Appalachians. (Sec. 559.) 285. Coal. — The early settlers in the northeastern end of the Appalachian Ridge region found something in the hillside that they thought was a queer, black stone. It was anthracite, or hard coal, the best kind of coal. In western Pennsylvania and in the Missis- sippi Valley are many thousand square miles of soft or bituminous coal. (Fig. 44.) 286. How coal was formed. — All kinds of coal have the same origin. Coal is made of trees and other plants that grew ages ago. The coal beds were originally swamps in which moss, ferns, and big trees grew and fell down into the water. The trunks, leaves, bark, and moss were kept covered by water, until they slowly turned to peat, which is the first stage of coal. (Fig. 336.) Some- times these peat beds became one hundred feet thick. Then the land under the peat bed sank down so that muddy water flowed over it, and layers of mud and sand covered the peat. Then more trees grew on the earth that covered the peat, and after a long time they, too, were submerged, the layers of mud and sand into shale or slate or sandstone. To-day in some places there are many layers of stone and coal, one on top of the other. (Fig. 249.) It is very hard for such short-lived beings - as we humans are to understand how many millions of years it takes for a bed of peat to be turned into good coal. In various parts of our country we can find coal at one or another stage of development, from the living plant growing in a peat bog to the hard coal ready to burn in stove or furnace. When we burn wood, we get the heat that a tree took from the sun and stored in its trunk years ago. When we burn coal, we get the heat that came out of the sun mil- lions of years ago and was stored in the plants of the ancient peat bog. 287. Anthracite or bituminous. — In the ridge country of eastern Pennsylvania, be- tween the Susquehanna and the Delaware rivers, the rocks were folded in such a way that (Fig. 245) the coal was pressed until it became hard. Coal that has become hard through pressure is anthracite. Layers of coal can be found in western Pennsylvania where the rocks are still nearly level (Fig. 249). The coal there is still soft or bituminous, because it has not been pressed so much as has the anthracite. The scattered areas of anthracite between Reading and Scranton contain the best anthracite in America. Europe has none better. 288. The anthracite mines. — From this one small section of eastern Pennsylvania we get nearly all the hard coal used in the entire United States. Here one sees big towers (Fig. 246) with wheels at the top. Cables pass THE APPALACHIAN REGION 151 over the wheels, and run into a large hole in the ground. Fastened to the cable is a little car that every morning runs down into the ground, carrying a load of men,, who come out at evening black and grimy from digging coal. The coal is carried to the surface of the earth in little cars that are pulled up by the same engine that lets the men down. While thousands of miners have been digging and blasting beneath the earth, other thousands of men have been busy in the big buildings called breakers, where the coal is cracked and sorted into sizes. Hundreds of boys pick pieces of slate out of the coal, so that there may be good, pure coal to burn. The great centers of this mining industry are Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Shamokin, and Potts- ville. So much coal is dug in these regions that eight railroads are used to carry it away to the cities and towns of the eastern and central parts of the United States. 289. Future of the anthracite fields. — What will be the future of a community depending on anthracite mines? Before all the coal is used, we may expect the people living there to turn gradually to manu- facturing. Perhaps they will be able to run their factories by elec- tricity brought by wire from water-power plants, and from coal-power plants in the larger coal fields of western Pennsylvania, which will not be so quickly exhausted. It is bounded on the east by , and its western limit is determined by the The three great products of the region are , , and In its Pennsylvania section are found the greatest mines in the world. Five important cities are , , , , and The richest section of the area is the , which extends from to , is drained by the , , and rivers, and has large deposits of Much of this mountain region must always remain in The people who live near the ridges could make their farms more productive by planting on their hillsides. 3. Make use of the following outline to explain how limestone is the Great Valley’s friend: Valley Making. Good Roads. Good Soil. Iron and Cement Manu- facture. Great Natural Wonders. 4. What can you tell about the Appalachian ridges from the following maps and charts: Figs. 15, 236, 241? 5. Tell how Nature has helped Birmingham to become a great center for the manufacture of iron and steel. 6. Find from your dictionary the definition of feuds. Many are found among the mountain people. How much of this unfriendly feeling may be due to the mountains in which the people live? 7. Describe a railroad trip from Philadelphia to Scranton. Describe the same trip when all the coal mines of the region have been worked out and tree agriculture has been fully developed. 8. How may the people of the United States economize their fast-disappearing sup- ply of hard coal? QUESTIONS 1. Model in damp sand or earth the Appalachian Region (Fig. 15). Show clearly the Blue Ridge, the Great Valley, the lesser valleys, and the eastern edge of the plateau area. Indi- cate in some suggestive way the chief cities, rivers, and principal products of the region. 2. Fill in the blanks in the following sentences: The Appalachian Ridge country extends through It consists of the mountains, the and many smaller Photo. W. B. Bunnell Fig. 246. Anthracite coal mine buildings near Scranton, Pa. At the right is a breaker, a building where coal is broken, sorted, sized, and run into freight cars that run under the building. Notice the smokestack of the power plant. Mine cars run through an inclined passage from the mouth of the mine at the foot of the tower to the top of the breaker. In the foreground are the little cars in which coal comes from the mine. The long white thing coming to the bottom of the picture is a covered pipe carrying steam to a distant engine. 152 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS Courtesy Link-Belt Co., Philadelphia Fig. 247. Soft, or bituminous coal mine buildings in the Appalachian Plateau. A layer of coal is near the top. Mine cars run down to the tipple, where the coal runs through screens into freight cars. What states have such mines ? Part III. — The Allegheny-Cumberland Plateau 290. Bounds. — The eastern edge of the Allegheny Plateau, called the Allegheny Front, extends for hundreds of miles through West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. A long climb is necessary to reach the top of this one-sided mountain (Sec. 272, FTg. 241), but the climb will be rewarded by the beauti- ful view. To the eastward lie many ridges that fade away at last in the blue distance toward the Great Valley. If we turn and go toward the west, we are, for a time, on a fairly level country, which is higher than the tops of the ridges to the eastward. The rocks under the plateau have not been folded as they were in the ridge country (Fig. 245). Instead, they lie almost flat, for when this plateau was made, the rocks were simply raised and tipped a little to the westward, which is the direction in which the plateau now slopes. (Fig. 239.) This plateau (Fig. 21) extends southward into southern Alabama, and its northern edge overlooks the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk rivers, and the plains of Lakes Erie and Ontario. Its western edge is the rolling country of the Ohio Valley, a region that is much like the Northern Piedmont. 291. Rough surface — travel and trade. — The streams have cut valleys in the surface of the plateau. These we can see as we go westward and observe that the streams become larger, and the valleys become deeper and deeper. In some places the streams and branch streams have cut so many valleys and little side valleys that the whole plateau is cut up into little pieces. Sometimes there is room for only one farm on one of these level tops. The steep-sided, deep valleys, or ravines, make such a hilltop farm a very hard place to reach, and a lonely place in which to live. The northern part of this plateau is not so rough as is the southern part. As one travels south into West Vir- ginia and Kentucky, one sees that the little pieces of upland become smaller and smaller and the valleys are deeper and steeper (Figs. 4, 247). This kind of surface makes it harder to travel and harder to make a living in the southern than in the northern part. This southern section of the plateau has many mountain farmers. They are of pure English stock. About the time of the Revo- lutionary War, they came down the Great Valley and started through the mountains, seeking the West. Some did not pass through the rough country but stayed in the plateau, and on that account their life has been very different from that of their cousins who stayed in the Great Valley, and their other cousins who went through the mountains to the more level farmlands beyond where it is easy to travel and use machinery. 292. A new mountain agriculture. — The trouble with many of the mountain farmers is that they are trying to do level-land-farm- ing on steep hillsides. The teacher of Dave Douglas’ grandchildren’s school says: “A colony of Swiss would turn the coves (moist valleys at the base of the hills) into gardens, the moderate slopes into orchards, the steeper ones into vineyards by terracing, and export THE APPALACHIAN REGION 153 the finest of cheese made from the surplus milk of their goats.” Milk-giving goats of Swiss breeds have been brought up to southern Appalachia and are doing well, and the agricultural schools are teaching people how to make cheese. The new business is growing. This land is also good for tree crops. (Secs. 87, 284.) The Swiss (Sec. 494) have lived in their mountains so long that they have learned how to farm to very good advantage. As the farmer in our mountains learns to use his land better, he will have enough money to send his children to better schools, and he will be able to buy books and have a telephone. He can do this if he has a herd of goats, or cows, and takes their milk to a neighboring cheese factory, as is done by some mountain farmers. (Sec. 491.) Fig. 248. Section of a blast furnace. Everything that goes into it comes out as gas, molten iron, or molten slag (waste). The fire is kept burning by a blast of hot air. The automatic conveyor dumps measured quantities of materials into the hopper. When the bell is lowered they drop into the furnace, which will make 700 tons of iron per day. © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 249. Coal miners at work in West Virginia. How does it happen that the coal has layers of slate in it? (Sec. 286.) One man is boring a hole to put in powder for blasting. Do you see the miner’s lamp on his cap? Some miners use acetylene lamps. 293. Forests and lumbering. — Much of the rougher land of the plateau has never been made into farms, and in some places in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky one can go for miles over forested mountain slopes without once seeing a house. Ever- green trees of northern species grow in the higher parts of the plateau because it is cooler there. In the lower parts are oaks and poplars, such as are found in the Piedmont. There is a great lumber industry. Many of the best trees have been taken to the mills and sawed into lumber. Many oak and hemlock trees were cut only to get the bark to be used in tanneries, some of which are still to be found in this region. The people who cut the forests are often careless in letting forest fires burn up the young trees that remain. Thousands and thousands of square miles have been burned bare of trees. People who wonder why the price of lumber is so high would understand it better if they could see one of these forests that has been burned year after year until nothing is left but the desolate mountain- side with little dead trees and a few weak bushes standing upon it. Why might this 154 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS be called a green desert? The United States Government is now buying some of this burned region and taking care of it so that its forests may grow again. 294 . Pittsburgh, a traffic center. — Travel in the plateau is always along the valleys cut by the streams. Otherwise we would be endlessly climbing up one steep side of a valley and down the next side. One cannot cross the plateau in Pennsyl- vania without coming to streams that flow down to Pittsburgh. Thus many river routes come together at that point. That is why the early French settlers picked this place as the site for one of their forts. After the French were driven out, Pittsburgh became a starting point for the flatboats of the early settlers and traders (Sec. 85). When the railroads came, they, too, had to follow the river valleys, and thus Pittsburgh became a railroad center. 295 . Pittsburgh, an iron center. — Examine the coal fields map (Fig. 44) and see what parts of this region have coal. Can you tell why Pittsburgh took the lead in coal mining? This city is surrounded by thousands of square miles of rich seams of coal, good for smelting iron. Iron ore is found near by, and also some limestone, which is put into the furnace with the ore to help the melting. Pittsburgh is near to the great cities of northeastern United States. It has de- veloped into the greatest iron manu- facturing city in the world. It might be called the capital of the world of coal and iron. Along the river banks, both above and below the city, are iron and steel plants. Some of them have single buildings as Photo. International Film Service, N. Y. Jgj’gg a g a field Or Fig. 250. Cutting (grinding) as ] ar g e as several figures on beautiful cut glass, f near Pittsburgh. City blocks. Many Fig. 251. Leading pig iron pro- - | ducing states (1917) : Million , - tons L- . j.. A. Pennsylvania 16.3 i i B. Ohio 8.6 , B - ' C. Illinois 3.8 D. Alabama 2.6 y E. New York 2.2 How would you show that ;• j New York and Illinois had simi- i-j-i lar advantages for making iron? <=» towns make steel, and Charleston, W. Va., has a United States Government armor plant. Each day one of these big steel plants sends out hundreds and even thousands of tons of rails to be used for trolley and railroad tracks. Many other useful things are made of iron and steel, such as material for bridges, iron pipe, wire fences, nails, and tin plate, from which tin cans and other tinware are made. 296. Iron ore from Lake Superior. — After Pittsburgh was well started at iron-making, it was found that iron could be made more cheaply from the rich ores that had been dis- covered near the western end of Lake Supe- rior. (Sec. 834.) Hundreds of big steamboat loads of this ore are now brought down the lakes each summer, and thousands of cars are busy carrying it from lake ports to the iron furnaces in and near Pittsburgh. 297 . Pittsburgh, a manufacturing center. — Other industries have grown up around the steel mills. Pittsburgh and the towns near it have many plants that use some of the iron and steel to manufacture machinery. Sand pits and natural gas (Sec. 301) help western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia to make much glass. (Sec. 230.) While the men are working in the coal mines and steel mills, many of the women work in the silk mills. This is true in both the anthracite and bituminous coal fields. 298 . The soft coal mines. — This rich coal field of western Pennsylvania, western Maryland, and West Virginia has many ether towns of the coal-miner. From Pittsburgh and these smaller towns, coal is sent every day by thousands of car- loads to New York, Philadelphia, Balti- more, New England, and the central states. Carloads of Appalachian soft coal are dumped by machinery into lake steamers THE APPALACHIAN REGION 155 Courtesy Knoxville Board of Commerce Fig. 252. A row of beehive (old-fashioned) ovens in which coal is partly burned and thus turned to coke. Many Appalachian valleys are smoky and dusty with this industry. The fumes often kill the near-by trees. at Buffalo, Cleveland, and other lake ports, as easily as a man dumps a wheel- barrow. For a very low freight charge, the boats take the coal to Detroit, Milwaukee, and Duluth. The soft coal of the Ap- palachian Plateau is easier to dig than is anthracite. Its seams are level and many of them open on hill- sides, so that little mine cars can run straight into the hillside, and bring out coal with much more ease than can be done from the deep mines. It is therefore much less expensive to dig soft coal there than to dig hard coal in the ridge country farther east. More coal is mined near Pittsburgh than in any other part of the plateau. This is true not only because so much coal is there, but also because the Ohio River and its branches made this the easiest place for the railroads to cross the plateau from the great cities of the east to the great cities of the west. As the population of the country grows, and more and more coal is needed, new mines are being opened up, especially in the West Virginia and Kentucky parts of the plateau. The new railroads and mines give the mountain people work and money with which to buy many things. This has changed the way in which they live. Few people anywhere in the mountains now live as Dave Douglas lived (Sec. 3), although it has not been very long since nearly all the people of whole countries lived that way. 299. Foreign people.— There is so much work in Pittsburgh, Fairmont, West Vir- ginia, and the surrounding coal fields that many thousands of immigrants have come from Europe to work and live there. 300. Coke. — Many thousands of people are busy making coke in plants near the coal mines. Coke is used for fuel in the iron furnaces (Fig. 248) because coke is hard and will not choke the fire. Coke is made of soft coal that has been heated red-hot in a furnace which has a very poor draft, so that the coal does not bum well. The heat, however, drives off the gas from the coal, which burns, and a black solid called coke remains in the furnace. 301. Oil and gas. — It was in the valley of the Allegheny River, north of Pittsburgh, that, in 1859, wells were first drilled down through the rocks to find petroleum. Before that time American homes had been poorly lighted with lamps burning expensive whale oil or lard oil. After petroleum was found, and kerosene could be had, it became much easier to light houses well. This first oil field has long since ceased to yield much oil. It usually takes only a few years to use all the oil there is in an oil field. Petroleum is found in porous rock lying below non-porous rocks through which the oil cannot escape until a hole is made. Natural gas is often found with the oil, and when a well drill goes through the tight rock into the oil and gas, they sometimes spurt out just as soda water does when the bottle is uncorked. In West Virginia, south of Pittsburgh, both oil and natural gas come 156 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS Courtesy U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 253. Mountain farms near Big Pigeon River in the Carolina mountains. What is the rainfall of this region? (Fig. 158.) Show the slope of the steepest field by a drawing. What will happen to these fields if they are plowed often? Why is it good to keep this land in trees and grass? from the wells. They are carried in pipes to Pittsburgh and other cities. The gas pro- vides a cheap fuel in many glass works and other factories. 302. Northern Plateau — a farming region. — Almost no coal is found in that part of the plateau which lies in northern Pennsylvania and New York. The hills there are more rounded and not so steep as those in the southern part of the plateau. It is, therefore, easier to travel through this country and to cultivate the land, most of which has long been used for farming. It is a beautiful rolling country, with grassy hills, many shade trees, and clear, cool brooks. As in New England, some of these hill farms have been abandoned by people who went to the cities, or to the more level farms of the west, but many farmers stiil prosper by keeping dairy cows and shipping dairy prod- ucts to New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Rochester, and other cities. (Fig. 267.) Fast trains bring the much-needed milk daily. In this part of the plateau are Binghamton, Elmira, and many other prosperous manu- facturing towns, located on the railroads going from Buffalo and the west to New York. 303. Future of the Appalachian Plateau. — In this age of machinery we need more and still more coal to run fac- tories and railroads and to heat buildings. What does this mean for the future of the plateau? Some of the plateau tops are level and good for farming, but they are so high that it is a great deal cooler there in summer than it is in the lower land near the ocean. (Fig. 253.) Some of the plateau is too cold for corn to grow well, and the season is too short. Farming here must be like that of New Eng- land. Mountain slopes have thermal belts, but flat pla- teau tops have none, and they are places where late frosts in spring and early frosts in autumn are apt to occur. For this reason, the grow- ing season — the time between the last killing frost in spring and the first killing frost in autumn — is seventy days less on the plateau in western Maryland than it is only one hun- dred miles to the east, near sea level, along the shores of the upper Chesapeake. (Sec. 328.) Much of the plateau, however, is too rough for farming and should remain in forest. Let us hope that instead of cutting the forests and letting fires keep on destroying them, the American people will soon be willing to take care of their forests as the French, the Swiss, and the Austrian people do (Sec. 516). This cannot be done, however, until more people begin to feel that it is wise and right to save things that may soon be needed by others. QUESTIONS 1. Add the plateau area to your sand model of the ridge and valley section. Show products, rivers, and chief cities. 2. Make a short comparison be- tween the plateau areas and the ridge country, using an outline somewhat like the following: (a) Location and bounds; (6) Character of surface; (c) Important rivers; (d) Products of the farms; (e) Products of the mines; (/) Probable future development. 3. To which state in the whole Appalachian country has Nature been most kind? Name the products she has stored for man in that state. How have these prod- ucts made the state a great manufacturing area? THE OZARK AND OUACHITA HIGHLANDS 157 4. Give the population of Pitts- burgh; of Birmingham. What natural advantages do these cities possess in common? Which are peculiar to each city? 5. Name and locate six important cities of the Allegheny Plateau region. Give a fact of importance about each. 6. If land in the United States were as precious as in Switzer- land, how would the Appalachian Plateau lands be used? 7. What I effect does a surface such as that of the Allegheny Plateau (Fig. 15) have upon the building of railroads and highways? upon the lifer of the plateau people? 8. Would you as a member of Congress vote to purchase Allegheny Plateau lands for national forests? Give reasons for your answer. 9. From your Statistical Abstract (see Question 11, p. 22), list the states of the United States as producers of coal, petroleum, and iron. What is the total pro- duction of each of these products by the entire country? 10. Why should the state or national gov- ernment control some of the Appalachian forests? 11. Give three good reasons why iron ore is brought over the Great Lakes waterway to Pittsburgh for manufac- ture. Why is the iron not made on Lake Superior? Part IV.— The Southern Appalachian Mountains often call these mountains “The Land of the Sky.” The forests on the higher parts of this cool section are the same kind as those in New England. (Sec. 316.) This health- ful section has no coal, but the soils and rain- fall are good and will support a good moun- tain agriculture. (Sec. 292.) QUESTIONS 1. Suppose you lived in the little house beside the Big Pigeon River (Fig. 253) and your farm extended up the big mountain. Name all the products you might make your farm produce. OZARK AND OUACHITA HIGHLANDS 304. A mass of mountains. — In western North Carolina, South Carolina, and north- ern Georgia, and eastern Tennessee, the Blue Ridge spreads out into a wide mass of moun- tains. Here several thousand square miles of mountainous country lie between the Pied- mont, the Northern Cotton Belt and the Great Valley. This section is not made up of ridges like the northern Appalachians, or of a plateau like the soft-coal fields. It is just a jumbled mass of mountains running in all directions. (Fig. 253.) Like the plateau, it is a hard country to travel through, and at one time people lived there very much as the Douglases lived. Several railroads now pass through these mountains. There is much lumbering, and many people from the lower, hotter lands of the Cotton Belt and Florida go up there in summer to enjoy the beautiful scenery and cool climate of the mountains, and many northern people go there at all seasons of the year. Asheville is the chief resort center. The people there 305. A region of few railroads. — This re- gion is quite like another and smaller southern Appalachia. If you look at the railroad map of the United States (Fig. 494), you will see that the eastern half of the country seems to be almost covered with rail- Fig. 255. The Ozark and road lines except in Ouachita Highlands. two areas. One of these is the Appalachian Highlands, and the other is the region of the Ozark and Ouachita Highlands. These upland regions are not tempting to builders of railroads. Why not? Part I. — The Ozark Highlands 306. Surface and soil. — The western part of the Ozarks is a plateau much like parts of the Appalachian plateau. The eastern edge of that western plateau is called the Burling- ton Escarpment (Fig. 239). 158 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS Photo. Ewing Galloway, N. Y. Fig. 256. A trail down which Ozark logs are dragged to a stream bank without the use of wagons. To what use can this land be put? Why is it hard for families to make a good neighborhood in such a rugged country? The center of the Ozark region is an irregu- lar mass of roundish, crooked mountains, much like the mountains of western North Carolina, but not so high. There are no straight, open valleys through it; that is one of the reasons why there are so few rail- roads there. The highest part is named the St. Francis Mountains. The soil of the Ozark hills is not rich like that of the level prairies. Moreover, in places the soil is covered to a depth of several inches with little pieces of flint stone, about as big as the end of your finger. This cover- ing of flints is all that remains of a thick layer of limestone that once overlaid the tops of the hills. The limestone, which dis- solves easily, has been dissolved and carried down the streams, but the flints which were scattered through it dissolve very slowly indeed. Therefore they remain, and in some places make the soil unsuited to farming. But since trees can get their roots down among the little stones to the earth below, the country was thickly forested when the white man came. 307. Living in the Ozarks. — By the year 1900, men with the aid of cultivators and reapers had farmed almost every acre of the rich, smooth, level plains north of the Ozarks. These people had grown rich and had good schools, and the land was dotted with comfortable houses and big barns. But a short distance to the south, among the stony Ozark hills, the living conditions were very different. There, many counties had no railroads at all, and the people were living very much as Dave Douglas lived in the Appalachian Highlands (Sec. 3). Their houses were small log cabins. In a little patch of a field, fenced with rails, barely enough corn could be grown to furnish bread for the family and to feed the horse and the cow when snow covered the earth in winter. There were no fields of corn with which to feed pigs, so the pigs roamed in the forest hunting nuts and acorns for food. The land is too rough to grow much wheat. Because the summer was too short to allow a cotton crop to mature well, they had little or no cotton to sell. With little to sell, those people had to live in a primitive way. They had to make most of the things they needed, and thus for a time they remained poor. The schools were few, and many of the people could neither read nor write. 308. Apples and peaches. — But a change has come in parts of the Ozarks. Orchards were planted. Now there are apples and peaches to sell. Fruit trees, like forest trees, can thrive in well-drained stony soil. The Ozark hills, like the Appalachian ridges, have thermal belts, or frost drainage, and in some sections peaches and apples are growing on the level hilltops (Sec. 283). The mountains also serve to keep off the north wind. There have been seasons when cold waves have swept down the middle of the Mississippi Valley, and frozen the fruit THE OZARK AND OUACHITA HIGHLANDS 159 crops from Nebraska to West Virginia, and from Dakota and the Great Lakes to the Ozarks. But in the orchards in the central and southern parts of the Ozarks, the fruit was not frozen in those seasons, and there was a good crop which the farmers sold at good prices. In some parts of the region the people have become as prosperous as are the people of the Cotton Belt or the Corn Belt. 309. Lumber. — Since most of this land is still woodland, there is lumber to sell. Many loads of oak railroad ties and barrel staves are hauled to the few railroads and shipped out of the Ozarks each year. This lumber comes from small sawmills that saw up logs from a few acres, and then move on to the next tract. The farmers haul the logs when they are not busy with their crops. 310. Towns and mining. — We do not expect to find many towns in a region such as this. The largest are Springfield, Mis- souri, with railroad repair shops; and Joplin, Missouri, the chief center in the United States for zinc mining. In this part of the plateau are many ore deposits containing both lead and zinc, and there are many mines. Zinc smelters are at work in and near Joplin. How many things made of zinc can you find in your neighborhood? Recently several railroads have been built, but there are still many places that are fifteen or twenty miles from the station. They can be reached only by bad roads over steep hills. You can see why towns would not grow large on such a plateau. Part II. — The Ouachita Ridges 311. The Arkansas Valley. — South of the Ozarks is the narrow valley of the Arkansas River. This rich, warm lowland can and does grow cotton. It is, therefore, really a narrow strip of the Cotton Belt, merely because it is fifteen hundred feet lower than the Ozark hills immediately to the north of it and the Ouachita Mountains imme- diately south of it. 312. Mountains with few people. — Just south of the Arkansas River the Ouachita Mountains cover several counties in Arkansas and Oklahoma. These sandstone ridges with valleys between them are very much like the narrow ridges and valleys of the Appa- lachians in West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. (Sec. 282.) Most of the sandy surface of the Ouachita Mountains is still cov- ered with forest, part of which is a national forest. Few people live here, but at the edge of the mountains is the famous health resort, Hot Springs, Arkansas. Visitors from many distant places go there to receive the benefits of the spring water and of the sanitariums. 313. Future of the Ozark and Ouachita Highlands. — The pleasant, healthful climate of this region and its great natural beauty should encourage man to make better use of it. It is far enough south to have winters that are not severe. The summers have plenty of rain and the weather is not so unpleasantly hot as in the prairies to the north or the humid Cotton Belt to the south. Since there are no swamps in which mos- quitoes may live, the upland does not have the malaria that afflicts some parts of the Cotton Belt. As we learn to know our continent better, progressive people from other regions should make their homes in the Ozarks. America is such a big country, and land has been so cheap in the past, that we have used only the best, the part that is level and easy to culti- vate with machinery. With the increase in the price of food and land, new kinds of farming are needed in order to develop such regions as these central highlands. We may expect many new things, now that there is an agricultural experiment station and an agricultural college in every state. There is such a college at Fayetteville, Arkansas, in the Ozarks. Agriculture is being taught now in many of the high schools. In Arkansas, as in many other states, there are clubs of boys who are growing corn, pigs, and other valuable things; and of girls who are growing tomatoes and canning them. As our people become better trained, the Ozarks and the Appalachians can become delightful places in which to live, and the 160 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS people can have health, good roads, produc- tive farms (Sec. 292), good schools, and pretty towns and villages in the midst of beautiful green hills and blue mountains. QUESTIONS 1. Find the Ozark-Ouachita Highland on Figure 494. What is its average elevation? (Fig. 21.) How does this influence its climate? In what respect is the climate of the Ozarks superior to that of the Cotton Belt? to that of Corn Belt? 2. How does nature partly repay the people of this region for the rugged surface and poor soil? 3. Name the products of the region, grouping them as follows: (a) Products of farms; (6) Products of orchards; (c) Products of mines; (d) Products of forests. 4. Tell an Ozark farmer how tree-crop agriculture might increase the yield from his farm. 5. Draw a simple diagram picturing a valley be- tween two mountains, such as might be found in the Ozarks. Show on the diagram where you would grow forests; where you would place your orchards; your vegetable gardens and cornfields; your pasture lands. 6. Name some points of similarity and differ- ence between southern Appalachia and the Ozark- Ouachita Uplands. 7. Suppose you were a schoolboy or girl in Fayette- ville, Arkansas; what would you desire to learn in order to help make your region a more pleasant place in which to live? 8. Use the Ozark-Ouachita Uplands and the New England Maritime District for illus- tration, and show how people become more prosperous when they carry on trade. THE NORTHEASTERN HIGHLANDS 314. Character and bounds. — One part of our Eastern Upland Region yet remains — the Northeastern Highlands. It lies north of the Mohawk Val- ley and northwest of the New Eng- land-C a n a d i a n Maritime District. How many states and provinces help to make it? What fertile valley cuts this region in two? All the mountains in this highland are very old, and their tops are worn down to a rounded form. The highest peaks of the White Mountains (Fig. 216) and of the Adirondacks have only grass and bare rock, for they are beyond the timber line, but most of the other mountains are forested to the tops. While the glaciers were leveling the prairie country, they were picking up rocks on the mountains of New England and eastern Canada and scattering them everywhere. There is even a string of these rocks across Long Island, where the glacier left its termi- nal moraine. By filling valleys with earth here and there the glacier made dams that held the water of the streams, thus turning valleys into lakes and swamps, and sending streams into new courses where they tumbled over rocky ledges. For this reason, the Northeastern Highland country of moun- tains and hills and woods is also a land of lakes, swamps, rocky land, and waterfalls. 315. Climate. — The growing season in this region is only 110 to 140 days long. The winter is very cold. It is amazing how much colder the winter is in the Adirondacks or in upper New Hampshire than it is in New York City or Cape Cod. At New York it often rains and thaws in the winter months; in the Northeastern Highlands it is nearly always freezing, and almost every winter storm is snow. When snow is shoe-top deep in New York City, it may be knee-deep or waist-deep or even shoulder-deep in the woods of Maine and in the Adirondacks, and the ice on the rivers and lakes is often two or three feet thick. For weeks after people on Long Island can plant their gardens, snow still covers the ground 250 miles to the northward. Hence this region has few farms, few towns, and few people. One sees why skiing is a great sport among the students of Dartmouth College at Hanover, New Hamp- shire. (Fig. 258.) 316. Agriculture and lumbering. — There is very little agriculture in this district, except in a few spots. Not only is the growing sea- son too short, but the land is too rough for farming. But it is a good country for grass, and Vermont has long been famous for its fine merino sheep, its horses, and its dairy farms. In the Aroostook Valley in north- eastern Maine is a tract of sandy loam soil which is easy to cultivate. The cool, moist summer exactly suits the potato, and this section has become a famous potato region, sending seed potatoes to many states lying farther south. Fig. 257. The Northeastern Highlands. THE NORTHEASTERN HIGHLANDS 161 Most of the Northeastern Highland district is a great forest. Even the farms are for the most part woodland, and many of them have large groves of maple trees from which sugar is made. The income of the people comes largely from forests, which furnish lumber, pulp wood, and paper. Each winter scores of lumber camps are built in the woods. There, men are busy chopping trees and hauling logs to the stream banks. Each spring the streams carry logs out in all direc- tions to the sawmills and papermills. Bangor and Augusta in Maine have many such mills busy with the logs that float down from the high- lands. It is the same with towns in southern New Brunswick, and with towns on the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River. Most of the towns within this region cluster around papermills, built at some place where a waterfall furnishes the power to grind spruce logs into the pulp from which news paper is made. In the winter of 1919-1920 the snow was so deep in this region that trains could not reach the papermills for weeks at a time. Many newspapers in New York, Philadel- phia, and other cities had to reduce their size because the papermill towns of New England and eastern Canada could not ship paper as usual. 317. The resort business.— Few parts of the United States equal New England in the variety of vacations that a short journey may furnish. The shores of Cape Cod, on the tip of the Coastal Plain, furnish a flat coast with the charm of the sandy beach. From Boston northward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence the Maritime District has a very rugged, rocky coast. Inland throughout the whole maritime region are cozy farmhouses by Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 258. New York boy and girls enjoying winter sports in the Adirondacks. Could you slide down hill on skis and keep your balance? stream and pond. The highland district offers wilder scenes. It invites those who wish to go where mail and newspapers can not follow them, and where leaping trout make the sportsman rise before dawn to creep stealthily up to clear pools. Each summer thousands of people may be found canoeing, tenting, and tramping along the streams, lakes, and hills in the solitude of the north woods. There they can know for a few days or weeks how it feels to be in a wild place far from town. Here also, in locations of great beauty, are many large summer hotels, and in scores of permanent camps, thousands of schoolboys and school- girls have a few delightful weeks of swimming, boating, and outdoor life. 318. Future. — Is this a place where many people will live all the year? In much of it there are now not more than two or three people to the square mile. Will this change? Three words describe the future of this region: forests, water power, recreation. Tell how an increase of population in New York City and in the New England Mari- time District will influence each of these three things in the highlands. . . 162 THE EASTERN AND CENTRAL UPLANDS Most of the forests have been cut over once or twice, and some of them have been ruined by fire. Some of the wooded land now belongs to paper companies that take excellent care of their forests, because they must have wood to keep their mills going. The United States Government has begun to buy some of the forest land that private owners will not protect from fire, and much of it will doubtless become a great national forest. The state of New York has taken a large part of the Adirondacks as a park for its people. Lovers of the great outdoors may paddle their canoes over the chains of lakes, may fish in the clear, rapid streams, or may climb the steep mountainsides; but as a condition of their life in the open they must beware of setting fire to the woods. Into the spongy ground shaded by the forests of the Northeastern Highlands, the rain and the melted snow sink and are held. So gradually does water drain from this forest-earth that the streams which it sup- plies are clear, strong and constant. Many stream-valleys have been blocked by the material brought by the Great Glacier; in this way ponds and lakes are formed. By damming their outlets, lakes, which are natural reservoirs, can be made to hold more water than they do now. How may this be useful? When New York City needed a greater water supply, it created a great lake in the Catskill Highland. In like man- ner many large cities of the future will draw clear cold water from these highlands. Some of the water may generate electricity in its descending course, to move the wheels of mills in distant places. This land will invite many kinds of men. For a few months in summer and autumn the canoeist, the camper, the tramper, the fisherman, the hunter, the motorist, and the hotel guest will throng the land where for months at a time and for miles at a stretch, in the long, cold winter, the sound of a human voice is not heard — save that of the fur hunter, creeping stealthily after pelts, or that of the forester, protecting and studying his trees. Then at intervals many years apart will come the lumbermen with noisy winter camp, loud halloo, and ringing ax. The winter stillness will be broken by the sound of falling trees. Thus men will harvest the crop of logs that has taken a half century or more to grow. If we should have to use all of our land as closely as the Swiss do, what parts of this region might have a dairy industry? Animals in this cold region have very good fur and fur farming, which has already begun, may become important. The Prince Edward Islanders (Sec. 247) have shown the way by raising black foxes with skins selling sometimes for $1000. One mother fox has been known to sell for $15,000, and to raise a litter of young that were worth $10,000. Many millions of dollars are now invested in fox farms. Muskrats and otherj fur- bearers may also be domesticated. QUESTIONS 1. Why are these mountains a land of forests and not of farms? a vacation land? a land with great water-power possibilities? 2. Plan a pleasure trip to this region. 3. Name and locate three mountain groups within the area. 4. What products do the people of this land produce to sell to the other regions of the United States? 5. How may they have helped to furnish you with your reading? 6. What has your region to send them in return for their service to you? How high is Mt. Washington? (Fig. 216.) 7. Make the following comparisons: Topic. Location AND Bound- aries. Char- acter of Sur- face. Chict Prod- ucts, Impor- tance. Appalachian Ridges and Valleys Appalachian Plateau . Northeastern Highland Ozark-Ouachita Highland 8. What natural conditions in parts of these highlands help the farmers to produce merino sheep and fine horses? 9. Name some sports the students at Dart- mouth College enjoy which are denied to the students at the University of California. (Fig. 258.) 10. Were you given a year’s vacation, which land would you choose — the Northeastern Highlands or Southern California? Give three good reasons for your answer. 11. What are seed potatoes? Can you suggest why many farmers in eastern United States market their entire potato crop, and, for next year’s planting, buy seed potatoes from the Aroostook Valley, Maine? © A. E. Young, Soo, Mich. Fig. 259. Lake steamers passing through the locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. You see boats standing at different levels. The boat at the left has a gate in front of it which we can see, and one behind it which we cannot see. Big valves in the gate nearest us open, and let the water out so that the ship settles down to the lower level. The gate then opens and the boat steams away. Perhaps you can show this by a draw- ing. Also show how the boat goes up the locks. Which end of the boat nearest you holds the crew? the machinery? THE TRADE ROUTE REGIONS THE BASIN OF THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT LAKES Part I. — The St. Lawrence Valley and the Lower Lake District 319. A long trade route region. — It is a long way from Duluth and Chicago past Detroit, Montreal, and Quebec to the lower end of the Gulf of St. Lawrence; but all parts of the region are much alike in their great dependence on trade, and also in their climate and agriculture. What regions bound the St. Lawrence Valley and the Lower Lake District? All of this region is lowland, except the north- western part, which we call the Upper Lake District. 320. The effects of the Great Glacier. — The Great Lakes form the largest group of lakes in the world. Lake Superior is the largest body of fresh water in the world. These lakes were over this part of North America. The moving mass of ice scooped out great, deep holes (Fig. 262). The dirt from the holes, car- ried along by the ice, dammed up the old channels of streams (Sec. 314). When the glacier filled up the St. Lawrence Valley, the waters from the melting ice formed a large lake in front of the glacier. The mud and sand deposited on the bottoms of these old lakes now make fine agricultural soils along the south shores of Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Michigan. As the ice front changed, the water found different outlets. At one time the waters of Lake Superior flowed south into the Mississippi at a point north of St. Paul. The waters of Lake Michigan flowed down the Illinois River into the Mississippi. Lake Erie waters made by the great ice mass that f ig ‘ 260 - The B f si T of st ; flowed to the Ohio River. Later, Lawrence and the Great . 7 once pushed its way southward Lakes. as the glacier melted still more. 063 ) 164 THE TRADE ROUTE REGIONS Lake Erie waters flowed across New York by way of the Mohawk, and finally they found still another new channel by tumbling over a ledge of rock into Lake Ontario. The swiftly- flowing stream cut the edge of the ledge, and gradually wore the rock away, until to-day the falls are at Niagara instead of at the place where Lewiston now stands. Measure on the map (Fig. 204) the length of the river channel below Niagara Falls. See in Fig. 262 how great the difference in level is between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The Niagara River is a very young river flowing through a narrow gorge. (Figs. 142, 146, 147.) Niagara Falls, one of the won- ders of the earth, is visited by thousands of tourists from all parts of the world. Niagara Falls is to-day developing more hydroelectric power than any other waterfall. (Fig. 261.) In this region the glacier has (a) helped man to trade by making waterways; ( b ) put men into factories by giving them water power; (c) made farming easier by making smooth plains on old lake beds; (d) made farming harder than in some other regions because it left much of the region rolling and hilly and dotted with many small lakes. For this rea- son a hundred-acre farm Fig* 262. A diagram showing sea level and the depth of the Great Lakes. ’ , t i How deep is each lake? Between which two is the difference in level great- near tile threat Lakes or est? How long is the river which connects Erie and Ontario? (Fig. 204.) iron box with a flat bottom. (Fig. 281.) It has a little house in one end full of ma- chinery, and another little house in the other end where the crew live. There are hundreds of these black, smoking freight boxes, which are really floating warehouses. Many of them carry 10,000 tons of freight from the far ends of Lake Superior or Michigan to thi lower end of Lake Erie. The Welland Canal, by way of which boats go from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, is large enough to allow only boats of 2,500-ton capacity to pass through, but there are plans for enlarging it. When it has been improved, the cargoes of the large boats will not have to be unloaded at one end of the canal and reloaded, but will pass directly through the canal in the big ships to their destinations. Look at the New York Barge Canal (Fig. 204) and explain how the Great Lakes route has two sea ends, and why Montreal and Quebec are important commercial cities. The great drawback to the route is that the river and all the THE BASIN OF THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT LAKES 165 canals are frozen for several months each winter. Fortunately the seaports are not frozen more than a day or two at a time. If we examine the western ends of the Great Lakes route, we see that cities have grown up wherever the lakes reach into the good country. What is the population of each of eight American cities on these lakes? The lake steamer carries freight more cheaply than a train. Explain how that fact has caused the lake cities to be larger than the inland cities. Chicago is the second city of America in size because, like New York, it is a center for many trade routes. Chicago is larger than Toledo or Duluth chiefly because it is the trade center for more good farmland than either of the other cities. It has been made not only by the lake, but also by the land. (Figs. 264, 308, 494.) Chicago is on the edge of the Lake Region, yet the lakes make it the greatest center of trade with the rich region of the Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt. This region sends to Chicago many thousands of meat animals for the packing- plants, and many millions of bushels of grain to be forwarded over the lakes. In return, Chicago sends machinery and all kinds of sup- plies back to the farming country. Chicago and, to a lesser extent, all the other lake cities are really gateways through which streams of goods are flowing in both directions. Raw materials are going east and finished products are going west. Being centrally located in the United States, Chicago is a good place for mail-order houses. (Figs. 308, 494.) All the people of the country can be more quickly reached by mail from this point than from any other. In the summer season some of the produce that comes down the lakes from Chicago and other American cities is forwarded to Europe from the ports of Montreal and Quebec. It is a great hindrance to trade that the produce of the Lake District and of the St. Lawrence Valley must go overland to the Atlantic ports for nearly five months when the river is icebound. 322. Population. — The lake region is the © Ewing Galloway, N. Y* Fig. 263. State Street, in the heart of Chicago. See if an encyclopedia will tell you what was here one hundred years ago. most northerly part of eastern North America where many people are living, and it has many kinds of people in it. Quebec was once a French colony. The people still speak French, and many refuse to learn English, or to speak it when they know it. Ontario was settled by British people, and they retain English ideas and ways of living. Michigan was settled by Yankees from New York and New England. The same kind of people also settled in Wisconsin. Later many Germans, Danes, and Poles settled there. A great many people have recently come from many countries in Europe to work in the mining towns near the west end of Lake Superior, and to live in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and other big cities. 323. Transportation helps make manufac- turing. — The lake cities are busy with fac- tories as well as with trade. The lake steamer that carries ore, grain, lumber, meat, and copper eastward, often brings on its return 166 THE TRADE ROUTE REGIONS Mg. 264. An airman’s view of Chicago. Compare its harbor, made by a breakwater, with that of New York (Fig. 278). Into what river does the drainage-canal water flow? (Fig. 54.) Chicago water comes from far out in the lake at the cribs (screened boxes where the water enters pipes). Find these cribs in the picture. journey cargoes of Pennsylvania coal from Buffalo, Cleveland, Erie, or Ashtabula. , The lake shores produce the materials for making machinery, and Chicago, the trade center of the greatest agricultural district in the world, is also the greatest center in the world for the manufacture of agricultural machinery. Such products are so bulky that they need to be made as near as possible to the place where they are to be used. This gives Chicago an advantage over distant places. To supply Chicago with steel, a new city was started near by at Gary, Indiana. Here, on a waste of sand, the largest steel plant in the world was built. A harbor was dug out of the sand. Here steamers loaded with iron ore from Lake Superior can run into docks directly beside the iron furnaces. At this big plant the newly-melted iron runs into little cars, and is carried, still molten, to the steel furnaces. There it is changed to steel, and sent on as a great white-hot chunk to the rolling mill, to be rolled out into steel rails for railroad and trolley tracks, or girders for bridges and skyscrapers, or billets (chunks) for the wire mill or the nail mill. A thousand different factories use the product of this one great plant. Since Chicago is so near to the stock farms of the corn-growing prairies, it slaughters more meat animals than any other city in the world. An English traveler said: “To watch an animal from the pen to the tin (can) is an extraordinary experience. You see it killed; it falls; a conveyor carries it away; it is flayed (skinned) while you wait; it disappears. Then, suddenly, it is an open carcass; it passes the veterinary; in a few seconds it is cut up, and hurriedly you follow the dwindling carcass that is no longer an ox, but fragments of meat; you see the meat shredded; in another room the manicured girls are filling the shreds into tins, and the tin is closed and labeled. A superior force, which is called organized industry, has cut up the cattle on a traveling belt and carried them away.” Milwaukee, like Chicago, is a machinery and trade center; it has also large factories manufacturing leather and many other things. Cleveland, like Buffalo, is a city of machine shops, steel plants, and many other industries using iron and wood. Cleveland and the smaller lake ports near it forward each year millions of tons of iron ore to Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Sharon, and other iron centers. 324. Standardization and the machinery THE BASIN OF THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT LAKES 167 Fig. 265. _ The Ford Motor Co. plant, Detroit, Michigan, and some of the workers. Do these people help you? industry. — More than half the automobiles in the world are made in a little triangle of land between Saginaw Bay, Chicago, and Cleveland. This industry, like so many of our other manufacturing industries, has grown up because methods called standardization and specialization have been used. Standard- ized things are all made alike, and thus fit the place for which they were intended. For instance, you can buy cartridges that will fit your gun; you do not need to have them made especially to fit it. There are standardized needles and records that will fit your phonograph. You can buy ready made a new piece that will replace a broken part in your automobile, your typewriter, your reaper, your bicycle, or almost any machine in your factory. A short time ago when a part was broken, another had to be made to replace it. That was very hard to do, and made things costly. Good mechanics were then needed in every part of the country where machinery was used. Now that standardization has come, one little town in Michigan has a plant that makes automobile rims. Another town makes axles; another, doors; another, bodies; another, bearings; another, lamps; and so on, until almost every town for many miles around Detroit is busy with plants making the parts of automobiles. These parts may be shipped to factories every- where, and used on twenty different kinds of cars. 325. Specialization and the machinery industry. — When a factory has begun making a few standardized things, a second great advantage appears, viz.: standardized things can be made easily and cheaply. Therefore the factory specializes on one or at most a few standardized things. These two practices have given us this age of cheap machinery. 326. The great automobile center. — By the use of standardized parts, manufacturing becomes a kind of assembling. Perhaps the most wonderful plant of this kind in the world is the Ford automobile plant, where you can see a car put together in a few minutes by a long row of workmen. First, two axles and a frame come down a chute in front of several men, each of whom turns a bolt or two, and then an endless conveyor takes the frame and carries it forward to the next man. In this manner the car passes in front of a long line of men, each of whom receives from above or from one side a part which he fastens to the frame. One man puts on com- pleted wheels from the wheel department; another, the case that covers the driving shaft; another, springs; another, some other 168 THE TRADE ROUTE REGIONS and Chicago, by way of either Detroit or Cleveland, is exactly on the line of a railroad running fast trains between the east and the west. Iron and wood of the upper lakes and coal of the lower lakes can come by water to every lake city. These cities are on the very edge of the greatest food- producing region in Amer- , , © Ewing Gaiioway, n. y. f C a. They have a wholesome Fig. 266. Cleveland harbor. Notice the lighthouses; the protecting breakwater; a lake steamer sailing out; the many railroad tracks; coal docks climate, and the summer IS with dumping apparatus. (Fig. 281.) part. Finally a completed engine from the engine department swings out on a little crane, is lowered to the car, and quickly bolted fast. Next the gasoline tank with gasoline in it is bolted fast, and the skeleton car that has not yet received its body is ready to run with its own power, and to be tested out. After the test the car is taken apart and packed up to be shipped, perhaps to the very end of the earth, and there it is repaired with pieces that are sent out from the home plant. The automobile industry of Detroit, Tole- do, and the many smaller cities, has grown with such great speed that between 1910 and 1920, Detroit, the automobile center, in- creased from 465,766 to 993,678 in popula- tion, and from ninth to fourth in rank among the cities of the United States. Does this industry affect Detroit alone? Can one part of our country have good business all by itself? In the spring of 1921, the manager of the Hood River Apple Growers’ Associa- tion complained that Detroit was buying only one carload of boxed apples a week, because the automobile business was dull and the workers were not spending money for apples. They had been buying five carloads a day when business was good. 327. Future. — Will the demand for auto- mobiles and other machinery continue? Will these industries move away from the Lake District where they are so thoroughly established? Every city between Buffalo neither so hot nor so long as that of regions to the south. These cities being located in a land of lakes, both big and little, are provided with coolness and recreation as well as with cheap freight rates. Increasing population and production in the regions around the lakes means, of course, more traffic over the lakes. Meat, grain, and farm supplies will continue to move as they do now. 328. How the lakes make fruit crops. — The Lower Lake District is great in trade, great in manufacture, and it also has an interesting agriculture. Owing to the lakes, this region rivals California in the amount of fruit it produces. One of the greatest dangers to fruit crops in the United States is the spring frost that kills the buds and flowers of the blooming trees. The lakes reduce the danger from spring freezing, because they are full of ice and cold water which keep the land near them cool until the end of May. Trees do not put forth leaves and buds in cool weather, so the danger of frosts is mostly past before orchards along the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie begin to bud. Often there are good crops of fruit near the lakes in the same season when frosts kill the crop twenty miles inland. For this reason, orchards of apples, peaches, and cherries almost touch each other for miles and miles along the southern shore of Lake Ontario. In June and July, men and women, boys and girls are picking wagonloads of cher- THE BASIN OF THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT LAKES 169 Photo. J. C. Allen Fig. 268. Cornfields, dairy barns, and silos at Delavan, Wis. ries to send to neighboring canneries. In August and September, peaches are picked, graded, packed in boxes and baskets, and sent off by carloads to the city markets. After the peaches are picked, the apple har- vest begins, and for a month or six weeks everyone who can be persuaded to work is picking and sorting apples. Thousands of carloads of apples are shipped from western New York to the markets and cold-storage plants of cities as far distant as Boston, New Orleans, and Minneapolis. Across the Niagara River, in the little peninsula between Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Huron, the Canadians are likewise busy with crops of fruit. The waters of Lake Michigan also protect the many orchards of peaches, apples, and cherries that grow close together along the eastern shore. One morning in January, 1920, the thermometer at Grand Haven, Michigan, was 22° F., while directly across the lake at Milwaukee it was 0°. At this time the lake surface had no ice and the water temperature was, therefore, only 32°, so that the slow-blowing southwesterly wind was warmed by the water in crossing the lake. A body of water as small as Green Bay protects fruit crops, and the little peninsula between Green Bay and Lake Michigan has many cherry orchards. Cherries for the Fig. 267. Value of dairy products produced for sale. Compare the two ends of the Appalachian Plateau. Find the Adirondacks; the Upper Lake District. canning factory are the chief industry of the Leelanau Peninsula just across the lake. The grape crop shows another example of the influence of water on climate and crops. Nearly all of the grapes grown east of Cali- fornia, for shipment to market, are produced along the north and south shores of Lake Erie, especially along the eastern end, and along the several long, slender lakes, called finger lakes, in west central New York. (Figs. 30, 204.) In these districts vineyards often join each other for miles along the lake shores. If you live east of the Mississippi, read the address on a basket of grapes that is for sale in October or November. Fruit crops are also grown on the islands in Lake Erie near Sandusky, and on the two peninsulas that reach into Lake Superior. 329. Northern agriculture. — Although in its southern part, this district touches the Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt, only a little corn is grown in it. The coolness of the lake waters causes com to be absent from the lake-shore farms, although it may be grown only a few miles farther inland. Instead of corn, most of the farmers grow potatoes, sugar beets, and navy beans (Fig. 42). These three crops do well where it is too cool for corn. Many farmers also grow fields of peas, cabbage, tomatoes, and sugar corn (Sec. 247), all of which are taken to the canneries that are so common in the Ontario plain and in southern Michigan and lower Wisconsin. More work is required to grow these crops than to grow corn, oats, and hay, but the return per acre is greater. For this reason we say the agriculture is more 170 THE TRADE ROUTE REGIONS intensive than that of the corn, oats, and hay farms. 330. Dairying. — Next to the fruit industry and the trucking industry, dairying is the chief industry of the entire region from Quebec to the suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Why do the farmers in the whole of this long region keep cows? Be- cause cows will help the farmer to make a living on a dairying we can see how teamwork, or organization, helps industry. Wisconsin has been the leading dairying state in the United States, partly because the state agri- cultural college has given so many extension courses in dairying, that nearly every farmer in the state knows how to take care of cows, milk, and butter. Butter Courtesy Minnesota Forest Service and cheese from Wisconsin small, rough farm in a place £S e 2 siperi?f and Minnesota are used in where the winter is long and by the forest fires of one year. thousands of homes in New the summer is cool. On the wide, level stretches of Kansas and Texas, a farmer can make his living by selling grain or feeding meat animals; but in the sections made hilly by glaciers, a farmer having a hundred acres of land often has only fifty acres that are fit to plow, the rest being woodlands or pasture. That farmer keeps cows, and has milk to sell daily instead of meat to sell once a year. The dairy farm has a pasture field, a hay field, an oat field, and sometimes a field of beets of a big, coarse kind that cattle like to eat. The only thing sold from a farm like this is milk, and from time to time some calves or cows. 331. The downs and ups of agriculture. — Between 1910 and 1920, thousands of farms in this region were abandoned because the people could make more money in the auto- mobile and other factories. As the number of our people increases, and the rising price of food makes us give more attention to farm- ing, this section can greatly increase the amount of fruit and vegetables grown in the plains along the lakes. It can also pro- duce many more potatoes and much more butter and cheese in the hilly farms of Wis- consin and Michigan, of Ontario and Quebec. We find the dairying industry in the part of New York west of the Adirondacks, and in the part of Vermont that drains toward the St. Lawrence. It is especially important in the St. Lawrence Valley and Wisconsin. 332. Government aid to industry. — In England and the Middle Atlantic States. But the Canadians have beaten the Amer- icans in the export of cheese to Europe, because they guarantee the quality of their goods. In the United States, any person can send what he pleases to Europe. Some people have sent cheeses that were good on the outside but poor on the inside, so that the name ‘‘Yankee Cheese” means in England bad cheese. The Canadian Government will not let any cheese go out unless it has been officially inspected and stamped. This guarantee has won the market, and Ontario and Quebec alone export much more cheese than the whole of the United States. QUESTIONS. 1. From your charts and pictures make a list of the products of this region, grouping them as follows: (a) Farm products; (6) Orchard products; (c) Dairy products; (d) Manufactured products. Add to the list any commodity produced by the region but not illustrated in the text. 2. Name the place in this region you most desire to visit. Why? 3. How many names of automobiles can you quickly recall? Where was each car manufactured? 4. Why were so many produced in the Great Lakes Region? 5. Were you planting an orchard, would you plant it near Mil- waukee or Muskegon? Give some good reasons for your answer. 6. How do you account for the enor- Fi«. 270. Dairy cows in Canada. THE BASIN OF THE ST. LAWRENCE AND THE GREAT LAKES 171 mous growth (Figs. 237, 267, 268, 270) of the dairy industry about the Great Lakes? 7. Were it possible, would you recommend that the Great Lakes be drained and their beds be converted into farms? Give three good reasons for your answer. 8. From Fig. 210 suggest two possible routes by which ocean-going steamers may in the future reach Chicago. What improvements must be made in each route before this can be possible? 9. Tell something about standardized machinery. Did George Washington have any? Does the President now? 10. Give three good reasons why Chicago is second in size among the cities of the United States. 11. Why does most of the lake trade go eastward through the Valley of the Mohawk rather than by way of the St. Lawrence? 12. Explain how a large lake makes climate cooler and also warmer? 13. Complete the following outline on the cities in this region: Name of Citt. Location. Facts I Should Remember. 14. Debate in your class the following question: Resolved, that the governments of the United States and Canada set aside Niagara Falls as an inter- national park, and permit no more of the river’s waters to be diverted for power purposes. Part II. — The Upper Lake Region 333. A region desolated but rich. — The Upper Lake Region is a land of old, worn- down mountains, of very hard rocks, and of shallow soil. The glaciers have scraped the surface, piled stones upon it, and made thousands of swamps, ponds, and lakes. Minnesota alone is said to have ten thousand lakes and ponds. It was once a land of fine forests, but most of the big trees have been cut. Sometimes forest fires, leaping from treetop to treetop, Courtesy U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 271. This desert made by American neglect, was once a rich forest of pine. Dark, spongy earth once covered the stones in front of the stump. Tell what has happened. What would have prevented it? (Fig. 410.) Fig. 272. A steam shovel loading freight cars in an open pit iron mine on the Mesaba Range, Minn. How does the freight train get out of the hole? have burned forests, railroads, towns, and even people. In some places the fires killed every tree, and the earth, no longer held in place by roots, has been washed away, leav- ing bare round knobs of granite on which sometimes the stumps of the original forests still stand, dry as old bones. Lumbering still goes on, and much furniture is made in the cities of the lower peninsula of Michigan, some of which are in the Lower Lake District. Some of the once, forested land is being turned into farms, but the rough land here, as elsewhere, naturally belongs in forests. Parts of the cut-over land have already been taken by the states as state forests, and by the nation as national forests, but here, as in many other parts of our country, it will take many, many years of care to make these forests half as good as they were when the white men first began chopping at our wood- lands, the richest in the world. 334. Mines. — The long peninsula that projects into Lake Superior has many cop- per mines, and for a long time Michigan was the leading copper-producing state in the country, but it has since been surpassed by Montana and Arizona. The greatest iron-mining region in the world is near the western end of Lake Superior. Here many thousands of newly- arrived Europeans live in prosperous mining towns scattered around in the wild woods. There are whole mountain ranges of iron ore 172 THE TRADE ROUTE REGIONS VERMILION RANGE. [ichipicoten. MOOSE MOUNT ALH [Sault Ste. Marie \vpcrior( MFNOMlNE( \range JO SYDNEVMINES, "Rochester baraboc /RANGE .Buffalo Detroit CleveW; Veubenv SeVhleh! DISTRICT lake sup.moN.oni Fig. 273. A map showing the movement of iron ore from the mines of the Upper Lake Region to the furnaces. Note that the stream of ore grows steadily less as various cities draw from it. Where is the iron from this ore used? has already begun in these cities. What will be the results if the Hudson Bay route to Europe succeeds as a grain carrier? (Sec. 101.) If the plan for a ship canal from Georgian Bay to the St. Lawrence comes to pass? Or if the enlarged Welland Canal permits the passage of ocean steamships? QUESTIONS 1. What explanation can you offer for the many small lakes and swamps dotting this section? 2. Name another region which you have studied where exten- sive areas must be drained before so soft and so near the surface that the steam-shovel can scoop it up by the ton and drop it into cars, which carry it to the piers on Lake Superior. At the pier the brake- man pulls a lever which opens the bottom of the car, so that the ore drops through into bins. A big steamer comes alongside, and in a few hours ten thousand tons of ore drop with a roaring noise into the great hold, and the ship steams away to the Lower Lakes. (Figs. 259, 281.) Four American ports on Lake Superior ship nearly fifty million tons of iron ore a year, as much as four-fifths of the total production of the United States, and more than the entire production of any two foreign countries. 335 . Cities. — Name the port cities at the western part of Lake Superior. We can think of these Lake Superior ports as funnels through which the northwest pours its products to the eastward. These products — grain, iron ore, and lumber — are very bulky and are mostly handled by machinery, and, therefore, do not employ so many people as are needed to handle manufactures. 336 . Future.— Will the iron-ore business increase? What will be the influence of more population and more business in the Northern Wheat Belt upon the cities near the western end of Lake Superior? Some manufacturing they can be cultivated. 3. Would you like to live near some small lakes? Why? 4. Wffiat products will the lock tender’s boy in the Soo Canal see the lake steamers carry on their voyage eastward? westward? 5. Compare the Lake Districts as follows: Topic. Upper Lake District. Lower Lake District. Surface Soil Chief industries .... Products of farms. . . Products of forests. . Products of mines . . Products of mills . . . 6. Give some points of similarity between the method of mining iron (Fig. 272) and the mining of copper (Fig. 150 B). 7. Name and locate four impor- tant cities of the Upper Lake Region. 8. What raw materials constitute the bulk of their trade? 9. How does their position account for their growth? 10. Which canal, the Soo or Welland, handles the bulk of the lake traffic? Why? 11. Write a letter as from the United States Bureau of Forestry to the people of the upper lakes, telling what their forest areas need. 12. Read one of Stewart Edward White’s interesting lumber stories of Michigan, and find out what were the chief kinds of lumber secured. Fig. 274. The five leading iron ore producing states (1919-20). Tons A. Minnesota 37,860,000 B. Michigan 16,350,000 C. Alabama 5,440,000 D. Wisconsin 930,000 E. New York 890,000 How much came from the Lake Superior District? How much from the Great Appalachian Valley? THE ERIE CANAL BELT 173 THE ERIE CANAL BELT 337. Where it is. — With your finger, trace on the map the location of the Erie Canal Belt. (Fig. 210.) What great bodies of water are at its ends? Find cities at the western end. Find cities at the southeastern end. (Fig. 204.) 338. The kind of region it is. — Think a moment about the great volume of trade in the St. Lawrence and Lower Lake Regions. Some of these goods pass out through the St. Lawrence River, but a great many more reach the sea by way of the Erie Canal Belt. This region, then, like that of the Great Lakes, is a trade-route region. Try to see a picture of goods and raw materials continu- ally passing into this region from other regions. Imagine millions of people work- ing to keep these goods moving, and thou- sands of boats and trains carrying the goods from one end of the region to the other end. If you can think of the Erie Canal Belt as an avenue or artery along which, by night as well as by day, goods and raw materials are for- ever passing, pass- ing, you will realize 6 what a very busy region it is. Because of this and other reasons, the Erie Canal Belt is also a great industrial and manufacturing region. Nu- merous thriving cities are situated within its bounds. 339. New York City. — We shall need to study New York City from three points of view: (1) As a crowded city, the center of a metropolitan district of many cities. (2) As a great port. (3) As a great manufac- turing center. (1) New York, the crowded city . — The City of New York was founded at the lower end of Manhattan Island. In 1800 it had 60,000 people; Philadelphia then had 69,000; Baltimore, 26,000. The people of New York thought that it would be a great advantage to them if there were a trade route between the Great Lakes and their city, because then New York would become the gateway of Photo. Brown Bros.. N. Y. Fig. 276. An airplane view of Ellis Island, New York harbor, where immigrants land. What do you see in the background? the commerce of the Lake Regions. So they set to work to build the Erie Canal, which would connect the Hudson River with Lake Erie. The task was completed in 1825. The first boat to go through the Erie Canal brought a cask of water from Lake Erie, and the governor of the state, with great cere- mony, emptied the water into the Atlantic Ocean as a symbol of the union of the two bodies of water. The canal has recently been rebuilt so that it can carry much larger boats. It is now called the Barge Canal. Thus did New York City secure the best route to the Great Lakes, and then the city began to grow more rapidly than any other in America. To-day it is one of the most crowded places in the world. homes. In- stead, they live in build- ings that are ten or twelve stories high. Each story is divided Photo. Keystone View Co. Fig. 277. General Grant’s Tomb over- looking the Hudson, on the west side of Manhattan Island, New York City. What is there in this picture to remind you of a cause of New York’s com- mercial greatness? (Fig. 278.) 174 THE TRADE ROUTE REGIONS Fig. 278. New York and surrounding cities as the airman sees them. Trace the limits of Greater New York. Point out its five boroughs. Which are on islands? What two seashore resorts are within the city limits? Point out some drowned valleys. Why has a new harbor in Jamaica Bay been planned? Trace a state boundary. Where would you expect to find lighthouses? into several family apartments. Most New York children have only the city street for a playground, unless they are fortunate enough to live near a park or public playground. . Most of the steamers that carry passengers from various parts of Europe to the United States arrive at New York, so most of our immigrants land there. Sometimes 5,000 and even 10,000 have arrived in a single day. Many stay in New York, so the city contains many foreign-born people, repre- senting fifty different races. More Italians live in New York City than in any Italian city. In one section of New York the people speak Greek; in another, Spanish; in another, Rumanian; in another, French; in another, German; in another, Chinese; in another, Russian. There are restaurants that serve food cooked as it is cooked in the home countries. The children from these foreign colonies go to the public schools, where they learn English, and soon become Americans. 340. A cluster of cities. — There was not enough room on Manhattan Island for so many people, so towns sprang up on Long Island and on the mainlands of New York State and New Jersey. Now the City of Greater New York includes Brooklyn and Queens to the east, Richmond to the south, and the Bronx to the north. Most of the people who live in this cluster of cities, and many others besides, go each day to work in Manhattan. Every means of transportation is taxed by big crowds. Long trains of cars roar through the New York sub- ways every two minutes during the morning and afternoon hours when travel is greatest. Every seat of the long train is filled, and people stand packed in the aisles. Some- times the guards crowd the people into the cars until the doors can scarcely be shut. (2) A great port. — First, we need to con- sider the water front, of which Manhattan Island and Brooklyn have many miles. THE ERIE CANAL BELT 173 Wharves and docks line much of this water front; this makes a very fine place for ships to come. Just as the people of Brook- lyn, the Bronx, and the neighboring cities and suburbs rush to Manhattan Island every day, so the ships from almost every land steam past Sandy Hook lighthouse and into the splendid harbor. Here the ocean steamer meets coastwise vessel, river boat, barge, freight car, express car, truck, and wagon. Is it any wonder that on the wharves and docks and in the warehouses of the city you will find assembled great stores of wheat, meat, corn, flour, and other com- modities brought there from the rich interior of our continent? The goods came by many railroads and by way of the Great Lakes, the Hudson River, and the Barge Canal. The Mohawk River cuts through the wall of the highlands to the northwest of New York, and furnishes an open highway for trade by boat and by rail. This water route from the interior to New York City can carry freight more cheaply than the railroads can. By water and by rail great masses of goods arrive at the port of New York for export. Ships from everywhere arrive at the docks to take goods away, and these ships bring with them the things that we import. Be- cause shiploads of cloth, machinery, and the fine manufactures of Europe arrive in New York, it is the right place at which © Publishers’ Photo Service, N.Y. Fig. 279. Workers in a New York clothing factory cutting one hundred layers of cloth with the electric cutter. Why does this make suits cheaper? Photo. Brown Bros., N. Y. Fig. 280. A baseball game with Harvard, in front of the Library at Columbia University, New York City. to build wholesale stores, where goods such as these can be bought and sold. (3) A great manufacturing center . — Trade makes manufacture. Since New York be- came the greatest wholesale market in the country, it was naturally a good place for manufacturers to sell goods. This fact encouraged men to build factories there. The ships, railroads, and canals made it easy for manufacturers to get raw materials and for workers to get food. Thus New York has become the greatest manufacturing city in North America. It is easy, too, to get coal for manufac- turing, because the Pennsylvania coal fields are so near. Other advantages of location are healthful climate and near-by recrea- tion, which help to keep people strong and vigorous. New York City is so close to the sea that it is cooler than many places farther inland. Seashore resorts on Long Island are within the city limits. People can go to Coney Island (Fig. 278) and to other shore places on trolley cars. Bathing beaches in New Jersey are also near by. Beautiful spots in the Adirondack and Appalachian plateaus and the many resorts of New Eng- land attract people for vacation trips. 341. Industries. — The chief industry of the City of New York is the clothing industry. The method of making a suit of clothes has been greatly changed since the time when a tailor made the whole suit. Now the work is so divided that forty people may do some- 176 THE TRADE ROUTE REGIONS © Ewing Galloway, N. Y. Fig. 281. Buffalo harbor. In the distance are the breakwater and the grain elevators. In the foreground an unloading machine is about to plunge its clam-shell grab bucket down into the hold of the long freight steamer to bring up five tons of ore. thing to a suit before it is finished. A single worker runs an electric cutter that may cut out a hundred suits at once; another worker makes a part of a sleeve; another finishes the sleeve; another makes buttonholes; another sews on buttons; another finishes the collar. Thousands and tens of thousands of men and women are busy in New York City clothing factories, some of which are on upper floors on famous Broadway itself. So many magazines, newspapers, and books are published in New York that the city is one of the greatest publishing centers in this country. So varied are the manufactures near New York, ranging from lead-pencils to steamships, that it would be hard to name something that is not manufactured near the mouth of the Hudson. All these indus- tries help to make New York the huge city it is. 342. Skyscrapers. — To accommodate the great masses of workers, office buildings are often built to a height of twenty or thirty stories. The Woolworth Building has fifty-one floors of offices. It is so high that passengers must use two elevators to reach the top, changing cars at the fortieth floor. 343. Travelers. — Thousands of people from all parts of the country go to New York every year. They go to transact business, and to see the sights of this rich, crowded, busy metropolis, and to walk along its streets. Broadway is so brightly lighted at night that it is called the Great White Way. New York is the greatest travel center in the United States. Every day express trains leave for distant parts of our country: Key West, Eastport, Maine, San Diego, Seattle, and all big intermediate places. As the city is the leading port of the United States, its hotels are crowded with boat travelers, who are either going abroad or coming from some other port of the world. 344. Neighboring cities. — The many other cities which have grown up around the mouth of the Hudson all share the oppor- tunities for trade and manufacture that are at New York. Across the Hudson, opposite New York, there is a settlement that seems to be one city, but it is so long that it is called by three names and has three city governments: Jersey City is the central part; Bayonne, the southern ; and Hoboken, the northern. A little farther away, to the west, are the factory cities of Newark and Paterson; and scattered around are many suburban towns, from which each morning thousands of business men go to work in New York City. 345. A string of cities. — The great water- way which made so many large cities at the mouth of the Hudson has also caused cities to spring up, almost like a string of beads, along its entire course. Buffalo, at the west- Fig. 282. Buffalo and its vicinity. Can you tell how the Erie Canal and the Barge Canal have made Buffalo the largest city of New York except New York City. THE ERIE CANAL BELT 177 em end, has become the second city of New York State, and the twelfth in the United States. Buffalo is a large city partly because so many people are needed to help with load- ing and unloading ships and cars of goods bound for some distant place. The manufac- tured goods (Sec. 340) and raw materials from foreign countries, such as sugar, wool, rubber, skins, varnish, and gums, come to New York at one end of this route. At Buffalo, the other end of this great trade route, lake steamers unload lumber and iron ore from the upper lakes; wheat from the Wheat Region; and com, oats, and meat from the Central Farming Region. With all these raw materials, it is natural that Buffalo should have many manufactures of wood, iron, and machinery, as well as flour-milling and meat-packing industries. The cities along the route from New York to Buffalo manufacture many interesting specialties. Troy makes nearly all the collars and cuffs that are used in the United States. There is a story that the industry started there because a clergyman’s wife in that town made and sold collars that were not attached to shirts. This was such a practical idea that the collar industry grew in Troy. At Cohoes, an enterprising man learned to hitch a knitting machine to a water wheel, and thus started power knitting mills. Now knitting mills give employment to many thousands in every large town along the Mohawk River, except Schenectady. In Schenectady nearly everybody works in © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 284. A view of the Barge Canal crossing New York State. How many important things can you pick out in this picture? machine shops, making locomotives and electrical machinery for use all over the United States and in many foreign countries. A few miles away, near the foot of the Adirondacks, are the two towns of Johnstown and Gloversville. They were settled about 1750 by Scotch glovemakers, and to this day glove-making is the chief source of in- come there. Gloves are cut out by machinery in factories, and are then sent to the homes of the people, where they are finished on electric sewing machines. At Solvay, a suburb of Syracuse, farther to the westward, is the chief industry of this long nar- row district that has a local supply of raw material. Salt found nearby is brought to the factory by gravity. Water flows through a pipe from a lake down into a salt well, dissolves some of the salt and flows out through another pipe line down to the factory. Chem- ical products are made from this salt. Fig. 283. A view of the works of the General Electric Company at Schenectady, N. Y. Why is this a good location for a machine-manufacturing plant? 178 THE TRADE ROUTE REGIONS Photo. Brown Bros., N. Y. Fig. 285. Court Street Bridge over the Genesee River at Rochester, N. Y. What do you see about this river that helps to explain why a city grew up here. Still farther westward is Rochester, where the falls of the Genesee River give power at the same place that the canal gives transpor- tation. This city, like New York, makes much fine clothing, and it is the greatest center in the world for the manufacture of cameras and photographic materials, and for growing young fruit trees. 346. Few farms. — The farms of the Hud- son and the Mohawk valleys produce a great deal of milk and many apples. In Sections 328-331 we read about the farming on the lakeshore plain west of the Mohawk. 347. Resources for the future. — The ad- vantages that have made the remarkable string of cities extending from the sea to the lake are permanent advantages. In this re- gion it will continue to be easy to get raw materials for factories and food for the work- ers. From this region it will be easy to ship goods over the sea to foreign countries, and over the canal, the lakes, and the railroads to the interior of North America. Good drinking water for the cities is to be had in the neighboring highlands. The Erie Canal Belt has good resources for power to turn its factory wheels. Elec- trical energy from power plants at Niagara Falls is now carried by wire over the whole section between Detroit on the west and Syracuse on the east. If New York and the cities on the Hudson and the Mohawk grow tired of paying freight on coal from Pennsylvania, they can get power by wire from plants at the mouth of the Pittsburgh coal mine 300 miles distant, or by wire from water-power plants in the northeastern high- lands 300 miles distant, or even from Niag- ara to the St. Lawrence. Power has been carried over 400 miles by wire from our western mountains. On a map, trace a circle that is 400 miles from New York as a cen- ter; Albany; Buffalo; Boston. What sources of power does each circle touch? (Fig. 261; Sec. 352.) QUESTIONS 1. Fill blanks in the following sentences: The Erie Canal Belt is shaped somewhat like a carpenter’s , with the city of - at its western end, and at the eastern end. To the northeast lies the District and the Highland; to the southwest the and the Mountains and The region is drained by the and rivers. The River, which enters the Hudson at the city of , cuts a in the highlands, through which has been built the - Many also make use of this gap. The important cities along the high- way beginning at are , , , , , , and Some of the important prod- ucts of this region are , .... .... , and 2. If you lived in New York City, where would you like to go for a two weeks’ vacation? 3. What five physical features have helped to make New York the world’s metropolis? 4. Why do five-sixths of the population of New York State live in the counties bordering the Hudson and Mohawk rivers and the Barge Canal? .. . Photo. Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 286. Gold-seekers setting out from winter camp on the upper Yukon. What stories have you read of adventure in this region? Is life easy? This is the way some of the Great Northern Forest looks in winter. THE NORTH LANDS AND ANTARCTIC THE GREAT NORTHERN FOREST 348. A vast solitude. — To the north of all the regions we have studied is the vast land of the gloomy evergreen forest; of the lonely fur-hunter, and the trading post on the green- clad river bank. There man must travel by canoe on the streams, or by dog team through the dark and often pathless forest. It is so lonely there that people sometimes wish so much to hear the human voice, that they begin to talk to themselves. Sometimes they can not stop talking, and so go crazy — “ bush crazy,” as it is called. This country lies beyond the land of farms. (Fig. 14.) For that reason the white man has let it remain the home of the Indian, and goes there himself only to hunt, to trade, or to seek minerals. What regions form its southern bounds? Its northern boundary is the northern limit of trees. It reaches from near the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains and almost to the Pacific Ocean, but it does not quite touch either coast, because trees cannot grow near the cold waters of Bering Sea, or close to where the Labrador current, ice cold and dotted with floating ice, flows down from the Arctic. A short distance inland from the cold ocean waters trees grow, and for this reason the interior of Newfound- land is forest country, where there are a few very large papermills. These papermills have been built by the owners of London news- papers, which are printed on Newfoundland pulpwood paper. 349. Lumbering. — Most of our timber has been taken from land we were clearing for farms, but this Northern Forest Region will not be made into farms. It is the great wood reserve of North America. As yet, the white man can use it only at a few places on its edge. One such place is along the St. Lawrence tributaries, where Canadian lum- bermen camp all winter, chopping and haul- ing logs to the stream banks, ready to float down in the spring log drive. These logs supply many papermills and sawmills, and make Ottawa a great lumber city. Some of the lumber from the Northern Forests is used on the edge of the Wheat Region, and a little has been used by the miners on the Yukon in Alaska and in British territory; ( 179 ) 180 THE NORTH LANDS AND THE ANTARCTIC Photo. International Film Service, N. Y. Fig. 287. A log jam fills this northern river with logs- In what ways does the river help the lumber and paper industries? but throughout most of its vast extent the forest has been of value to man mainly through the fur and game that it produces. What rivers drain this region? Would it be better for trade if they all flowed south? 350. Mining — In some places rich minerals are being found. The land is probably rich in minerals, but most of it is still unexplored. There are rich silver mines at Cobalt, in eastern Ontario, and since 1897 gold has been mined near Dawson, on the Yukon. At that time there was a great rush of miners to the gold region of the Yukon. In 1921 there was great excitement because petroleum had been discovered near Great Slave Lake, and on the Mackenzie River at latitude 60°. Steamboats run in the Mackenzie River and carry supplies down stream from the Cana- dian railroads. The Canadian Yukon settle- ments are so dependent upon the Yukon steamers that they can not get even a bottle of medicine by any other route. 351. A timber reserve. Can we save it?— The great future use of this region is to produce wood. Civilized man needs ever- increasing amounts of wood, and the world’s forests are steadily growing smaller and smaller. The time is soon coming when much of North America will have to depend upon this great northern forest. Already millions and millions of fine logs have been burned there by terrible forest fires. It is to be hoped that the governments of Canada and the United States (which controls Alaska) will be able to keep the fires out of this won- derful forest and will preserve it until the time comes when we need to use it. The time is not far away when sawmills and pulp- mills along the Yukon, the Mackenzie, the Saskatchewan, and the Nelson rivers, as well as those already at work on the branches of the St. Lawrence, should be making the boards needed for houses, and the rolls of paper which will finally be made into the newspapers and books which we use. This can not happen, however, unless the forests are protected. Many trees must be protected from fire for a hundred years before they are big enough to be made into good boards. 352. A water-power reserve. — The eastern part of this district, in Ontario and Quebec, has thousands of glacial lakes on a plateau. These lakes store water, and provide an even flow in the streams that tumble down toward the St. Lawrence. This is one of the great water-power regions of the world. In time to come much of this power can, if needed, be taken by wire even to the coast of New England. Compare the distances with the power lines in Fig. 194. Thus this northern land of few people may send wood and paper to the entire continent, and it may also help the whole United States by furnishing power to turn the wheels in the mills of New Eng- land and other states. This forest belongs to Canada, but we in the United States will be its chief users. 353. Hunting as an industry. — Already thousands of Americans go into Canadian woods each year to hunt and fish. Indians earn money by serving as guides for the ARCTIC PASTURES, SEAS, AND ICE CAPS 181 Courtesy S. D. Warren Co. Fig. 288. At the far end of this vast machine a thin layer of water, filled with floating shreds of wood fiber, flows over a screen and leaves the fiber on it. This soft wet sheet is then passed between rollers hot with steam which press it, dry it, and finally pass it to the last roll as an endless sheet of clean white paper. visiting white men. Throughout most of its length the Great Northern Forest still is and will con- tinue to be the permanent home of the fur-hunting Indian. 354. Possible farmland for the future. — Most of the Great Northern Forest stands on ground made rough and stony by the great glaciers, but the Mackenzie Valley and parts near the Rockies have soil that can be plowed. Big crops of potatoes have been grown at Fort Vermilion near Lake Athabaska, and even on the Yukon near the Klondike. As we come to need more land, and secure new crop plants that will grow in a land having cool, short summers, some parts of the forest may be cleared for farms. In northern Ontario is a district of clay soil and few stones where some farmers are settling. Near the base of the Rockies some of the plain may be cleared and added to the Wheat Belt; but this will not be done until the land farther south is used much more fully than it now is. Most of this region is good for nothing but forest. QUESTIONS 1. What is the chief source of wealth in this region? Name two other products of great value. 2. Sketch on an outline map of Canada the forest area. Indi- cate the important rivers and lakes, the chief towns, and the district’s productions suggested by Question 1. Show where agriculture may in time replace some of the forest. 3. Find two other parts of the world similarly located, from which the future timber supply may come. 4. What difficulties face the gold-miner along the Yukon (Fig. 286) which are not present in the mountains of California? 5. Make a list of the town names in the Great Northern Forest beginning with Fort. What do such names indicate about life in this region? How long would you want to stay in this region? 6. Define “timber line.” Is it at the same eleva- tion in the Northern Forests as in Colorado? Explain the difference. 7. England is a land of rich farms and many cities. Why is this not the case with the Northern Forest Region in the same latitude? ARCTIC PASTURES, POLAR SEAS, AND POLAR ICE CAPS 355. The Arctic tundra. — The land north of the Great Northern Forests is a treeless plain called the tundra. (Fig. 14.) It has less snow- fall each year than has New York or Michi- gan. The air is so cold that it does not hold enough moisture to make deep snow. In a few weeks the summer sun melts the snow from all the land of Arctic America, except the ice of Greenland and a few mountain tops. This happens because for weeks and even months the sun shines at midnight as well as at mid-day beyond the Arctic Circle. This continuous heat melts the snow and warms the land so that moss, flowers, and grass grow rapidly, and the land is soon bright with flowers. Even blue-grass, like that in Kentucky (Sec. 83), grows at Etah, Greenland, a thousand miles beyond the Arctic Circle. Two or three feet below its flower-decked surface the tundra earth is still frozen. This underground ice, melting a little, keeps the top moist, so there is never any drought. This condition is true of all those parts of America north of the limit of trees and not covered by the ice cap. Name some of these lands. (Figs. 14, 94.) What governments rule them? HI 5 'anbuio' rCO'JJJL- f/M tjgS/ Copyright, The Jobu c. Winston Co. 130° 120° Lon gitude 110° 100° West° / ~"'902 80° from 70° 60° Greenwich 183 Fig. 290. Copyright) Tbo John Ct WJrfgtop Co. 184 THE NORTH LANDS AND THE ANTARCTIC Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 291. The monarch of the Arctic ice. A snapshot of a living polar bear on his throne of floating ice. What other animals make their home in this cold land? 356. The animals and waterfowl. — In sum- mer the tundra buzzes with the sound of millions of mosquitoes, and is noisy with the cries and calls of ducks, geese, swans, loons, and other waterfowl that go there to eat mosquitoes and grass, and to rear their young. In winter when the ground is frozen hard and covered with snow the water- fowl have migrated to the southland, some going as far as Argentina. The tundra is the permanent home of the caribou, or wild reindeer. In summer he finds pasture and in winter he gets food by digging away the snow to eat the grass and moss that lie beneath it. His enemy is the wolf pack. The wolves in this region live almost entirely on reindeer. 357. The Eskimo and his future. — The Eskimo hunts along the seashore and on the tundra, living in his tent in summer and in his snow house in winter; but a new era is dawning for the Eskimo. He is becoming a reindeer farmer. White men have always thought that the tundra was useless, but the explorer Stefans- son and other men are now sure that it is to become a land of reindeer ranches, which will furnish much venison (reindeer meat) to the people who live far away to the southward. The reindeer industry is already succeeding on the Alaska tundra. This is lucky for the Alaska Eskimos, who were about to starve i; because the white men were killing so much of the game on which they had lived. Mr. Sheldon Jackson, an American super- intendent of schools for the natives of Alaska, persuaded the United States Govern- ment to buy some tame reindeer from Lap- land and Siberia, and to hire Siberian rein- deer herders to come with the animals to teach the Alaskan natives how to take care of reindeer. The Alaskans have learned. The flocks have increased. In 1892 there were 1200 reindeer. In 1921 there were over 200.000, even after the natives had eaten 100.000. The Eskimos would rather follow flocks of reindeer than hunt wild animals for a living. They are proud of their new flocks, which furnish them with food and clothes and something to sell, and which also serve them as beasts of burden. The American superintendent of schools in Alaska travels each year with reindeer teams more than a thousand miles, inspecting schools. He says reindeer are better than dogs as sledge animals. (Fig. 286.) The Canadian Government has recently given large grants of land to companies that will raise reindeer, and in a short time there may be millions of those very useful animals. 358. A land of ice. — People used to think that all of northern North America was covered the whole year with snow and ice. This is true only of a part of Greenland. All of Greenland except the southwestern and Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 292. Eskimos near the mouth of the Mackenzie River. ARCTIC PASTURES, SEAS, AND ICE CAPS 185 © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 293. Icebergs on the Grand Banks in the United States-United Kingdom steamer route. A United States revenue cutter is reporting icebergs by wireless to distant steamers. About one-eighth of an iceberg is above water. You can scarcely see men standing on the deck of the ship. What do you conclude about the size of icebergs? southeastern coasts is cov- ered with solid ice, hun- dreds and thousands of feet thick, and having new- fallen snow on top of it. This ice mass is supposed to be just like the con- tinental glacier that once covered so much land. (Fig. 53.) It creeps slowly along down to the sea, and there huge chunks break off and float away asiceoergs. (Secs. 159,251.) Sometimes they wreck ships that happen to be sailing past Newfoundland. Ice- bergs floating south meet the warm Gulf Stream, which melts them. The windstorms that rip across the Greenland ice] are so terrible that only one or two parties have ever made the hard journey across the ice cap. 359. Animal life in a sea of floating ice. — The Arctic Sea north of Alaska and between the islands that lie west of Greenland is so full of blocks of floating ice that only one ship, the 46-ton Gjoa, has ever been through it, and it took Captain Amundsen three years, 1903-1906, to make the passage. (Fig. 289.) But there is life even in this polar sea, and on its ice floes, some of which may be as small as a table, some as large as a city block, and some even a mile or two long. Many fish and other water animals live in these cold waters. The shrimp is the chief food of seals that live under the ice and come up from time to time to breathe at holes, or to crawl out and rest. Often, while the seal sleeps on the ice cake, the polar bear steals up to catch him. Thus the bear gets his living. Each polar bear, as he prowls about the shore or on cakes of floating ice, is followed by Arctic foxes, sometimes by as many as six. When the bear catches a seal and begins to eat it, his fox followers sit at a safe dis- tance, barking at him. When the bear finishes his feast and goes away, the foxes then come and eat the leavings. After- ward they hunt up the bear and wait for him to catch another seal. An American explorer, Stefansson, has learned how to live on ice floes, and how to get a living much as the animals do. He can catch seals better than the bear can. With one team of dogs, a tent, a rifle and car- tridges, he can travel about on the ice cakes and shoot enough seals to feed himself and his dogs. He has traveled for hundreds of miles over the Arctic Ocean, camping on floating ice and stepping from one block to another, studying the things he found there. 360. The Antarctic continent. — While the knowledge of the Arctic regions is still fresh in our minds, it will be well to study about Antarctica (Fig. 290), the cold land about the south pole. What is the latitude of the part of the Antarctic land nearest the equator? (Fig. 290.) Find a place in North America hav- ing the same latitude. Point out places on the coast of North America as far from the equator as is the tip of South America, of Africa, and of New Zealand. The Antarctic Region differs from the 11-10 186 THE NORTH LANDS AND THE ANTARCTIC Arctic in having a continent at the pole and wide seas all around. The Antarctic continent is larger than the United States, but no one lives there. Ice caps cover all of it except a few rocky shores. On all sides the ice creeps down from the land and works out into the sea. Ships have sailed for days in front of solid cliffs of ice that are much higher than the highest mast of a ship. Enormous pieces of the ice sheet, some of them as big as a city or a town- ship, break off and float away before the west winds, leaving a high wall of ice rising from the cold sea. Brave men anxious to find the South Pole have risked their lives and died in the terrible QUESTIONS 1. Name the territories and islands which are included within these regions. 2. Make a list of the animals which Mr. Stefansson probably saw during his journey across the polar seas and lands. Tell about a new animal industry. 3. How far is Nome from the equator? Compare its climate with that of Sitka. Offer two good reasons for the difference. 4. How are icebergs formed? Why are so many found in the North Atlantic? 5. Name a great vessel wrecked some years ago by collision with an iceberg off Newfoundland Banks. What precautions (Fig. 293) does our government take to prevent such disasters ? 6. How does the Eskimo provide himself with food and clothes before he becomes a reindeer farmer? When he has reindeer meat and hides to sell, what changes will take place in the way he lives. 7. Make use of the follow- ing outline to compare the manner in which the Eskimo and the Indian of the Great North Woods supply their needs. journey over this Antarctic ice. The North Pole was found to be on an ice-covered sea, but the South Pole is on an icy plateau nearly twice as high as Mt. Washington. The southernmost homes of men are on Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. (Sec. 837.) Between this land and the Food. Clothing. Shelter. Fuel. Transpor- tation. Luxuries Indian Eskimo Antarctic ice wall there are a few small, cold, damp islands, inhabited by seals, wal- ruses, and penguins. Penguins are queer- looking birds that cannot fly, but like the seals swim in the sea, and get their living by catching fish and small animals. 8. Mr. V. Stefansson, Admiral R. Peary, Mr. R Amundsen, and Mr. D. Macmillan have each written splendid accounts of their explorations of the Polar Seas. Some, perhaps all, of these you may secure from a library. 9. Find from some good encyclo- pedia a few facts about the aurora borealis. How does it make life more pleasant for the people of the northlands? lWTAx © Lomen Bros., Nome, Alaska Fig. 294. A large herd of Siberian reindeer on the Arctic tundra. (Sec. 357.) THE SOUTH LANDS AND THE TRADE OF NORTH AMERICA THE LOW PLAINS AND UPLANDS OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 361. Lands without winter. — Let us now travel from the lands of ice and snow to the lands where these things are unknown. In imagination we can do this in an instant, but it takes many days to make the actual journey. Can you tell how we might travel from the land of reindeer to the land of bananas on the shores of the Caribbean? What changes need we make in our clothing ? In the lands south of the Gulf of Mexico there is no winter, as we know winter, and no frost, except on high mountains. There the weather is much less changeable than our own. People can often tell for several weeks ahead what the weather will be, because the winds are not like the irregular cyclones that cross our country. Their winds blow almost always from one direction only, and for that reason are called constant winds. 362. Winds. — The lands between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn (Fig. 10) have three wind regions: (1) the north- east trade, (2) the doldrums, and (3) the southeast trade. We shall study about all of these winds later. Now we are inter- ested in only the northeast trades, because they make the climate of this region. 363. The northeast trade winds. — In southern Mexico and Central America the wind blows from the northeast nearly all the time, and is called the northeast trade wind. For thousands of miles this northeast wind sweeps across the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian oceans in this latitude. 364. Trade-wind rains and forests. — When winds from the ocean blow against mountains, they cause rain. (Sec. 158.) Which side of Central America, of Mexico, and of the big islands in the trade-wind belts will have the most rain? (Figs. 144, 641.) What can you tell about the plants that grow on the northeast or windward side ( 187 ) 188 THE SOUTH LANDS AND THE TRADE OF NORTH AMERICA © H. Wimmer Fig. 296. Salamanca Indians shooting fish in eastern Costa Rica. The chief wears a headgear of white feathers. of Jamaica? of Hawaii? on the southwest or leeward side? The climate on a coast against which the trade wind blows has rain- fall at all seasons. (Fig. 303.) Frequent rain and steady heat make thick, tangled forests along the eastern side of Central America and Mexico. On the Pacific side there is less rainfall than on the Atlantic side, and the forests there are not so dense. 365. The people of Central America and Mexico. — Before the English and French settled the frosty lands of the United States and Canada, people from Spain had made settlements on the hot shores of Mexico and Central America. This land is so hot that the white man does not thrive there as he does farther north, so white people do not outnumber the Indians as they do in the parts of North America having frosty winters and warm summers. In some of the Central American countries there are only a few hundred or a few thousand people of pure white race. A somewhat larger number are part Indian and part white, but most of the people are the native, dark-skinned Indians. 366. Many countries. — If the people of Central America wish to go from one country to the next, the journey over land is up and down, up and down, from valley to ridge, from ridge to valley. Roads are few, travel is difficult. This difficulty of travel separates the people more than they would be separated if they lived on different islands in the sea. Several times they have tried to form a union. In 1920, Guatemala, Honduras, and Salvador united to form one govern- ment. It is called the Cen- tral American Federation and its capital is Teguci- galpa. The governments of the Central American coun- tries are much like that of Mexico (Sec. 149), and peonage is common. 367. The three regions. — The people of Central America and Mexico speak of their land as having three parts: (1) the cool land of the high plateau; (2) the hot land of the low plains, and (3) the temperate land which is on the slope between the other two. We need not study the cold or cool land now, as we have already become acquainted with it (Sec. 143), and we know that much of Mexico is high enough to be a cool plateau. It is there that most of the Mexican people live and enjoy a pleasant climate with warm days and cool nights. 368. The warm or temperate lands. — Name the countries between the southern end of the southwestern plateaus and the Isthmus of Panama. (Fig. 299.) The moun- tains of this region are as high as the highest Appalachians. The so-called temperate region is on the eastern and western slopes of these mountains and on the similar slopes coming down from the Central Plateau of Mexico. Much of this temperate land is high enough to be cool, but not cold enough for frost. Indeed it has the delightful tem- perature of a pleasant spring day. Yet it has enough heat to produce fine crops and enough rainfall to support forests. It is in this temperate region that most of the people of Central America live. Nearly all of it is made up of small uplands, the slopes of hill- sides, and narrow valleys through which PLAINS AND UPLANDS OF MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA 189 Courtesy United Fruit Co. Central American villagers and their village in the “Temperate Where is the cost of living greater, in your home or in this village? streams rush down toward the lowlands. There are no wide, level plains like the Corn Belt, the Wheat Belt, or the Plateau of Mexico. 369. Village life. — The people continue to live much as they did before Columbus came to Amer- ica. The grass huts and stone houses are group- ed in little villages which are surrounded by banana and orange trees, and by other trees whose fruit we may not have tasted. Space for little gardens is Fig- 297 . secured by chopping down Land ‘ the weeds with a long knife, the machete. (Fig. 300.) The planting is sometimes done with the aid of a sharp stick, and the crops are cul- tivated with hand tools and without the aid of animals or plow. This simple culture is applied to gardens and to little patches of corn, yams, and cassava. These three vegetables have the same place in the native diet that bread and potatoes have in our own. The cassava is an edible root somewhat like the sweet potato or yam. (Fig. 551.) For eating, the root is first boiled, then dried and grated into meal. The meal is mixed with water, and baked in little thin cakes which serve as bread. Milk, eggs, and meat are furnished by the cows, goats, chickens, and pigs which roam about. Above the villages perched on the hillsides are the sharp mountain tops; below are the hot, forested lowlands where swamps breed mosquitoes. 370. Trade. — Coffee and hides are the chief exports of the upland people. These articles are easy to carry on the back of a mule down a rough trail to the port, or to the railroad station from which they are ship- ped. Equally easy to carry is chicle, a gum gathered from trees in the forest, and from which chewing gum is made. These people of the green hillsides pay with chicle, coffee, and hides for the hardware, clothes, and other manufactures that we send them on the steamers going to the Caribbean ports. 371. The hot lands. — The low land along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the Carib- bean, and the Pacific is a hot land. It is a flat country, and heavy rains make many swamps, especially in the eastern part, where the rains are heavier and the low plain is wider. Every day in the year mosquitoes buzz; there is no frost there to lay them low even for a season. For a long time the Mexicans called Vera Cruz “The City of the Dead,” because it was so unhealthful. Trees grow rank and green on this jungle plain. Creep- ers and vines climb the trees and tangle the branches into jungle masses, through which a man can pass only after cutting a path with the machete, a piece of property more common than shoes in this tropic forest land. For centuries these coast forests have been little more than a barrier which kept people from the interior slopes and plateaus. Until recently only a few logs of mahogany and cedar had been exported, but now some rubber has been sent out, and banana plan- tations (Sec. 375) have been started. But from the Lower Rio Grande district to Panama, as well as on the Pacific side, the coast plain still remains an almost unbroken forest, with fringes of beautiful coconut 190 THE SOUTH LANDS AND THE TRADE OF NORTH AMERICA © E. M. Newman Fig. 298. The National Theater at San Jose, Costa Rica, a city as far above the sea as Denver is. trees waving their long leaves along the shore. (Figs. 302, 535.) 372. Hot land cities. — Name four coast cities in this region. (Fig. 299.) They are all small cities, for people do not live on the coast unless held by business. (Sec. 371.) Steamers call at a few small Pacific ports on their way from Panama to San Fran- cisco; but most of the trade of the region is from the east coast for two reasons: (1) The eastern plain, with bananas, sisal, and petro- leum, produces much more than the western plain does; (2) nearly all of the trade is with countries across the Atlantic. The capitals of all the Central American countries except Panama are pretty cities of white-walled houses, nestled on the up- lands of the interior. Colon and Panama, at the ends of the Panama Canal, are chiefly supported by busi- ness arising from the passage of many ships through that great waterway. Both cities are in the Canal Zone, a strip of land which was ceded by the Republic of Panama to the United States before the canal was built. The Canal Zone is ruled by a governor sent out by the United States. 373. The Yucatan sisal district. — The wide flat plain of northern Yucatan differs from the rest of this coast because it has less rain. Still worse, the little rain that falls runs away into caves and underground passages that are present because the rock is lime- stone. (Sec. 22). Conse- quently this region has no real forest. Much of it is covered with the scraggy growth of the century plant, whose long leaves have a fiber good for mak- ing cordage. Millions of dollars worth of this fiber, called sisal, is shipped each year from the port of Pro- greso. American farmers use it to bind up the sheaves of wheat at harvest time. Southeastern Yucatan is quite a different place. Here the rainfall is greater, and the solid forest is so thick that for many miles the land is absolutely uninhabited, even by wild Indians. 374. Mexican oil. — One of the great oil fields of the world is in the northern part of the Mexican lowlands, near the port of Tampico. Sometimes when wells are dug, the oil spurts out in a solid stream. Single wells have produced millions of barrels. Each year hundreds of tank-ships loaded with tens of thousands of gallons of valuable crude petroleum sail out of the port of Tampico for American and European ports. English and American companies run this industry. The engineers and the skilled men are usually Americans, but most of the work is done by the Indians and half-breeds of Mexico. 375. Americans and the banana. — The forest of the hot lands, where forages only the Indian has lived, is at last being conquered by an organized industry. (Fig. 301.) New villages are springing up on the hot coasts of Central America. Thousands of men live there and work for American banana com- panies. These men attack the forest almost \ SLOS ofJ^JVd/vA o± ^ t; /rTdtSN?, .— CM 2 3 4 Fig. 319. 206 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 320. Public square in the city of Riga. Note the old town hall with its many bits of statuary; the guild hall where associations of business men meet; the great statue of a local hero. The buildings about the square have stood unchanged for hundreds of years. Why do the roofs slope so steeply? large cotton belt, and (2) a great section with moist, tropic climate. While Europe lacks a tropic section, we must remember that it is in the tropic part of North America that white men are few. Europe is the only continent whose climate nearly everywhere suits the white man. Fig. 321. Europe’s wheat acreage. Compare the size of wheat areas in North America (Fig. 88) and Europe. Name the countries which export wheat to western Europe. In addition to having a climate good for crops and for men, the shape of Europe and the character of its surface help to make it a good place in which to live. Through the center of the continent, reaching from the Atlantic Ocean to the boundary of Asia, lies it a low plain. Throughout its great extent the plain has rain enough to reward the farmers who till the soil, and grass enough to feed the flocks and herds. It is only near the Caspian Sea that the grassland, like some of our own great plains, is too dry for grain crops. Crop failureand fam- ine sometimes happen here. 402. Europe has more people than any other con- tinent except Asia. — Europe has about three times as many people as all of North America. As Europe is only about half as large as North America, it is plain that it has much less land per person, so we say that Europe is densely populated. The average size of farms in the United States is about 130 acres, while in France it is only about 14 acres, and in Italy still less. The size of the farms in Europe tells why the people are not so rich as the people of the United States, and it also tells why so many Photo. J. Russell Smith Fig. 322. The work dog and peasant woman, pulling side by side, brought this wagon load of produce from the country districts to the Leipzig markets. THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE 207 Fig. 324. Slovak embroidery workers, Czechoslovakia. The women draw their own designs freehand, and then make them in embroidery. Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. people from every coun- try in Europe have come to America seeking homes. 403. Many nations. — -In the days before steamships and railroads, sheltered places, like mountain valleys, peninsulas, and islands, helped the inhab- itants to defend their land and to protect themselves while they tilled the fields, educated their children, built cities, and developed a civilization. In Europe, countries like Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and England were thus protected for a long time. Their peoples have developed languages of their own and a strong national spirit. Because Europe has so many of these naturally protected pieces of land, many different nations have grown up. We are very fortunate indeed that most of the United States was settled after the rail- road and the steamboat made it possible for a wide area to become one country with one language, rather than fifteen or twenty countries and languages, as in Europe. 404. A continent of interesting sights and sad wars. — The peoples of Europe are proud of their cities, their buildings, their statues, their books, and their traditions. Most of the world’s greatest paintings, sculpture, and music have been produced somewhere in Europe. The peoples of Europe have been settled where they now are for a period of time long enough to allow many things to happen. That is one reason why Europe has so many places we want to visit. Travelers there may visit cities that are one or two thousand years old. They may see interesting buildings that were built before the time of Columbus, great walls and mined forts that tell stories of many wars fought in times long past. Indeed, the people of Europe suf- fered untold miseries and Fig. 323. This map illustrates for you the density of population in the various parts of the world. Each dot represents 500,000 persons. Give two good reasons why Europe, the smaller continent, has a larger population than North America. From Figs. 144, 328, and 329 suggest causes for the sparse popula- tion in Canada and western United States. As you study Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia, recall this chart and tell why few people live in certain areas, and why many people live in other areas. died by millions, because of the hundreds of wars that the different nations and kings of Europe have had among themselves. Fig, 325 w ^ Var&o c U * Y p \fy % T 209 80° S^7 [I 0 / \ ™oTa^ ef /Grodno/ 0 Minsk \{ Sialystok Brest -Lijovsk ? n d y—^ \ fSWtom^ ^ Berdi .e°mberg\ U ~~ JoKameYietSi •' r o — P oliols M -~Y-L Cernowitz^ dia ^ \ re -v, \ Kishei) her to keep out of S many wars that £3 have injured the countries of the main- land. 428. Coasts and harbors. — Like New York and New England the British Isles have many drowned valleys (Sec. 216). These arms of the sea make the best kind of harbor, and because the British Isles have so many of them it has been easy for the people to go to sea in ships and develop sea fisheries and trade. 429. Trade and shipping. — British fac- tories produce goods not only for England but for many other countries. Thus Eng- land makes much of her living by ocean trade. Steamships from the leading British ports, — London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Hull, and Bristol, — take manufactured goods to every continent, and to almost every country in the world. These ships return with raw materials and food. Indeed, British trade has prospered so much that England has come to live almost as New England lives (Sec. 238). In 1919, England imported from the United States alone three million dol- lars’ worth of food each day in the year. , . Fig. 344. The five leading coun- ) tries in the production of pig iron (1913): Tons A. United States. .30,000,000 B. Germany 19,000,000 C. Great Britain . . 10,000,000 D. France 5,000,000 E. Russia 4,000,000 222 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Fig. 345. A map showing the distribution of cattle. What countries import cattle products? export cattle products ? 430. The coal trade. — Shiploads of grain, meat, butter, cheese, wood, cotton, wool, jute, skins, lumber, rubber, and other goods are paid for with cotton cloth, woolen cloth, knives, machinery, and other valuable manu- factures. But these do not fill up one-tenth part of the ships that come in loaded with bulky raw materials. The rest of the space is not used unless it is filled with coal, so the shipowner who receives $20 a ton for bringing wheat from Argentina is glad to accept $4 a ton to carry coal back. For this reason England is the greatest coal exporter in the world, and sends millions of tons of this black necessity from Cardiff and New- castle to Argentina, Brazil, France, and to all the countries of the Mediterranean, which unfortunately have very little coal. 431. A British harbor. — British water- fronts are busy places. The puffing tug- boats labor to pull the big ships up to the solid stone walls of the docks. On the decks of the ships the rattling donkey engines wind and unwind drums, pulling ropes that lift bales and bundles from the hold to the wharf, lighter (Fig. 317), wagon, truck, or car alongside. Wagons, locomotives, and trucks wind in and out. Sailors of every color remind us of the ends of the earth. 432. A world trade center. — You can now begin to see how it is that England has built up a kind of trade called entrepot (ahn-tray- po), which means the shipment of goods to one foreign country after importing them from another foreign country. Thus, if a wool manufac- turer in Philadelphia wants ome Australian wool, he can find it in the London warehouses. If a rubber manufacturer in jNova Scotia or Ohio wants some Ceylon or African rubber of a particular kind, he can find it in the London ware- houses. If a Boston or Philadelphia tanner wishes to examine goatskins from Mongolia, he can find them all sorted out by sizes and kinds in London or Liverpool warehouses. If a Swiss or Norwegian cotton-spinner wants a few bales of Texas or Egyptian cotton, he can find it in the Liverpool cotton ware- houses. Thousands of workmen in London or Liverpool are busy loading and unloading, sorting and grading, and storing goods that came from the ends of the earth and will go out again to the manufacturers and users in many countries. England is really a kind of middleman, like a storekeeper who keeps on hand the goods that come from a hun- dred different factories in a dozen foreign countries. 433. London, a center of world trade. — London is the greatest entrepot in the world. In no other city do we see so many evidences of relations with all the world. The signs on the doors, the ships in the harbor, the great warehouses for storage purposes, the bundles on the docks, the people in the streets, and the news in the papers, all show that London is a great center of trade. 434 The Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 346. Acreage of root forage (Sec. carrying 442 ) in west Europe. THE UNITED KINGDOM 223 trade. — England owns so many steamship lines having agents in foreign countries, that it is easy for her to carry freight for other peoples. For example, an English line from London to Rio de Janeiro has an agent in Brazil. He may load a ship and start it off to New York, where another representative of thesame firm may pay off the crew, unload the goods, and send the ship on her next voy- age. Thus Britain carries the world’s goods. 435. A travel center.— England’s location has made her the greatest center of travel as well as the greatest center of trade. If an American wants to go quickly from Florida or Iowa to Scandinavia, he hastens to New York, takes a fast steamer to Liverpool or Southampton, and crosses England by train to London, Hull, or Newcastle, where he can get a small steamer to Norway, Den- mark, or any Baltic port. By way of England he can go most quickly to Italy or to Russia. 436. Energy and the empire. — No other people have explored so many foreign coun- tries; or climbed so many high mountains Fig. 347. Plan of Letchworth (Garden City), England, the best-planned city in the world. One-third of it is to be city and two-thirds are to stay in playgrounds and parks and farms. S 10 means school with 10 acres playground. F 14 means football field with 14 acres. How many acres of playground have you? How far is it in Letchworth from factories to farms? Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 348. Barley acreage of Europe and North Africa. This grain is used for human food and for stock feeding. in South America, Asia, and other parts of the world; or hunted so many elephants in India or lions in Africa; or sent out so many men to run mines, ranches, and railroads in other countries. No other people have ex- ported so many manufactured goods, or built up such a large empire. 437. Foreign investments. — As England has prospered in trade, and has her steamship agents in foreign ports and her salesmen in foreign countries, it is easy for her people to learn of business opportunities in foreign lands. Consequently Englishmen with money now own ranches in Australia and Texas, railroads in Argentina and Alabama, oil wells in Mex- ico, gold and diamond mines in Africa, and many kinds of property in many lands. Thus England has become a rich country, and she can pay for some of her imports with the earnings of her ships and with the profits from the property her citizens own in for- eign lands. With all this foreign business, London was for many years the world’s greatest banking center, a position which it lost during the World War but which it is rapidly regaining. In addition to being a financial center and a trade center, London has great manufacturing industries much like those of New York. (Sec. 341.) 438. Building the empire. — The British explorers, traders, settlers, shipowners, and investors in foreign countries have all helped to build up the empire. Sometimes British 224 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS and told him about it. Raffles’ prophecy was right. Singapore is to-day a great center of trade between Eu- rope and Asia. In the central square of the city stands a statue of Sir Stamford Raf- fles, for the king made him a knight in return for having made a colony. Name the British ports on the way from England to Japan (Fig. 10). 439. Future. — The Brit- ish people can extend their agriculture. They have Photo. Brown Bro a „ n. y. been so busy at work in Fig. 349. Fishermen examining their nets at a fishing port on the east factories and building ships that they have used much coast of England. In what sea do they fish? good land for sheep pasture, when with more labor it might yield great crops of grain, potatoes, and vegetables. Even if fully used, the land could scarcely feed the fifty million people who live in this little country that is not quite so large as New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. But so long as the coal lasts, the British fac- tories can run, and, in times of peace, when the sea is free, the ships can come and go with food, raw material, and finished prod- ucts. When the coal is all used, the climate will still remain. It is the most important thing of all. It helps make energetic men, colonists have settled almost empty lands, as in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Sometimes the trader and the investor have gotten into difficulties with the natives, and the British Government has taken pos- session of the foreign country. Often Eng- land has made treaties with some native chief or king. After the treaty, the chief is usually left in power at home, but the British attend to all foreign affairs of the country, and usually take over more and more of the actual rule of the country. Such a country is sometimes called a British Protectorate. (Secs. 742, 705, 706.) Sometimes adventurous Eng- lishmen have gone out like the explorers of old and taken pos- session of land. One of these men, Stamford Raffles, was a naval officer in the East Indies. When he heard that a steamship had crossed the Atlantic, he sail- ed over and hoisted the British flag on the uninhabited island of Singapore (Sec. 706), at the very corner of Asia, and took possession of it in the name of the King of England, because he thought it would some day be a steamship - 350 - Home of the British Parliament, whose laws influence more „ , J 1 territory than the laws of ariy other governing body that ever existed, center. lie then wrote to the king Can you name a continent or an ocean where its laws do not reach? THE LOW COUNTRIES AND THE LOWER RHINE VALLEY 225 £ E □ □ □ Fig. 351. Areas of the five largest nations and empires (1914): Square miles A. British Empire . 13,100,000 B. Russia 8,200,000 C. China 3,900,000 D. United States.. . 3,500,000 E. Brazil 3,200,000 Fig. 352. Area (sq. miles) : a A. California.. . 158,297 Oregon 96,699 — Washington. 69,127 324,123 B. Belgium ... . 11,373 Where has the young man the better opportunity to advance himself? How much of one of these squares would the area of the United Kingdom make? and we may expect man’s brains to find some other source of power to serve his needs. We may, therefore, expect this healthful, pleasant region to keep right on increasing in wealth and in population. River at Glasgow with that on the Delaware at Philadelphia. What advantages has the Delaware to-day over the Clyde? 15. Describe a shipping port (Fig. 317) in the British Isles. 16. Name two lakes of Scotland; two of England. What poet wrote about Windermere and Grasmere? 17. With what region in the British Isles are the King Arthur stories connected? Why did these legends grow up around this region? QUESTIONS 1. How does the character of the British coast aid trade? 2. Why have the British Isles developed a greater trade than Norway? 3. Give the latitude of the British Isles? of Labrador? Compare the climates. Account for the differences which exist. 4. Explain the fact that Ireland is called the Emerald Isle, and that Wales is a pasture land. 5. Why has England changed from a land of fishing and of farming to a land of factories? What problems have arisen as a result of factory life? Can you sug- gest possible ways to improve living in manufacturing towns? 6. Why is oatmeal a favorite dish for the Scotch? 7. Why is London a world center? Why should this enormous city be located in the south- east and not the southwest corner of England? 8. Give three reasons for the large entrepot trade (Sec. 432) of Great Britain? 9. Name the foreign posses- sions (Fig. 10) of the United States. Compare their total size with that of the United States proper. Name some foreign possessions of Great Britain. Com- pare their total size with that of the British Isles. How can you account for the difference? Why does Great Britain need so many ships? Upon what country did the United States depend for carrying much of her freight and soldiers during the World War? Why? 10. Give reasons why England should be a rich nation. 11. How does the Manchester Canal help to lower the price of cotton goods? Follow on the map a ship carrying cotton goods from Manchester to New York; to San Francisco; to China; to India; to Egypt; to Algeria. Through what waters does it pass? What may that ship bring back to England? 12. Fill in the following chart: Manufactures of Great Britain. City. Manu- factured Products. Source of Raw Material. Source of Power. Countries To Which Exported. 13. Why do the English think it strange for people to eat green corn, or “roasting ears”? 14. Why has the Delaware River been called the “Clyde of America”? Compare shipbuilding on the Clyde THE LOW COUNTRIES AND THE LOWER RHINE VALLEY 440. The region. — If you sail up the river Scheldt toward Antwerp, or up one of the mouths of the Rhine toward Rotterdam, you will look down on the fields and farms, for they are lower than the river, and all of the land is very flat indeed. Why do the people who live here call their country the Netherlands, or the Low Fig. 353. Population total: A. Belgium (1918). . . . 7,555,576 B. California, Oregon, Washington (1920) 5,566,251 Country? Most of the land of Holland and a part of Belgium are just the delta of the river Rhine. This lower Rhine valley, together with the near-by parts of France and Ger- many, which are almost as level as the delta, make up the greatest manufacturing 226 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Courtesy The Philadelphia Commercial Museum Fig. 355. A field of hyacinths at Haarlem, near The Hague, Holland. Why do the Dutch grow hyacinths rather than wheat as the Dakotans do? region on the mainland of Europe. This region is also more carefully farmed than any other European region. What four countries own parts of this region? (Fig. 319.) 441. Making more land. — This region has few resources except location and good soil. Even land is scarce. But in Holland the thrifty Dutch not only use all that Nature has made, but by their own labor they have taken a quarter of their country from the sea. Because the sea waters near the Rhine delta are very shallow, the Dutch and Belgians have built dikes, thus cutting off areas of water. Then pumps, driven by windmills, pump the water out from behind the dikes. The sea bottom is then used for farms. But the windmills and engines must keep the pumps forever pumping, pumping, pumping, or the rain water would soon again turn the land into an arm of the sea. In the Zuyder Zee, a shallow bay in Holland, a large area is now being pumped out. Sea- bottom farms made of the rich mud from the Rhine Valley produce splendid pasture. 442. Intensive agriculture. — All of the land of this region is carefully used. Often the flagmen at the railroad crossings tend little gardens beside the tracks. Because rabbits will eat weeds from the gardens, many people keep rabbits in hutches and use them for food. Even the dog works. German, Dutch, Belgian, and French milkcarts are pulled by big, strong work-dogs. The farms are small, and the people must, therefore, put much work and much fertilizer on a little land, and thereby grow crops that yield much food per acre. A man in the United States can make more money grow- ing a smaller yield per acre on a larger farm, with less work and less fertilizer. The wheatfields of Belgium yield 38 bushe Is per acre, while those of the United States yield only about 15 bushels. In the United States the potato yields on the average 90 bushels per acre, but in Holland it is made to yield 290 bushels; in Belgium 300 bushels; in Germany 190 bushels. The climate is too cool f or corn, but the plentiful rain and cool sum- mer suit the potato perfectly. It is the great- est food crop of the region. (Fig. 354.) The sugar beet is another important crop, and Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 356. Catching shrimps on the Belgian shore. THE LOW COUNTRIES AND THE LOWER RHINE VALLEY 227 Photo. Elmendorf. © Ewing Galloway, N. Y. Fig. 357. The Atlantic Ocean, the Dutch town of Helder, and the dike that keeps them apart. What has been done to keep storm waves from breaking the surface of this dike, and shore currents from washing it away? forage beets are grown for animal food. (Fig. 346.) To support a family, crops that are worth much money must be grown here on little land. In Holland one sees fields gay with the beautiful red, white, and yellow blossoms of tulips and other flowering bulbs. It costs $2000 an acre to grow a crop of these precious bulbs, which are sent to bloom in America, England, and many foreign countries. Where the moist lowlands are too wet to plow, they make rich pasture lands which support great herds of dairy cows. From the milk of the black and white Holstein cows, the Dutch farmers make very good cheese and butter which they send to Eng- Courtesy U. S. Signal Corps Fig. 358. A public square, the city hall, and houses at Audenarde, Belgium. In such squares in western Europe people bold great markets once a week or oftener. land and even to the United States. The people who make expensive Dutch butter and cheese often sell it and buy cheaper cheese from Canada, and margarine made of coconut and peanut oil. Why? 443. The factory farmers. — The English people have let much of their land lie un- cultivated, because they could make their living by manufacturing. But in the Low Countries across the channel there is not so much coal as in England, so the people there have improved their farming at the same time they were building up their manufacturing. The governments of the four nations owning parts of the Low Countries have done a great deal to help and encourage farmers. In Germany the government conducts many more agricultural experiment stations than we have in any part of the United States that is the size of Germany. The Belgian Government sells tickets on the state railways at special low rates to encourage workmen in city factories to live in country villages where they can raise most of their own food on small farms and in gardens. In fact, the people who founded Garden City, England (Sec. 425), were trying to introduce into England the good method of using land and factories that had succeeded in Belgium. 444. A meeting place and a thoroughfare. — This lowland region is one of the great crossroads of world trade. Look at the map 228 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS (Fig. 9) and see how many countries send their ships through the English Channel to France, Spain, and the Mediterranean, and to North and South America. Do you see also (Fig. 319) that the Rhine Valley lies open from the North Sea, a great trade route through South Germany to the very base of the Alps in Switzerland? Thus the mouth of the Rhine is a crossroad of travel and a cen- ter of trade. Routes radiate from this center over both land and sea. We have seen another such gateway at the mouth of the Hudson. The Rhine Valley has been an important trade route for many centuries. Because this region is a natural thorough- fare and easy of access, many wars have been fought here in the past, and many battles of the World War were fought in Belgium and in the north of France. 445. Harbors and waterways by hard labor. — By building deltas, the Rhine and other near by rivers have made much of the surface soil of the Low Countries. As the rivers fill up their beds, men must work to dig the mud from ship-channels and harbors. Big power-driven dredges take the mud from the channels and pile it along the river banks to make dikes. These mud dikes keep the rivers from overflowing the lowlands of Holland, Belgium, and Germany. All along the Rhine, from its mouth to Switzerland, an immense amount of work has been done to make the river a better waterway. Rocks have been blasted out of the river bed, and wing dams have been built to make the water deeper. Much labor has been spent to straighten the course of the river in Germany below Cologne. Improvements of harbors and waterways still go on. Antwerp and Rotterdam are turning big meadows into docks where ships may load and unload. A tunnel wide enough for six vehicles is being built under the river Scheldt at Antwerp, so that the city may grow on both sides of the river. Large canals connect the River Rhine with Antwerp and nearly all the Dutch towns. Canals extend from Antwerp to Ghent, Bruges, and other Belgian cities, and to Paris and other cities of northern France. In fact, canals run in all directions across the lowlands of Holland and Belgium. No other part of the world, except China, has so many of them. In some districts they replace roads, and one may see a farmer hauling hay in a canal boat from his field to his barn. 446. A gateway region. — The harbors of Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam are busy places. Like New York and the British ports, they are the gateways through which there flow streams of imports and streams of exports. Every day ocean steamers from other continents lie at the docks unloading goods into the long Rhine boats, or the short, stubby canal boats. As Belgium has a large colony in Central Africa (Fig. 531), Antwerp is the world market for ivory export of sugar. Name one customer for this sugar. THE LOW COUNTRIES AND THE LOWER RHINE VALLEY 229 Fig. 361. A map showing the distribution of swine in Europe. How does the American Com Belt farmer help the European farmer to raise good fat porkers? and other African goods. Four hundred years ago (Sec. 420) Antwerp was a greater entre- pot (Sec. 432) than London, and she still has a large entrepot trade. Rotterdam (Fig. 362), the chief port of Holland, is a market for tobacco, coffee, cinchona bark, cinnamon, sugar, and other products from the Dutch East Indies. The heaviest trade of these ports is in grain and other foods, cotton, lumber, and other raw materials from the United States, South America, and all those countries that help to feed the millions of factory workers of Holland, Belgium, western Germany, Switzerland, and northern France. A wide region trades through these ports; goods from everywhere are assembled here. Much of the merchandise is carried by the Rhine boats, which go as far as Switzerland, and bring down the bales and boxes from hundreds of factories. Many lines of British steamers call at Antwerp and Rotterdam, and help the Dutch, Belgian, and German lines carry the exports of this region to almost as many places as those to which Great Britain sends her exports. Besides exporting manufactures, Belgium, like England, sells coal. Thousands of tons of it go each month to Holland, France, Switzerland, Argentina, and even to Rumania. 447. Reasons for growth of manufacturing industries. — Four advantages fit this region for manufacturing: (1) Good, healthful climate, much like that of England (Sec. 416). (2) The coal field that stretches across northern France, Belgium, and into the Rhine Valley of Germany. (3) The much- used Rhine River and its valley. (4) Splen- did agriculture. It is a great advantage to a manufacturing region when food for the workers is produced near the factory districts. (Sec. 443.) Because of these four advantages, the Low Countries became a great manufacturing region when England was still a farming country. Three hundred years ago there was much more machinery in the Low Countries than there was in England, for in the Low Countries, in addition to hand machines, windmills were used to grind grain and pump water. 448. Manufacturing and cities. — Across the neat fields of Holland and Belgium, one often sees the high smokestacks of some manufac- turing town in the distance. From the deck of a steamboat on the Rhine, one may see a kind of procession of smokestacks as the boat passes town after town and city after city. i © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 362. Ships and boats b e side a quay at Rotterdam. Where may these boats go? What will they carry? 230 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS © Keystone View Co., N. Y. Fig. 363. Terraced vineyards held up by stone walls, near Coblenz, Germany. Are they on the north or south bank of the winding River Rhine? The factories, like those of England, import many of their raw materials. Iron ore from the French province of Lorraine is carried by boat and train to supply the manufacturing districts of France, Belgium, and the lower Rhine. These rich ore fields are near this region but not in it. The greatest iron production of this dis- trict (the Pittsburgh of the continent) is near Cologne, at Essen and neighboring towns. These cities are on or near the Ruhr, a navigable branch of the Rhine. Thus boats can come close to the great fac- tories. The famous Krupp gun works, one of the world’s greatest manufacturing plants, is at Essen. Since the World War this factory makes locomotives and many other kinds of machinery. This region with its steel industry resembles Pennsylvania. It also resembles New England, because there are many textile factories at Cologne and other Rhine cities. In Belgium, the cities of Ghent and Brussels are textile centers, while Lille in the north of France is famous for woolens and cottons. One coal field lies under three of the countries in this region. Reaching from Lille, France, to the Rhine, it feeds many factories that make iron, cement, and glass. Belgium is one of Fig. 364. Population per sq. mi.: the great glass manufac- turing countries of Europe. Much of the glass, cement, and iron are exported. The chief manufacturing cities of Belgium are Ghent, Liege, and Brussels. Brus- sels and Cologne are the largest cities of the region. Both are larger than San Francisco. Like Amster- dam, Rotterdam, and many smaller towns, they are neat, well-kept cities, with many beautiful buildings, some of them several hundred years old. One such is the Cathedral of Cologne. 449. Intensive manufacturing. — The wom- en, especially the Belgian women who live on the farms, often make lace by hand. A few cents’ worth of thread is turned, by much labor, into dollars’ worth of beautiful handmade lace. (Fig. 369.) Holland is so poor in raw materials that she has to buy even stone and logs from Norway and Switzerland, with which to build the dikes that keep the sea from over- flowing her land. Nevertheless, her people are such skilful and industrious workers that the little country has prospered. Amsterdam is the great center of the world’s diamond trade. It has a diamond exchange with hundreds of members. Diamonds are bought and sold every day. In their shops near by, skilled diamond- cutters change the rough-looking pebbles that come from Africa into flashing jewels, which are sent to every part of the world. 450. People and government. — Four dif- ferent peoples, speaking four different lan- guages, living in four different countries, inhabit this one small district. The a G erman and Dutch languages and peo- ples are somewhat alike. The Flemings — the people of Flanders, a part of Bel- gium — resemble the Dutch. French is I fl A. Netherlands (1918) 539 B. Denmark (1916) 180 C. Iowa (1920) 43.2 Compare these figures with Fig. 365. Fig. 365. Population per sq. mi. : A. Belgium (1910) B. United States (1920) What does this mean for the people? 652 35 . .EE THE LOW COUNTRIES AND THE LOWER RHINE VALLEY 231 the language of Brussels, and the official language of Belgium. Because these four peoples live so close together, well-educated people speak more than one language. Most traders of Holland or Bel- gium doing business with the people of other coun- tries speak German, Eng- lish, and French. The people of this whole region are industrious, thrifty, and saving. Their houses, gardens, and vil- lages are neat, and the Photo. Brown Bros., N. Y. Fig. 366. Interior of the Krupp Gun Works, Essen, Germany, taken before the World War. It now makes machinery. Give two good reasons for the location of this factory in the lower Rhine Valley. fields are free from weeds. In many sections of Holland and Belgium the people still wear native costumes of ancient and picturesque styles. Holland and Belgium are each about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut com- bined. In the two countries there are 14,000,000 people, a number twice as large as all the population of New England. If we should add the population of the German and French parts of this small region, there would be as many people as in all the terri- tory of the United States west of the Missouri and the lower Mississippi rivers. Holland and Belgium are small countries, but their people are very patriotic. The Dutch love their queen, and the Belgians love their king very much, although as a matter of fact the people really rule themselves, through their parliaments, which pass all the laws, and even give the king and queen the money they spend. Both Holland and Bel- gium have colonies many times as large as the mother country, and with more people than the mother country. Name them. (Fig. 10.) 451. Future.— England farms so little of its land that it can increase b ' Fig. 367. The number of cattle and horses per square mile (1912-13): A. Netherlands 199 B. Denmark 150 C. Iowa 102 Does this mean that Denmark is a better country for farm animals than Iowa? its food production, but the Low Countries and the Lower Rhine Valley use their land so fully that there can not be much increase in food production. The population, however, has long been steadily increasing because of the growth of cities and trade. The people here, like those in the United Kingdom and in New England, buy much of the food they eat, and also have raw materials brought from distant lands. (Sec. 446.) As long as this great trade continues, the number of cities that can grow up in the manufacturing places is almost without limit. QUESTIONS 1. On a trip from London through the Low Coun- tries, what cities would you select to visit? Describe the scenes as you go from city to city; the land, the houses, the people, and the industries along the route. Questions to ask yourself as you go along: Why has Holland been able to depend upon the wind to run her mills? There are two geographical reasons. Why is Holland engaged in the dairy industry rather than the meat industry? What business factor makes bulb raising a profitable occupation in this region? What is an important reason for visiting the following places: Leyden, Delft, The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Antwerp, Liege? What would you buy as Fig. 368. Bushels of grain per per- son (1911-13): A. United States 50.8 B. Canada 47.7 C. Belgium 11.5 What can you say about the amount per acre in Belgium and in the United States and the United King- dom? (Fig. 331.) 232 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Photo. Ewing Galloway, N. Y. Fig. 369. Lace-making in a Brussels back yard. Why is lace-making important in Belgium? What kind of shoes does the old man wear? souvenirs of this region? 2. Trace the journey of a diamond from its start at Kimberley, South Africa, to your nearest jewelry store. 3. As you study this chapter, answer these two questions about the Low Countries and Lower Rhine Valley: (a) How its geo- graphic position and surface make it a great trade center. (6) What influences make it the greatest manufacturing section on the mainland of Europe? Write the answers only after careful study. 4. If possible, find out about the new library which Amer- ican citizens are building in Louvain to take the place of the one destroyed by the Germans in the World War. 5. Describe the method by which land is reclaimed in Holland. Compare it with the methods used along the Mississippi River. 6. Do you think that a worker in a mill or a factory would be any better worker because he was also a farmer and owned his own farm? Why? 7. Compare the life of a Dutch boy or girl with your own. 8. Take a trip from Rotterdam to Coblenz. Describe scenes along the journey. (Fig. 363). At which cities would you want to stop? Why? How is Rotterdam a gateway similar to New York? For how many countries is the Rhine a great highway of trade and travel? 9. Choose one of the following pieces of work: Build a small Dutch windmill that will run, showing place for machinery, storeroom, living apartments. Construct a dike on the playground. Dress dolls in Dutch costumes. Write a story about one of the following: Hans of the Windmill: Jan, the Boatman’s Boy; Gretchen, the Goose Girl. 10. What are some of the sports which the people are able to enjoy in winter? Describe one of these. 11. Describe a scene at the mouth of the Rhine (Fig. 362), naming the flags of all the countries you might see. Look up the flags in the dictionary. 12. Examine the physical map of Europe. Can you tell why the Germans took the route through Belgium instead of crossing directly over their own border? 13. Why did both sides watch Holland so closely during the World War? Why was Germany so anx- ious to get control of Antwerp during the World War? 14. Fill out the chart: City. Country. Noted For. Essen The Hague. . . . Ghent Brussels Lille 15. How is it that ivory and rubber from the tropics are marketed in Antwerp? Account for coffee and spices in Rotterdam. 16. What are the chief imports brought into the Rhine Valley? From what countries are they brought? THE ATLANTIC PLAIN OF FRANCE 452. An agricultural nation. — France is made up of parts of six of the regions of Eu- rope. What are they? (Fig. 319.) The most im- portant part is the great low plain that slopes west and northwest toward the sea. The climate is good, like that of England, but somewhat warmer because it is farther south. It is an agricultural region in which there are a few cities. The region does not have as many manufactures as does England, partly because it has so little coal. Instead of building factories and big cities, this region has remained a land of farms, supporting itself chiefly from its own fields rather than by buying food from other countries, as England and the Low Countries do. 453. The farmers on the plain. — In France, each peasant farmer owns his few acres, instead of renting them as English farmers do. The Frenchman loves his little farm and will not leave it. This kind of own- ership of land has helped to make France an agricultural country. The farmers live in villages of ten to fifty houses, and go out each day to their farms near by. One sees a patchwork of little fields with crops of various colors — wheat, hay, potatoes, beets for the cattle to eat, or beets to go to the sugar factory. It is warm enough for a little corn to be grown in the southern part of the Atlantic Plain. Many of the farmers in this part of France have herds of cows and send butter to Eng- land. The French farmers here raise a breed of splendid, big, strong horses, called Perche- THE ATLANTIC PLAIN OF FRANCE 233 Fig. 370. European grape districts. Name the two chief wine districts. Give a reason for their locations. ron, which may be seen on almost every farm, and also in the United States (Fig. 5). There are important wine districts in the Atlantic Plain. The largest is near Bordeaux, and a second is in the upper part of the Seine Valley, near the beautiful city of Rheims. Figure 375 shows how the French farmers live in villages and go out each day to work in the neighboring fields. 454. Brittany and Normandy. — The west- ern peninsula of France is called Brittany. It is rather hilly and damp, like Wales, and like Wales has many sheep and cattle pas- turing upon it. The people who live on the coast are fishermen. They catch sardines off the shore, and sometimes sail to New- foundland to catch cod. Normandy, the famous province in the peninsula east of Brittany, is one of the sections of France where fruit is grown. Apples from Normandy are sent to Paris and London markets. 455. French thrifty people. Fig. 371. Rainfall of Brest, France, 32.5 inches per year. In autumn the ocean is much warmer than the land. Why does this make heavy autumn rainfall? thrift. — The French are We see this in the fact that nearly every French per- son, man, woman, boy, or girl, saves some money. No matter how much or little he or she may hap- pen to have, a part is saved. Then when money is needed there is some in the bank. The French are noted for their good cooking and for their skill in making good dishes out of things which we Americans often throw away. In America, vegetables go to market in barrels and boxes made of boards sawed from the trunks of trees, a process by which much wood is wasted. As soon as the American box or barrel is emptied it is usually thrown away or broken up. In France, food goes to market in big baskets woven by hand from the long, limber branches of willow trees which are grown for that purpose along roadways and stream banks. When a crop of twigs is cut off, another grows again in a year or two, so that one tree will give many crops of willow twigs and will furnish many baskets, most of which are used over and over again, instead of being thrown away. The French farms are well tilled, and the farmers often get two crops from the same land by planting English walnut trees in the midst of their fields. The fine nuts obtained from one of these trees causes the tree to increase the value of the farm as much as another acre of land would do; so the income of a farm is often doubled by a few trees. Photo, ffm. H. Rau, Inc. Fig. 372. One of the glories of France, the Cathedral at Rheims, as it appeared before the World War. 11-12 234 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 373. Peasant men and women threshing wheat in Brittany. Horse-power machine near stack. Along the southern part of the east coast of the Bay of Biscay stretches a hundred and fifty miles of sand. For a long time the west wind blew it into dunes which traveled inland, and buried the forests. The French laboriously planted pine trees on the dunes; this stopped the dunes from moving, and now the trees have grown into forests. They are bled to death to make turpentine, and the small trunks are sent to England, and used to prop up the roofs in coal mines. By cutting a small part of his trees each year, the forest owner has a regular business. How have we done it in the United States? (Secs. 121, 333.) 456 . French art and Paris. — The French are an artistic and gifted people. They love to make and to have beautiful things. Nearly every city of France has a public square in the center, and usually a great church or cathedral. The people of the cities of France are very proud of their beautiful cathedrals and of the masterpieces of painting and sculpture with which they are adorned. These buildings, like the cathedrals of other European countries, have often been the work of many generations. When times were peaceful and prosperous, the masons, the stone cutters, and the sculptors worked to build another part of the great building. (Fig. 372.) Sometimes work was interrupted for five years, or fifty years, or a hundred years. It is hard for people bom in America to understand how people can love buildings as much as the people of France love their cathedrals. Wonderful collections of pictures and stat- ues are to be seen in France. French builders, with their love of the beautiful, have made Paris, the French capital, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a city to which travelers go each year by hundreds of thousands. The Louvre, in Paris, is one of the world’s most famous art galleries. Some of the pictures and statues have been brought from other countries. Hundreds of people from many foreign countries are in Paris all the time studying to be painters and sculptors. We see French art in the trade of Paris. As Manchester means cotton, and Birming- ham means iron and steel, so Paris means artistic and beautiful clothing and furnish- ings. Gloves, dresses, hats, perfumery, and jewelry are made in Paris in great Courtesy U. S. Air Service Fig. 374. Place de la Concorde, one of the beautiful public squares of Paris. What river do we see? THE ATLANTIC PLAIN OF FRANCE 235 Photo. “The World’s Agriculture” Fig. 375. Farm village surrounded by tiny unfenced fields, in the Atlantic Plain of France. Who owns the fields? Why are they of different colors? quantity, and sent to the United States, South Amer- ica, and many foreign coun- tries. Paris lies in the center of a rich plain in the northern part of the Atlantic Plain. It is five times as large as Marseille, the second city of France, and is one of the greatest railroad centers in Europe. Every day trains enter from Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Ger- many, Holland, and Bel- gium, and from the channel ports to which people come from London. The city of Limoges is almost as famous in pottery as Paris is in clothing. Haviland china, made in France, is widely known. Rheims, in the midst of limestone hills where sheep are pastured on land too rough for farming, is a wool-manufacturing center. 457. Trade. — The chief ports of this dis- trict are Bordeaux, the port of the west, exporter of wine, and Havre, port of the north, through which most of the trade of Paris goes. Havre is especially famous as a market for Brazilian coffee and American cotton. A ship from Galveston once un- loaded at Havre 28,000 bales of cotton of 500 pounds each. What would that be worth now? River boats go up the Seine from Havre to Paris. There are canals to Antwerp and the coal fields of the north near Lille, as well as to the rivers Rhone and Loire. Altogether, this plain is well equipped for trade. It is all near to the sea; it has sev- eral seaports, several navigable rivers, and a good system of canals connecting the rivers. There is a lively traffic between Paris and London. By the fastest trains, one can make the journey in less than eight hours. Of this time, a little more than one hour is spent in the twenty-mile boat-ride from Calais to Dover. Other routes of travel between London and Paris are by way of the channel ports of Boulogne and Dieppe, and by airplanes, which now maintain a regular service between the two capitals. St. Nazaire and Brest are two smaller ports in the west. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were landed at Brest during the World War. 458. Government and colonies. — France is a republic with a congress (or parliament) much like the American Congress, and a president, who has much less power than the President of the United States. France does many things in Paris which we do in our county seats, city halls, or state capitals. For this reason we say that the French government is very much centralized. This custom brings many people to Paris and helps to make it the largest city on the continent of Europe. Compare it with some American cities in population. We have already seen that France owns some small colonies in America (Sec. 254), but she has very large colonies across the Mediterranean and in northern Africa. She owns most of the African shore opposite France and Spain, most of the Sahara, and some land south of the Sahara. French posses- sions in Central Africa extend even to the equator and beyond it. France also has some colonies in southeastern Asia. Name 236 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Courtesy U. S. Air Service Fig. 376. Old fortress on the waterfront at Brest, France. Would it be effect- ive nowadays? Explain. Find a drawbridge and a tiny artificial harbor. the French possessions (Fig. 10). Among all the large French possessions, only Africa north of the Sahara is suitable for white men. In the others the people are nearly all black or brown, and even in North Africa there are six Arabs to one white settler. 459. Future.— While the Atlantic Plain of France has almost the same good climate that England has, it does not promise to become a land of factory towns, such as England is. English coal, which is used there, must cost more in France than it does in England. More food can be produced because French agriculture is not so intensive as that of Holland, Belgium, or Germany. France might also produce more manufactures, for Holland has shown that a country with few raw materials and little fuel can manufacture extensively, but the fact seems to be that France is not increasing in population and that her industries show but little change. Since the World War, there have been many plans for improvements in industry. One of these plans is to build large water-power plants which shall be run by tidal water caught by dams across arms of the sea. Another is to build a canal from Paris to the coal and iron-ore district of Lorraine near Luxembourg. (Sec. 518.) This plan would give France a chance to get iron and steel at less cost, and in this way build up her manufactures. If manufactures increase, it will be by making light, fine things, which employ the artistic and skilful work of the people, and which do not require heavy raw mate- rials or much fuel. Why? QUESTIONS 1. Name eight foreign countries from which trains enter Paris daily. What languages must the Bureau of Information official know? 2. A trip from London to Paris, via Dover and Calais: What is the shortest distance across the channel? How long does it take to cross in a boat? in an airplane? As you leave the English shore look at the Dover cliffs of chalk, a very soft white rock. Explain their formation. (Sec. 21.) Compare the scenes as you go through the country from Calais to Paris with those of the Low Countries as to windmills: canals; crops; smokestacks. How long does it take from London to Paris by rail? How long by airplane? 3. Locate the Seine, Loire, and Garonne rivers. What does their direction tell us about the slope of this region? 4. Which coast of the United States does the coast of France resemble? 5. Sum up the agricultural advantages of western France under the following headings: Climate. Soil. Surface. Agriculture. 6. Sketch an outline map of France. Mark off the Atlantic Plain Region. Indicate the important rivers, the chief cities, a region producing wine; sheep; apples; pine lumber and turpentine; pottery; cotton manufactures. 7. How would the climate of this region be affected if the Pyrenees extended north along the shores of the Bay of Biscay? What great harbor would lose its importance? 8. Write an essay on some lessons in thrift learned from the French. 9. Why is it that Great Britain, with resources for agriculture as good as those of the Atlantic Plain of France, does not feed herself, as does France? 10. Sum up France’s advantages for trade under the following headings: Haw Materials. Transportation Facilities. Manufactured Articles. Coast Line. 1 1 . N ame the French colonies. (Use the world map.) How do they compare with England’s? What new foreign possessions did France acquire by the World War? 12. Prepare an exhibit in your school room of THE GREAT PLAIN OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 237 French pictures, maps, products. If you have a good library in the school, or in the town, try to borrow some books which will show pictures of the most famous French cathedrals; of Joan of Arc’s birth- place; of the historic columns and statuary in Paris; of the small villages in which the farmers live; of one of the old castles, and of one of the walled towns. 13. How many French things have you seen? Trace each one back to France, and see how it is particu- larly connected with the kind of country France is, or with the French people. THE GREAT PLAIN OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 460. Appearance. — Europe is the only con- tinent that has a low, level plain stretching entirely across it from west to east. One can cross this plain by train from Amsterdam to Berlin, Warsaw, and Moscow. The rail- road crosses the Volga River at Samara, and the Ural River at Oren- burg. So vast is the extent of this plain that one could journey 1000 miles farther to Tash- kend in Asia, and still not cross a mountain. What regions does this Plain of Central and Eastern Europe touch? What countries lie within it? The lover of hills and mountains does not like this plain. Wherever one looks all is flat — everywhere flat, level land. Here and there are villages, sheltered by shade-trees, then miles of flat, fenceless fields reaching away to the next village, and the next, and the next. For hundreds and even thousands of miles one sees nothing that stands higher than the church spires. This monotonous scene is varied only by an occasional forest, or a marsh at some place where the land is so very flat that the water will not drain away after rains. The plain is fenceless because the land is rarely pastured. Why? (Sec. 462.) Where animals are pastured, some one watches them to keep them away from the crops. 461. Ease of travel. — It is easy to travel and to trade in a region like this. It is easy Fig. 377. Potato pro- duction in bushels (1912-13): A. Germany 1,916,727,000 B. United States 376,086,000 C. United Kingdom 248,847,500 Fig. 378. Europe’s acreage of oats, another grain of the Northland. W hat do nitrate and phosphate rock have to do with grain crops? (Secs. 30, 859.) for railroads to cross level land, and where the land is level, boats can go on the rivers. The arms of the sea also help. What fraction of the way across Europe can ocean steamers sail in going to Leningrad (Petrograd); to the eastern end of the Mediterranean ; to the eastern end of the Black Sea? Both of these far-reaching arms of the sea touch the Cen- tral Plain and receive navigable rivers that come from its very center. Navigable riv- ers also provide waterways all the way across the western part of the plain from the cen- tral highlands to the North and Baltic seas. The greatest river of all Europe, the muddy Volga, the Mississippi of Europe, enables steamers to travel for hundreds of miles across central Russia and on to the Caspian Sea where they touch the shores of interior Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 379. Europe’s rye acreage. Compare this with Figs. 378 and 321, and tell why rye is called a crop of the Northland. 238 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS © Underwood & Underwood, N. V. Fig. 380. A Russian carriage on a public square in front of a Russian church. Some of the Russian people are very artistic. Asia. The land near the sources of these streams is so level that canals have been built to connect the Baltic rivers with the Volga, and with those flowing to the Black Sea. The snows of winter give one more aid to travel. The sled, or sleigh, is easier to draw than a wagon, and it has been used for cen- turies in this region for most of the heavy hauling from farm to town or river bank. In few other regions in the entire world are the natural means of transportation so easy. 462. Climate and crops. — This plain is a land of the north. The climate of its western part is somewhat like that of England, or of western Washington State. In the center it is like the climate of our own Lake District, and in the east it is like that of our Northern Wheat Region. Everywhere the winter is cold and snowy. Eastward, away from the mild climate of the Atlantic Ocean, the winters become colder, and the summers hotter. (Figs. 328, 329.) The streams of Holland are frozen for only a short time each winter. Those of eastern Germany are frozen for a month longer, and those of eastern Russia for a month longer than those of Germany. The rainfall also becomes less as we go east. The western boundary of Holland has 27 inches of rain, Berlin has 23, and Orenburg, on the Ural, has only 14 inches a year. Compare this with the rainfall of our Northern Wheat Region (Fig. 158). The crops show that it is a land of the north. Rye, oats, beets, and the potato are especially important in the northwestern part of the plain, where the climate is cool and damp. The potato is to the Germans, Danes, and Swedes what corn is to the people of Iowa and Kansas. In the drier southeast enough summer rain falls for spring wheat (Sec. 89) and barley, which are here the main crops. In the lower Volga Basin the rainfall is uncertain; some years the crops are good and sometimes they fail, causing famine. Near the Caspian Sea there is not enough rain for wheat; so this locality, like our own Great Plains, is a region where herdsmen tend their flocks. (Sec. 102.) 463. History and peoples. — This plain, so level from end to end, and blessed with enough rainfall to make crops or pastures, was a place where ancient tribes wandered with flocks and herds and made an easy living. At the time when Greece and Rome were great nations, this whole plain was occu- pied by roving bands of savages who fought for possession of the land, much as the Indians did in America. On this account, the level plain is to this day the home of many different peoples who occupy the land that their ancestors managed to hold in the ancient struggles for home space. Let us see who these peoples are and how they live. 464. The Scandinavians. — The northwest- ern part of the region is the home of the Scandinavian peoples — the Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes. The peoples of these three countries resemble one another in several ways. They are usually large, tall, blonde people. These peoples are alike in being well-educated and in having given to the world many explorers, scientists, and learned men. It is easy for these three THE GREAT PLAIN OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 239 Photo. Williams, Brown & Earle Fig. 381. View of Stockholm and a part of its harbor. Locate Stockholm. peoples to understand one another’s language. What parts of the Scandina- vian countries are included in the plain? (Fig. 319.) The Scandinavian lowlands are much alike in industries, which are chiefly agricultural, with a few manufacturing cities, such as, Oslo (Christiania) and Stockholm. 465. Denmark is a coastal plain, mostly sandy and much like Long Island, or the southern part of New Jersey. Most of the soil is poor, and the climate is damp and cool. It is not a place in which to make an easy living, but by hard work the Danes have made their country pros- perous and full of pleasant neighborhoods in which people like to live. These people have shown the world how to practice cooperation in agriculture. If you buy an egg from Denmark, you will see a number printed on its shell. The number shows which member of the Danish Co- operative Association sent the egg to market. If it is a bad egg, the man who sold it must pay a fine. If he should sell a second bad egg, he must pay a bigger fine. For a third bad egg, he will be expelled from the egg association, and then, because he can no longer sell through the association, he must take a lower price for his eggs. In the same way the Danish dairy farmers have joined together. They jointly own factories where excellent butter is made. Often it is put into tin cans, and sent to places as far away as Central America, Africa, or even Alaska. The Danish farmers raise many hogs, which are prepared for market in cooperative packing plants, t In a short time Denmark has risen from a poor country to a very prosperous one, largely through the industry of her people, who make their butter, eggs, and bacon so good that other countries want them, es- pecially England. Denmark has good country roads and very good country schools. 466. Southern Sweden and southern Nor- way. — Nearly all the farmers of Sweden who live in this plain have followed the example of their neighbors across the straits in Den- mark, and are producing good butter. The Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians import much feed for cows, because they find it profitable to keep many cows. They buy cottonseed meal and corn from the United States. Their own lands produce barley, oats, hay, and beets for the cows. There is not room for much wheat. That is imported; but many potatoes and vegetables are grown. The glaciers once covered all of Scandina- via, and made even the lowland of Norway and Sweden a land of stones, marshes, and lakes, resembling parts of New England. So small a part of the land has been left fit for farms that Norway has very little farm- land indeed. She pays for most of her imported food with lumber, paper, and fish. (Sec. 413.) In Sweden, dairy machinery is manufac- tured, and other fine machinery, much of which is exported in steamships of the Dan- ish companies which sail from Copenhagen, 240 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS used. Much of the German plain was originally poor, sandy, and often swampy; but by the application of skill, fertilizer, and hard work it has been made to produce large crops of rye, potatoes, barley, and oats. These are the crops that both men and cattle eat, and before the World War there were more cattle and hogs on this plain than in any area of the same size in the United States. (Fig. 361.) Some wheat is ©Publishers- Photo Service. N.Y. alS0 The P e °P le Fig. 382. The German branch of the General Electric Company, an Ameri- Gat some wheat bread, but much more rye bread (Figs. can corporation. (Fig. 283.) and call at Goteborg, Sweden, en route to all the leading countries of Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Some Swed- ish factories make steel products, such as watch springs and delicate machinery, that are worth more than their weight in gold. Electric power from the Scandinavian moun- tains (Sec. 509) may help the lowland cities of these three countries. The Scandinavian capitals are clean, well- kept cities, with some manufacturing. Com- pare them in size with Washington; with Montreal. In each Scandi- navian capital is a king, who has but little power, and a parliament which is elected by the people to rule the country. 467. The German part of the plain. — About half the people of Germany live in the German part of the Central Plain. Where is the capital of Germany? The Germans are a well-educated people, and they have ap- plied their knowledge to agriculture, manufacture, and trade, as well as to war. The German land is well 321, 379). The German people eat more potatoes, and therefore less of some other things, than we do. Potatoes are much used to make flour and alcohol, and as food for pigs and cows. 468. German education. — Wishing to make Germany a manufacturing nation, the govern- ment has done much to help education. Ger- man universities were among the first in the world in teaching chemistry and physics, so that there have been many trained chemists, machinists, and engineers to go into fac- Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 383. Some of the buildings at the University of Berlin. What subjects helpful to industry were German universities among the first to teach? THE GREAT PLAIN OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 241 © Publishers’ Photo. Service, N. Y. Fig. 384. Cranes for heavy freight and putting machinery into unfinished ships, Hamburg, Germany. This harbor has a very large basin, in which many ocean liners may anchor before and after loading or unloading their cargoes. tories. Thus Germany be- came the leading nation of the world for the manufac- ture of chemical dyes, and for many other articles requiring knowledge, skill, and patience. Germans have written many scientific books, and some of the world’s most famous music was composed by German musicians. 469. German manufac- ture. — Coal is found near the southern edge of the German Plain near Leipzig in the state of Saxony, and also farther to the southeast in Silesia, near the Polish boundary. (Fig. 385.) Here at the southern edge of the plain is one of the most densely peopled parts of Europe. Ancient towns such as Muenster, Hanover, Leipzig, Dres- den, and Breslau have long been trading centers, because, like Denver, they stood as gateways to the highlands. Now that coal drives the machinery, these ancient towns have grown to be large manufacturing cities. Leipzig is one of the great book manufacturing cities of the world. The beautiful city of Dresden, capital of the Kingdom of Saxony, is famous for its manu- facture of chinaware and porcelain. Not far away are Chemnitz, with many textile industries, and Breslau, with iron manu- factures. 470. Berlin. — Germany is now a republic, but it was an empire before the World War. Berlin towers over all the cities of Germany, as Paris and London tower over the other cities of their countries. Berlin is a great center for canals and railroads, and it has many factories. It has a famous university and a famous opera house. Many foreign singers have gone to Berlin for study. Many of the streets are wide and ornamented with statues. The Zoo is one of the finest in the world. As in all capitals, many people in Berlin are kept busy in the offices of the government. Between 1880 and 1910 the city grew almost as fast as Chicago. As in New York, most of the people live in apartments, several families sometimes living on one floor. Many families have only one room. There are no yards around the houses, but many public playgrounds are provided for children. 471. German trade. — The Germans have studied the needs of other peoples carefully, and have worked hard to build up a foreign trade by exporting manufactured goods, so that they could pay for food and raw ma- terials. Before the World War, lines of steamers went from Hamburg and Bremen to every continent and to most of the coun- tries and great ports of the world. Many of these steamers stopped at Rotterdam and Antwerp to gather up Dutch, Belgian, and German goods from the Rhine district. Splendid harbors have been dug in the meadows beside the Elbe at Hamburg, and beside the Weser at Bremen. The Kiel Canal was cut to make a quicker outlet from the Baltic to the North Sea. The rivers were deepened, so that boats might cross the German plain from the North Sea to the southern highlands. A great east and west canal was dug so that grain might come from the farms of ^ east Fig. 385. THE GREAT PLAIN OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 243 Russian stone polishers. How is the power furnished in this small factory? In the German factory? (Fig. 382.) Germany to Berlin and Hamburg. We have already seen (Sec. 445) how the Germans have improved the River Rhine. Germany is rebuilding her foreign trade. 472. The Poles, Letts, Lithuanians and Esthonians. — The peoples of these new nations (Fig. 385) are not so well-educated as the Ger- mans and the Scandina- vians. The Poles once had a kingdom of their own, but about the time of our Revolutionary War it was Fl s- 38<5 - divided up between the empires of Russia and Austria, and the big German state of Prussia. For more than a hundred years the Poles have been a people without a country, and have been oppressed by their rulers. They have not had many good schools, although many Poles are well-educated, and some of them have become very famous. During all these generations of oppression they have kept alive the Polish spirit and the hope of being independent. Since the World War they have ruled their own country once more. The countries of the Letts (Latvia), the Lithuanians, and the Esthonians are three small, new countries. They were under the oppressive rule of Russia until their indepen- dence was restored by the conference at the end of the World War. Poland and the new Baltic States are chiefly agricultural (Sec. 462) ; but they have not grown such good crops as the Germans have, because their farmers have not had education or government aid, as have the German farmers (Sec. 443). 473. The government of Russia. — The Russian people have had less opportunity than the Poles. For several hundred years Russia has been ruled by emperors, or czars, as they were called, and by a few of the czar’s friends. This small group of rulers cared little about the welfare of the people. They stole most of the tax money, and squandered it in Leningrad (Petrograd) and in foreign lands. They thought they could have their own way more easily if the people were ig- norant. For this reason there were few schools, and about nine-tenths of the Rus- sian people cannot read or write. During the World War the Russians drove out the Czar, and there was much fighting among the Russians themselves to see who should rule. During this time Russia had little trade and the people suffered much. Many of them starved or died of sickness. Before the World War many of the peasants rented their farms from rich land- lords who took too much rent. One of the results of the Russian revolution was to give land to the peasants who before had worked it, but had not owned it. If we compare Denmark with Russia, we can see what a good thing it is for a country to have a good government and what a bad thing it is for a country to have a bad govern- ment. The Danish village is well governed. It is neat and tidy, with good schools and educated people who live in clean, painted houses. The Russian village is poorly governed and often has no school. Many of the houses have dirt floors and straw roofs; most of them are unpainted, and often they are not clean. The roads are fearful mud- 244 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Fig. 387. © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. H Polish women plowing. Does this look like efficient labor? holes, and the crops do not yield half as much per acre as crops do in Denmark, because the people have not been taught agriculture as have the Danish people. The contrast between these two countries makes it clear that everyone should do his share to help make the government honest and helpful. 474. The Russian people. — The Russians are much better than their governments have been. They are big, strong people. Ameri- cans who have had charge of work in Russia say they are stronger and can do more work than can Americans. The village may have houses with dirt floors and straw roofs, but the people are polite, friendly, and musical. In America we have music as an accomplish- ment; but the Russian has music and danc- ing as ways of expressing his feelings, just as we smile or frown or laugh or cry. “ How can we work if we do not sing?” said the boatmen on the Volga when asked why they sang as they worked. In traveling through Russia you may see the people of a peasant village out at almost any time of day, dancing on the board floor of a bridge or on a smooth place in the road. From the Rus- sians we get the dances known as the polka, the mazurka, and the polonaise. Besides folk-dances, many folk-songs have been passed down by the people from one gen- eration to the next. 475. Manufacturing in countries east of Germany. — This great flat plain is nearly half of Europe and it has as many people as the United States, but as yet not much fac- tory manufacturing has begun. The Russian Gov- ernment and the roads have been so bad that Russia is a hundred years or more behind northwest Europe and the United States in many of the ways of doing things, and therefore in ways of thinking about things. The life of the people in many parts of Russia re- minds us a little of the life of the Douglas family in the Appalachian Mountains (Sec. 3). During the long winter months when the ground is snow-covered and there is little else to do, the people work in their homes at weaving, and at making baskets, leather goods, brushes, and many other small articles. It is only recently that factories and a few manu- facturing cities have grown up in this part of the Great Plain, as they have in our own central farming region. Before the World War most of the Russian factories were owned and managed by foreigners — Ger- mans, English, French, Danes, or Americans, who had studied engineering, and knew how to run machinery and factories. Warsaw, the capital of Poland, and Lodz near it, are cotton- and wool-manufacturing centers, near the Polish coal fields. Riga and Reval are ports with less manufacturing than the Polish cities. Moscow, the old capital of Russia, is near the central coal field and manufactures much iron and leather. In the south, near the Sea of Azof, is a large coal field yielding most of Russia’s coal. During the Russian civil wars many of these factories stopped running. That was one of the reasons why Russians suffered so much. 476. Polish and Russian agriculture. — Most of the people of the whole great region THE GREAT PLAIN OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 245 Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 388. Russian peasants threshing wheat with flails. By a slight movement of the pole the club falls full length on the straw; see the woman’s flail. between Germany and Asia, and between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, are fanners. Among these hun- dreds of millions of people few can read or write, and they have suffered long from cruel and thieving government, and from war. Where these things happen, the people are ignorant and have poor tools, poor crops, and the people them- selves are poor. Such people always have need- less sickness and suffering. Here one might ride, day after day, past gray villages from which the peasants go out on the level plain near by to work in their fields of rye, potatoes, barley, oats, wheat, or sugar beets. At noontime they eat a simple meal of black rye bread, cabbage, potatoes, and perhaps drink a little tea, but rarely have a bit of meat or eggs— these being the things they must sell to get money to pay taxes and to buy the few things they cannot do without. 477. The Russian wheat region. — The southern part of the plain, from Rumania eastward, is one of the two greatest inland wheat regions of the world. (Fig. 321.) Where is the other? (Fig. 88.) This great stretch of flat, treeless land has a very rich black soil and is known as the “Black Earth” country. It has a climate much like that in the central part of North America. Near the Black Sea it joins the European Com Belt, and here the wheat is sown in the fall, as in Kansas and Nebraska, where wheat and com are grown near each other. Farther east, the winters are colder, and scanty rain falls in the summer season as it does in our own Northern Wheat Region. As the climate is like that of North Dakota, we find the same method of growing wheat (Sec. 89), namely, sowing in the spring and harvesting in the autumn. Everywhere in the southern part of the great plain there is wheat, wheat, wheat, almost nothing but wheat, for fully a thousand miles. The soil is rich, but the rainfall is uncertain, and the ignorant Russian farmers, or moujiks, as they are called, cultivate the crop so poorly that the yield is only a third of that on German fields. In this treeless region the moujik’s house has a dirt floor, and walls made of sods piled one on the other, plastered with mud, and whitewashed. The roof is of sod or straw thatch held up on poles. Straw is burned in the stove. Near the rivers some of the richer people have wooden houses that have been floated down on rafts from the forests to the northward. 478. Migrating laborers. — Because of their poverty, many Poles used to go away each year to work in the harvest-fields of Ger- many, and even of Switzerland and Sweden. Before the World War as many as five million harvesters sometimes made a summer jour- ney from Central Russia southward to the Wheat Belt (Fig. 321), and then worked their way northward with the advancing harvests. 479. The trade of Russia and Poland. — In times of peace, this great agricultural re- gion of the eastern plain sends its surplus crops to the cities of western Europe. At the south, wheat goes from the port of 246 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Fig. 38Q. A Russian peasant and his daughter carving wooden toys. Is this highly-paid work? Odessa, and from Rostof at the mouth of the Don. In the north, rye, oats, butter, eggs, and meat animals are shipped eastward from Leningrad (Petrograd), Riga, Koenigsberg, and Danzig. Much trade in time of peace goes overland by railroad into Germany. The people of Russia still carry on much of their trade by fairs, as the people of England and of all Europe did before the coming of the steamship and the train. Indeed, many of the cities of Europe were started by the fact that people met at certain places once a year to trade. Such an occasion they called a fair. It was really a market. In Russia to this day many such fairs are still held. After working all winter at their crafts, the shoemaker, the saddler, the basket- maker, and the weaver go off to the nearest fair and sell their year’s produce to traveling merchants, or to people who are buying a year’s supply. The most famous of these fairs is at Nizhni Novgorod. The more regular transport of the railroad and the steamship are causing the fairs to decline. Just as the farms of our own Wheat Belt receive manufactures from our own factory region, so the peasants of eastern Europe buy clothes, shoes, nails, machinery, and tools from the factory region of central Germany, from Norway and Sweden, and from the other factory regions on both sides of the English Channel. Before the World War the peasants had begun to use American plows and reapers, which sometimes went by shiploads from America to Odessa. 480. Future of the great plain of central and eastern Europe. — In the western part of this region, — Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and central Germany, — there cannot be very much increase in food production because the land is already tilled so thoroughly and so well ; but there might be many more com- fortable manufacturing towns, if markets and supplies can be found in foreign countries. Poland and Russia can double their food supply if the people can have peace, a chance to own land, and good schools where the children can learn better ways of doing things. Such a great region should also have many small manufacturing cities, busy supplying local needs. The Russian coal fields will give the power, but the location of the towns for foreign trade is not so good as in the countries near the English channel. Then, too, the winter is so long and so very cold that people do not feel as much like working as people do in a climate that is less severe. The Ural Mountain district has ores of iron and platinum which have been worked in the past and should be worked still more in the future. Much, very much, depends upon the kind of government a country has. No one knows what the government of Russia will be, or what Russia’s future will be. QUESTIONS 1. Compare a railroad trip from Hamburg to Moscow with one from Columbus, Ohio, to Omaha, Nebraska, during late September, in length, number of cities, canals and rivers crossed, changes in climate, and crops in fields. 2. Does skating continue longer on the canals of Russia than in Holland? 3. In which place are the summers hotter? Why? 4. Compare the waterways of Germany with those of the United States. 5. Why were the colors of many manufac- tured materials in the United States so poor during the World War? 6. Compare the population of Germany and Russia per square mile. Can you give two good reasons for the difference? 7. Compare their education. What might Russia learn from Germany? 8. Compare Europe’s great plain with the Great Plains of the United States in as many ways as you can. Are the trading facilities of the European plain better than those of the American plain? Which of these two plains has a better chance for future increase of population and industry? 9. Why should there be extensive agriculture in GREAT NORTHERN FORESTS OF EUROPE Russia and intensive agriculture in Belgium? Com- pare the two systems. 10. Can you name five na- tions whose people have owned business enterprises in Russia? in Mexico? Why is such the case? 11. What waters are connected by the Kiel Canal? Prove on the map what time this canal saves for a boat going 14 miles per hour. 12. Name all the nations of this region established after the World War. Why was Danzig made a free port? 13. How would you give a Christmas entertainment that might be enjoyed in Germany? in Russia? in Norway? 14. Describe the trade between Denmark and Eng- land. 15. Compare the length of the day in Oslo (Christiania) and Berlin. Why is there this differ- ence? 16. Why did the interruption of Germany’s commerce by the delay in the peace negotiations in- terfere with the trade of the United States? Why did it interfere with the trade of Europe? 17. Why do manufacturers in the United States want a high tariff on toys? What difference does such a tariff make to Germany? How does it affect her ability to buy cotton? 18. If you would like to hear the most widely known of Russian folk songs, “Down Mother Volga,” get the phonograph record “ Wniz po Matusz- kie,” by Tschaikowsky. 19. What city is the birth- place of Hans Christian Andersen? Tell some of his fairy tales. 20. How do the oil wells of Baku help Russian trade? How does the oil reach Moscow? GREAT NORTHERN FORESTS OF EUROPE 481. European regions that are like Ameri- can regions. — In North America, as we go northward from the St. Lawrence valley and the Northern Wheat Region, we find a great belt of evergreen forest, and beyond it a treeless zone, or tundra, that reaches to the ice-bound Arctic Sea. Europe has similar regions. North of the Central European Plain is a belt of evergreen forest that reaches continuously from the Scandinavian mountains to the Ural Mountains and on across Asia to the Pacific. Like a part of the American forest, the great northern forest of Europe stands on a low plain that was once covered by an ice-sheet which has left many swamps and lakes, both large and small. As in America, this northern forest is a land of long cold winter and deep snow. Evergreen trees extend northward to the edge of the tundra. In the northern forests of Europe and Asia, as in those of America, the bear and the fur-gatherer roam the woods. The wild boar is still to be found there, and wolves sometimes pursue the 247 hunter and the traveler, as they do in all similar regions. 482. Two kinds of work. — This forested country of Sweden, Finland, and North Russia differs from the American forest by having some farmers in it. Land is so scarce in Europe that, with much labor, men have cleared away rocks and drained swamps and have made little farms in east Sweden and Finland. Most of these farmers have two kinds of work, one for the winter and another for the summer season. In the summer men tend their little farms, grow oats and pota- toes, and make hay. When winter comes, they leave their wives and children to take care of the cows, while they go into the forests, where they camp all winter, chopping wood and dragging logs to the stream bank. In spring the logs are floated downstream, just as is done in the forests of New England and Canada. In some of the Swedish rivers special channels have been made by building canals around waterfalls. Thus the logs can rush down without lodging in the rocks. 483. The lumber ships. — When spring has melted the ice of winter and the northern waters are again open, hundreds of British, German, French, and Dutch ships hasten to the small ports along the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland, and the White Sea. They return with loads of lum- ber, poles for coal mine props, and wood Photo. International Film Service, N. Y. Fig. 390. A fisherman’s house on the stony shore of a narrow bay near the steep mountains and snowfields of northern Norway. 248 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 391. What is this boat doing here in the Swedish forest country? Compare with Fig. 259. pulp for the paper mills. Sometimes all the parts of a wooden house are loaded on the ship and carried away, to be put up in some land across the sea. England is able to get along with only one-thirtieth of her land in forests because she uses the timber of this northern forest region, where nearly all the land is forest-covered. 484. The rafting trip.— The southeastern part of this forest is drained by the branches of the Volga, a splendid waterway for rafts. Each spring the timber-cutters from this part of the forest float their logs, lumber, and even finished houses down the river to market in the treeless wheat region. (Sec. 477.) 485. Iron ore and platinum. — About Lulea and Gellivare, in northern Sweden, are two of the great iron-mining districts of the Old World. Most of the ore from these mines is used in England and the Rhine district. In summer, ore ships go down the Gulf of Bothnia. In winter, they sail from Narvik in Norway, to which a special railroad has been built to carry ore across the mountains during the months when the Baltic is frozen. Thus, because the warm Atlantic reaches these shores (Secs. 407-408), the Swedish iron mines can ship ore winter and summer, while the mines of the Lake Superior district, much farther south, must close in winter, because ice shuts the water highway be- tween the mines and the furnaces. In the part of this district near to the Ural Mountains there are mines that before the World War furnished nine-tenths of the world’s platinum. This metal is heavier than gold and more costly. Most of it is used in chemical laboratories and in jewelry. 486. People. — We have already studied about the Russians and the Swedes, but most of the people of this region are Finns. The Finns, like the Swedes, are an intelligent, well-educated, liberty-loving people, but they were conquered a long time ago by Russia. Like the Poles, the Finns have suffered from the bad government of the Czar of Russia, and for generations they have longed to be independent. After the World War, Finland once more became a free and separate country. 487. Future. — This is not one of the re- gions where a large increase of population may be expected. There is little land suitable for farms. For manufactures other than those of wood, it is not so well equipped by nature as regions farther west. Never- theless, the Finns, being an industrious, thrifty people, will make the best of their opportunities. Since most of their land should be a well-preserved forest, let us hope that they will be able to prevent forest fires. Sweden has already begun to take care of her forests in a scientific way. QUESTIONS 1. Name the countries or parts of countries in this region. 2. Name three rivers that drain it, and state where they empty. 3. If you lived in this region, which would you enjoy the more, your summer or your winter work? Why? 4. Where is the iron ore of this region sent? Trace on the map the summer journey from Lulea, Sweden, to Newcastle, England; to Essen. Trace the winter journey. Which is the more expensive route? Why? 5. Did you ever see a box of safety matches with the name Sweden on the box? Why does Sweden ARCTIC PASTURES 249 make matches? 6. What laws if well enforced are of the greatest importance to the countries in this region? 7. Fill in the following chart: Topic. Iron Mined in Sweden. Iron Mined around Lake Superior. Amount of ore mined . . Cities to which shipped Transportation: in winter in summer ARCTIC PASTURES 488. Another Tundra Region. — North of the evergreen forests/ at the very top of the continent, is the treeless tundra. If you were dropped down upon it you could not tell whether you were in North Canada, North Alaska (Sec. 355), or North Russia. Here, on the wide plain that reaches from the Atlantic across Europe and Asia to Bering Strait, live the people who tamed the reindeer long ago, while our ancestors, who lived farther south, were taming the cow, the horse, the sheep, and the pig. The reindeer is the animal best suited to be of use to men living in the tundra. It has wide, flat hoofs that enable it to walk on the wet earth or the snow crust without sinking in. Its hoofs are also long, and there- fore good to dig under the snow of the Arctic blizzard to get grass and moss that serve as food. Having a skin covered with warm, thick hair, the reindeer is as much at home in — Photo. Frank H. Nowel Fig. 392. Milking time in Lapland. What would happen to the Laplanders if they lost all their reindeer? Fig. 393. A sod-covered hut, the summer home of a family of Lapps. the cold tundra as are sheep on the Scotch highlands, or cattle on the ranches of Texas. 489. Lapland. — The European tundra is a land where yellowish men live. No one knows when they first came there with their flocks from Asia. These tent-dwelling people live in tribes. Between the White Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, their country is known as Lapland. The only property the Lapps have is a herd of reindeer and such things as can be carried by men aided by reindeer. The useful deer carry the Lapps on their backs in summer, drag their sleds across the snow in winter, furnish their owners with meat, milk, and cheese for food, and with skins for clothes and tents. Rein- deer skin makes the warmest kind of leather gloves, so the skins are prized by people who live in regions where the winters are cold. Though Lapland is a part of Norway, Sweden, and Finland, the Lapps may be said to govern themselves, because when they move about with their flocks and herds they are far away from the seats of government. You remember (Sec. 357) that when Mr. Jackson wanted someone to teach the Eskimos in Alaska how to become reindeer farmers, he sent to Lapland for reindeer and for herders to teach their art. 250 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS 490. Future. — For ages the tundra has had as many reindeer as its scanty pastures could feed and as many nomads as its rein- deer could support. In the future this region will probably not change, unless minerals should be found. The results of finding minerals are shown by what is hap- pening at Spitzbergen. 491. Spitzbergen, a group of Arctic islands larger in total area than West Virginia, and lying about 500 miles north of Norway, belongs in this region. Owing to the in- fluence of the warm Atlantic currents the harbors on the south- west are open to steamships from May to October, and only the northeastern parts are glacier covered. Before the World War, tourist vessels visited Spitzbergen regularly, and men have often stayed to hunt walrus, seal, polar bear, and fox; but in those days no one ever really made his home there. The island was a no-man’s- land until it was given to Norway by the Peace Conference at Paris, in 1919. There are large deposits of coal that may in time supply Norway’s needs. When the Vikings discovered Spitzbergen in the twelfth century, they called it the “land of coal coasts”. Norwegian and Swedish coal-miners now work there all the year. They use electric light in the mines and all through the months of winter darkness. Thus Spitzbergen may become a home for men during the long period while they are digging out the minerals which nature has placed there. It would seem strange to live in a land where for two months in summer there is no sunset and for two months in winter no sunrise, and where there are whole days of evening twilight and whole days of dawn. QUESTIONS 1. Compare the Lapps and the American Eskimo in regard to houses, means of travel, and method of making a living. 2. What determines the changes of season in this region? (See Appendix.) 3. Compare Spitzbergen with Greenland in climate; in the pos- sibilities of mining. 4. How has nature fitted the reindeer to live in the tundra? 5. What animals do for us some of the things the reindeer does for the Lapps? 6. How would you like to live in Spitzbergen? What would you eat, wear, play? THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF EUROPE 492. Well-placed mountains. — Europe is more lucky than North America in the kinds of high mountains it has. On the physical map of Europe notice that the high mountain wall extending from west to east is broken by wide openings into four sections. Find these sections: 1, Can- tabrians and Pyrenees; 2, Alps; 3, Caucasus; 4, Carpathians. On the physical map of North America see if you can find a place in the western moun- tains where the wall is broken by wide open- ings. We shall also study the mountains of Scandinavia in this chapter, because they, too, are high mountains of Europe. If the high mountain wall of Europe had been as unbroken, as that of North America, it would have been extremely difficult for ancient peoples to have crossed from one side of the mountain ranges to the other side. But Europe is lucky in that the wide open- ings in her moun- tain wall have always allowed the people to pass. In recent times roads have been improved Fig. 394. The management of the Swiss National Railways publishes as an advertisement in New York newspapers a map showing Switzerland black like this. What does it show? (Sec. 499.) We have added the leading waterways to the Swiss railway map. Has America such a set of waterways? THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF EUROPE 251 Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y„ Fig. 396. The lake and city of Geneva, Switzerland, the meeting place of the League of Nations. Why may Geneva be called the world’s capital? See rock layers in the face of the great cliff. Mt. Blanc is in the dim distance. and extended, and tunnels have been dug through the mountains themselves. One of the Alpine tunnels, through which a railroad passes, is eleven miles long — the Simplon, between Switzerland and Italy, more than twice as long as any tunnel in the United States. In their highest parts all of these five high mountains save the Carpathians rise to the height of perpetual snow. Both sides of the five great ranges are swept by rain-bear- ing winds. This abundant moisture gives the mountains a good cover of trees and grass wherever there is earth to feed plants. Since the higher parts are not desirable places in which to live, most of the people live in the lower parts of the mountains. Valleys open out in almost every direction, and people from different parts of Europe have entered the valleys and settled there. This makes a varied and interesting moun- tain population. We shall study the moun- tain groups separately. I. — The Alps 493. Switzerland. — The Alps mountain system curves like an arch from the Medi- terranean, near Nice, around the north of Italy, to the Adriatic Sea at Trieste. The Alps also reach eastward nearly to Vienna. The central Alps spread out into several ranges with valleys between, making room for Switzerland to be a real mountain nation. The Swiss people show the world how to live in mountains, how to care for mountains, and how to enjoy mountain life. In Switzerland, some of the valleys open to the west towards France. Most of the people of that part of Switzerland are French. In the valleys opening north, many of the people are German. In the valleys opening south, they are Italian. Thus the people who live in Switzerland speak French, German, and Italian, and the Swiss Govern- ment has to publish notices in the three languages. But no matter what language a man may speak, he is extremely loyal to Switzerland, and he will tell you that he is Swiss. The Swiss Government is a democracy. Its people have attained a high state of civilization. In few countries, if in any, are people more nearly equal than in Switzer- land. Few Swiss are very rich, and few are very poor. Nearly everyone can read and write, and most of the people are well- educated and trained to do things requiring much skill. 494. Agriculture. — The Swiss take good care of their beautiful, rugged little country, 11-13 252 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 397. A street in a Swiss town. What is white coal? So much of their land is only cold, snowy mountaintops that they must make the little good land they have do a great deal for them, since there are many people and but few resources. The valley lands are in well- tilled fields of wheat, potatoes, oats, and barley. On the lower slopes are many orchards, which make large yields. Vine- yards, which require much heat, thrive on some of the hillsides that face south and overlook lakes. The lakes act as a mirror and throw the warm rays of the sun upon the vineyards. Hay is grown on many lower mountain-slopes that are too steep to be used for fields or orchards. The people often irrigate these steep hayfields by turn- ing streams of melted snow upon the fields to water the crops. In a place like this a crop of hay must be cut with a scythe. Above the orchards and fields the mountain- sides are used for forest and pasture. Valley farmers follow their herds of cows and goats as they climb higher and higher to get the rich pasture that quickly springs up after snow melts. The cowherd lives in a rude summer camp, and goes from camp to camp until the cows are back again to spend the winter in the valley bam. In winter, the Swiss farmer takes his sled and hauls the haystacks from the lower slopes to the barn. He also hauls firewood and sawlogs from the wooded slopes. Dairying is one of the chief industries of Switzer- land. In one year during the World War she exported 75,000,000 pounds of cheese. This amounted to eleven dollars for every man, woman, and child in Swit- zerland. We have no ex- port in the United States that amounts to so much per person as do dairy products for the Swiss. In some Swiss valleys every bride receives a cow for a wedding present. 495. Forestry. — On some of the Swiss mountainsides, trees have been carefully tended since the time of Columbus. Swiss trees receive the regular and skilful care that a farmer would give to a crop of corn. For centuries the forests have been protected from fire, and the trees cut as they were ready. Many a stone wall in Holland rests on a foundation of piles made of Swiss tree- trunks. The logs were taken down the Rhine in boats that had brought up wheat, com, and cottonseed meal. In bad weather, when the people must stay indoors, they often do wood-carving. They carve chairs, wooden spoons, and salad forks, toy animals, and many other things which we find in American toy stores. 496. The avalanche.— The avalanche of sliding snow is one of the dangers of Swiss mountain life. At times travelers or even entire villages are buried in this sudden snowslide. On some of the mountains, ava- lanches occur so often that people have to be very careful where they build their houses, and in certain valleys the people scarcely leave their villages all winter long, for fear of being buried by a snowslide. The Swiss mountaineer often lives in a wooden house called a chalet. (Fig. 400.) It has a rather flat roof, on which the snow will lie and serve as a blanket to keep the house warm. 497. Two examples of Swiss thrift. — In THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF EUROPE 253 many parts of the United States we have lost hun- dreds of thousands of acres of good land, which might have made thousands of farms, because rushing water has cut gullies and carried the good soil away (Fig. 82). The same thing was sure to happen in mountainous Switzerland, and because the people of that little country could not afford to have land wasted, they prevented that kind of trouble. They found that in some locations goats in pasturing clipped the grass so close that the soil was washed away, but that cows did not eat grass so close. Laws were then passed reducing the number of goats and increasing the number of cows that might feed on certain pastures. Thus the grass cover was protected and the soil was kept from washing away (Fig. 400). This is a good example of the conservation^ resources. Swiss thrift and care are also shown by the bee industry. There is not land enough to raise many sugar beets, but a substitute is found in honey, which bees make from the fir tree. Many thousands of hives of bees are kept, and less sugar must be bought. 498 . Manufactures. — Switzerland has no coal of her own, but now that steamboats can come up the Rhine to Basel, coal is Fig. 398. A tunnel entrance on a double-track Swiss railroad. Is there a wagon road in the picture? j Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, n. X. Fig. 399. English teams playing a hockey match on St. Moritz Lake, Switzer- land. On the left is one of the goals. Other Swiss sports are tobogganing, sledding, and curling, a game played by sliding stones on the ice. brought from the coal fields along the Ruhr and the Saar, branches of the Rhine. (Sec. 448.) Little coal is needed in Switzer- land except for heating purposes, because the Swiss have harnessed the Alpine waterfalls, turned their power into electricity, and car- ried the electricity to most of the towns and cities. In many localities electric power is in every house, and much manufacturing is done in the homes of the people with the aid of motor-driven machinery. Switzerland is not a land of many cities, but Berne, the capital, Geneva, on Lake Geneva, Lucerne, on beautiful Lake Lucerne, and Zurich, the largest city, are all neat and thriv- ing centers of manufacture, trade, and travel. As Switzerland has no raw materials other than milk, stone, salt mines, and wood, her industries must make valuable things from small amounts of raw material. This is well shown in the heavy export of ribbons made from Japanese silk; of lace made from American cotton; of fine machinery made of imported iron and copper; and of milk chocolate made of cocoa beans from along the equator and milk from herds on her own mountain pastures. The best example of all is found in the Swiss watch, of which Geneva is a great manufacturing center. A jeweler can establish his reputation if he can say that he was trained in Switzerland. 254 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS 499. The tourist industry. — Beautiful scenery attracts many travelers to Switzer- land. People like to see quaint villages with trim gardens and neat fields, and cozy chalets on the green mountainsides. They like to hear the musical chimes of the churches, and the tinkling of the cowbells on the distant pasture. The white flash of the waterfall pleases the eye, and the murmur of the waters lulls to sleep. The smooth surface of clear lakes reflects the mountains like a mirror. There is charm in the green forest and in the distant, white snow- field. The steep and dangerous snow-clad peak dares those who like to do hard things. Expert Swiss guides will show the way. Switzerland has the best location in the world to tempt many travelers. It is near the middle of Europe. (Fig. 394.) It is on the road for travelers going from densely- populated northwest Europe to Italy, to enjoy the charm of warm winter sunshine. There are railway tickets that are sold cheaply, and which will permit travelers to ride for weeks, as much as they please, on any railroad in Switzerland. The Swiss people make trav- elers comfortable by providing good food, good beds, good roads, and delightful foot- paths. The climate also attracts. The summer is cool, pleasant, and refreshing. Switzerland advertises her winter sports of coasting, snowshoeing, skiing, skating, and ice games. Swiss weather can be freezing and at the same time comfortable, for the surrounding mountain walls keep off the cold winds. Except for the tiny state of Monaco, on the Riviera (Sec. 548), no other country in the world gets so much of its living from the traveler who goes seeking pleasure and vacation. 500. The Austrian Alps. — German-speak- ing Austria owns as much of the Alps as does Switzerland. This section is not so high as the Swiss Alps. It does not have so many snowfields, or so many through routes to Italy, and it has not succeeded in getting much tourist business. The people here make their living, as do some of the Swiss, by a little mining, farming, and timber cutting. 501. The western Alps, which belong to France and Italy, are much like the Austrian Alps in appearance, uses, and the life of the people. The only important difference is that more manufactur- ing is done in the French Alps than in the Austrian Alps. 502. Belts or zones of climate on moun- tains. — In ascending the Alps and many other high mountains, a climber crosses several belts or zones of cli- mate. (Fig.l.) Thefirst Alpine zone would be the warm valleys at the foot, where there are farms and orchards, with groves of chestnut and walnut trees. Next comes the zone where beech and maple trees grow, and fields of rye and potatoes. Then comes the zone of the pine and the fir, with dwarf pine, shrubs, and berry bushes at its upper edge. Next, on the slope where it is too cold for trees or bushes, he finds a belt of grass and flowers much like those of the Arctic tundra. This belt extends to the last mountain zone — the zone of snow and THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF EUROPE 255 ice, which covers the tops of all very high mountains. Thus the high mountain shows us in a few miles all the climate belts and plant belts that we would find in a journey from the Erie Canal Belt to the Greenland Ice Cap, or from the foot of the Alps to northern Spitzbergen. 503. The Alps as a type. — We have spent much more time studying the Alps than we can spend on the other high mountains. But in studying the Alps we have learned about the kinds of life on the high mountains, so that we do not need to have it so fully ex- plained again. II. The Pyrenees and the Cantabrians 504. Another moun- tain region with three languages. — The west- ern part of the high mountains of Europe stretches for five hun- dred miles across the width of Spain. From the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea the Pyrenees have no break. The north side of the mountains is almost as steep as a wall, although the south side slopes more gently, do not cross the Pyrenees. They have to creep around the ends. These mountains form a national racial and language bound- ary. The people on one side of the slope speak French and those on the other side speak Spanish. Those who live in the Cantabrians speak Basque, the language of the people who were in these mountains be- fore the French and Spanish came. We do not find here the towns, the fac- tories, and the tourists of Switzerland. Except for one or two resorts, this mountain region is a land of the mountain farmer and the shepherd. In the summer great flocks of sheep are taken from the lowlands on both sides of the mountains to eat the grass on the high pastures. 505. A tiny country. — The little valley of Andorra on the French side of the Pyrenees is an interesting example of the way mountain peoples love their liberty and often get it. This country is one of the many hundreds of little states into which Europe was once divided. This little valley, surrounded by high peaks, is but seventeen by eighteen miles. The population is only five thousand, but the valley is a re- public in which the people rule themselves and are entirely inde- pendent, except that the President of France, and the Bishop of Orget, in Spain, take turns appointing a magistrate and a judge. Besides that, the people of Andorra pay a tribute of $200 a year to France, and $90 a year to the Bishop. Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. JJJ THE CARPATHIANS Fig. 401. In this landscape in southern Switzerland, what do you see that shows Switzerland to be a well- 506. An island of cared-for country? forest in a sea of farms. Railroads — To what country do the Carpathians be- long? These mountains are not so high as the other three mountain systems of southern Europe. Their tops have Alpine pastures, but no snow-capped peaks. The mountains are mostly ridges covered with rather poor, sandy soil, and having great forests that have been well cared for by the governments of Hungary and Rumania. The chief products are wood, hogs fattened on acorns and beech nuts, and sheep which pasture on the high places in summer and go to the low plains of Hungary and Rumania for winter feeding. 256 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Photo. International Film Service, N. Fig. 402. Bringing milk down from the Alpine pas- tures. How may it be exported? IV. — The Caucasus 507. A region of many races. — This moun- tain system has the highest ranges in Europe. Some peaks are over three and a half miles above the sea. Less rain falls upon these mountains than upon the Pyrenees and the Alps, so the lower slopes are not quite so good for farming. The Caucasus is a wild part of the world. In the thick forests of the remote sections, the hunter may still find bears, panthers, tigers, wild goats, wild hogs, deer, and even the European bison. On both sides of this region roving tribes of nomads have lived for ages, and the Caucasus has been the scene of many wars between bands of people fighting for homelands. So many different peoples have worked their way in here, that it is said that in the city of Tiflis seventy-two languages and dialects are spoken. Less than a hundred years have passed since the Russians conquered this region and dimin- ished the fighting among the different peoples. The people are farmers and shepherds. They know little of factories, tourists, or schools. There are few roads other than trails anywhere in these mountains, and many of the tribes still live in far-away valleys where they have very little trade. Like the Douglas family, they must use the spinning wheel and the handloom, and make nearly everything they use. (Secs. 3, 4.) V. — The High Mountains of Scan- dinavia 508. The mountains of the north. — Europe has one more high mountain region, which is off by itself in Norway and Sweden — the Scandinavian Mountains. They are not so high as the Alps, but they are so far north that they have the same zones of climate as do the Alps, with large areas of snow- field. In summer, the farmers of Norway, on one side of the mountains, and of Sweden, on the other side, drive their cattle, sheep, and goats to the upland pastures, as do the Swiss. The rough land and the cool, moist winds from the Atlantic make farming almost impos- sible and haying very difficult. (Fig. 330.) Some of the hayfields are in places which are so steep and rocky that a wagon cannot reach them, so the hay is brought down on Fig. 403. A cyclone on its way from western France to north central Russia. Be sure you understand the series of cyclone maps shown, Figs. 59 to 62. What kind of wind and weather is this cyclone making at Bordeaux? at Copenhagen? at Geneva? at Vienna? on the south slope of the Alps? When the center “L” has moved to Czechoslovakia, what will the wind and weather be on the north side of the Alps? It will do the same for the Carpathians as it does for the Alps. Can you explain now why west Europe is a well- watered region? THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF EUROPE 257 Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 404. Lugano, on Lake Lugano, in the Swiss Alps near the Italian border. little overhead trolleys that run on wires stretched from high cliffs. It is no wonder that the people who have been able to make a living in such a hard country become prosperous when they go to a land of better opportunity, such as the United States and Canada. 509. Water power. — This mountain region is rich in water power, which is its greatest resource. What do you know about its rainfall? (Fig. 318.) The streams that come down from Scandinavian snowfields and glacial lakes have much water and many waterfalls. Some of the best water-power plants in the world are there, and many more can be built. If the people should fully de- velop the water power, what will they do with it? Will they make textiles and other ar- ticles that require many workers and many cities, or . will they use the electricity in elec- tric furnaces which require few workers to smelt iron ore, or will they use it to make ni- trates for fertilizer? (Sec. 256.) In these northern lands the winter is so long, cold, and dark that it is not as pleasant a place in which to live and work as are England, France, the Low Countries, and western Germany. At present the furnace, not the factory, uses most of the Scandinavian water power. ,Tliere is a plan to carry electric power by cable from the mountains of Norway under the sea to Denmark, whose flatness leaves her almost entirely without water power. Thus the Kiolen Mountains, like the Si- erra and the Alps, may send the means of livelihood to people who never saw their snow-clad summits or forest-clad slopes. 510. The future of these high mountains. — For the future, as in the present, all these high mountain ranges of Europe must remain for the most part in forests and partly in pastures, with farms only in the little valleys and on the lower slopes. The forests on the Alps and those on the French side of the Pyrenees are as well cared for as any in the world. The Spanish and Russian forests have been neglected, and can be greatly improved if the governments are made more efficient. In these mountain regions there is one great resource yet largely unused — water power. It has been only a short time since we learned how to make wheels strong enough to use big waterfalls or high waterfalls. It has been only a short time, also, since we learned how to turn the power into electricity and to carry it on wires to places far away. We have only begun to do these things. It is estimated that France alone has Fig. 405. A waterfall, penstocks (Fig. 261), and powei! plant in the Scandinavian Mountains. Can you trace the wagon road? 258 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS enough waterfalls on the north slope of the Pyrenees and on the west slope of the Alps to make power every minute, night and day, equal to 7,000,000 horses working at their best. If France had to get that much power from coal, it would take about 40,- 000,000 tons a year, which is about twice as much coal as France digs in a year. There is unused water power, also, on the south slope of the Pyrenees, in the Swiss and the Austrian Alps, in the Caucasus, and in Scan- dinavia. Recently, plans have been made to build big water-power plants in all of these moun- tains, and doubtless many such plants will be built, and the power may be carried by wire to distant places. The Pacific States show the way to do this (Fig. 194) ; so does Italy. In north Italy, water wheels in the Alps furnish light and power for the cities of Milan and Turin. The Europeans speak of this power from the snowfields as “ white coal”. It lasts longer than black coal, be- cause nature furnishes anew supply each year. Europe does not have much coal. It is possible that thousands of years hence, when the mines of England, Germany, and Penn- sylvania have yielded all their coal, the beautiful mountain barriers of Europe will still have their zones of snowfields, their zones of pastures, and their zones of forests. Their valleys may be filled with gardens and nestling towns and cities, where millions of people may work in factories and live in houses heated and lighted by electricity which comes from distant waterfalls. QUESTIONS 1. Name all the countries that are included or partly included in these regions. 2. Compare the sports of Switzerland with those of England. Which do you think you would most enjoy? 3. Would it be better for farming in Finland if the Kiolen Moun- tains ran parallel with the Pyrenees? Why? 4. Why do so few people live on the tops of high mountains? What region previously studied do these tops of high mountains most resemble? Why? 5. Give three reasons why the Swiss people are to be admired. 6. What is the most mountainous country in Europe? Through what four large rivers does the snow from the summit of the Alps find its way to the sea? Are the mountains of Europe a hindrance or a help to the countries? When answering, consider (a) the effect of the mountains upon climate and rainfall; ( b ) isolation; (c) communication; (d) natural re- sources; and (e) the resulting effects upon the cus- toms and the life of the people. 8. Why have the Basques, the original inhabitants of the Pyrenees, never been dislodged from their land? 9. Tell why you think there is less travel in the Austrian Alps than in the Swiss Alps? 10. What is meant by the snow line? Why is the snow line higher in the Caucasus than in the Pyrenees and the Alps? How would the height of the snow line of the Kiolen Mountains com- pare with the height of the snow line in the Caucasus? Why? 11. If you took a trip to Switzerland, what curios would you expect to bring back? 12. Would you like to go to the Scandinavian Mountains to live? Give a reason for your answer. 13. What advantage would it be to the people of the United States, if the water power of these European mountain regions were used to run factories? 14. If possible, get the record, “Shepherd Life in the Alps,” and play it on the vic- trola. See how large a collection of pictures of European mountains you can borrow from friends, and bring them to class. 15. Sum up Switzerland’s advantages for trade under the following headings: Raw Materials. Transportation Facilities. Articles Manufactured. Coast Line. 16. Why do the Carpathians have less water power in summer than the other high mountains? 17. Grass grows very quickly where summer snow melts on high mountains. Can .you explain how this can be so? Name some of the lakes of Switzerland; the principal cities; three of the famous mountain peaks. 18. Why is Switzerland a good place for the seat of the League of Nations? 19. See what you can find out about the famous statue, The Lion of Lucerne. Photo. Keystone View Co., N. Y. Fig. 406. Guild halls, several hundred years old, fac- ing a public _ square in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Ger- many. This is one of many quaint old cities with many interesting sights in the Central European Uplands. THE CENTRAL 'EUROPEAN UPLANDS 259 CENTRAL EUROPEAN UPLANDS 511. Location and character. — A wide region of low mountains and valleys lies like an arch north of the Alps. On the east it reaches almost to the Carpathians, and on the southwest almost to the Pyrenees. What regions does it touch? As the sharp Alps may be likened to our sharp Rockies, so this Central European Upland, composed of old, rounded mountains, may be likened to our Appalachian region and the Adirondacks. It has few long, paral- lel ridges like the Alleghenies, but has, instead, a number of old plateaus into which the rivers have worn many irregular valleys. 512. People, history, and government. — Just as our Appala- chians reach through several states, so the Central European Highlands are a part of several different countries. Name them. What languages are spoken? The central west in- cludes the well-known French departments (corresponding to our states) of Alsace and Lorraine, which the Germans and French have in turn taken from each other by . wars. Between France and Germany is Luxemburg, a tiny state which remained independent when the other German states united to form the German Empire. In the French and Belgian sections, much of the land is in small farms. So great is the peasant-owner’s love of his land that during the World War families sometimes stayed on their farms even while the enemy was bombarding them. East of the Rhine are the well-known German states of Bavaria, the capital of which is Munich; Wurtemburg, the capital of which is Stuttgart; and many smaller states. The northern part of the highlands com- prises a part of the German state of Prussia, and the eastern part of Bohemia. The Bohemians, called Czechs, with their chief city at Prague, are one of the many Slav races. After the Czechs had been ruled for many long years by the German-speaking Aus- trians, the World War made their country again independent, and added to it the lands of the Slovaks, another Slavic people. Czecho- slovakia now has a parliament and a president. Name the capital. 513. A beautiful, well- kept land. — These Central Highlands of Europe are beautiful and well-kept. From lookouts on a thousand hills the traveler may see down into valleys where the unfenced little fields lie spread out in patches showing many shades of green, yellow, and brown. Through every valley goes a shining white road, passing like a great ribbon through one farm village after another, each with its shade trees and church spire, and surrounded by its many well-tilled little fields. Here and there we see a city, with factory smokestacks, and boats on a river. Perhaps it took generations of labor for men to make the stream into a useful waterway. From the lookout you can walk along a well-leveled forest path to a pic- Courtesy U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 407. Middle-aged spruce forest, Austria. What do the stumps tell you? 260 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS turesque little inn or coffeehouse, whose keeper seems glad to make you comfortable. 514. Ease of travel. — Fortunately for the people who live in this region, several large rivers have made wonderful thoroughfares through it. No valley here is as long as the Great Valley that passes through our own Appalachians, but these European valleys are even better highways because they can be used by boats. Trace the course of the rivers Rhone, Seine, and Rhine. Observe how close together their upper waters are. Canals have been cut to join the three rivers, and boats can pass from one river to another. The Rhine Valley is a highway by which boats can cross this entire upland region from Switzerland to the sea. What cities are on the Rhine? By way of what river do boats from Hamburg pass into the Bohemian plain? A canal connects this river with the Danube. The Danube furnishes an east and west thoroughfare through the highlands. A canal connects it with a branch of the Rhine called the Main. Besides these routes for transportation by water, there are many railroads in this region. 515. Mountains called forests.-— What dif- ferent mountain ranges can you name in this region? Many of these mountains are so well covered with forest that they are spoken of not as mountains but as forests. Thus Germany has the Black Forest (in Ger- man “Wald”). There are many others. 516. Forestry.— Since this region has been settled for hundreds of years, and has a dense population (see the table below), the people have been compelled to cultivate their land well, and to take good care of their for- ests. A hundred years ago there was almost a wood famine here because sheep and cattle and forest fire had been allowed to eat up the little trees, as they so often do in America. Area and Population of Some Upland States Political Dlvision. Area in Sq. Miles. Population. People to Sq. Mile. Czechoslovakia 56,316 13,914,000 249 Bavaria 30,562 6,962,000 236 Wurtemburg 7,534 2,438,000 323 Seven departments of France in the Cevennes 17,046 2,187,000 118 Pennsylvania 44,832 8,720,017 194 West Virginia 24,022 1,463,701 61 What timber there was had been carelessly cut. With this neglect of forest, wood became scarce and so costly that the European people began to think about these things, and resolved to take better care of their forests. They have made great changes in one hundred years. You can now travel in this region for days without seeing bare mountainsides made deso- late by fires, such as are so common in almost every American state. Wood is so costly in that . densely peopled land that the forests are planted with little trees three or four feet apart, much as we plant corn. When the tree- trunks are the size of a man’s wrist, some of them are cut to be used for bean poles and fence palings. Courtesy U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 408. Austrian forestry students having a class. What are some of them doing? Why is it a good thing for a country to have students of forestry? THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN UPLANDS 261 Fig. 410. land be When those that remain are the size of an arm, some are cut for firewood. Thus the forests are cut over many times, until finally only a crop of sawlogs remains. When the last trees are cut, every scrap is used. Even the twigs are taken to the bakery to make a quick fire that will bake crisp-crusted bread. Then the forest is planted out again to raise another crop. In this region the forester is a very impor- tant man; he goes about with his dog at his heels, taking care of the precious trees of the beautiful forest. 517. Agriculture. — What Europe has done with these low mountains we shall some day have to do with our eastern highlands. The people cultivate as much of the Central European Upland as they can. The valleys are in farms, most of them small with no fences between them. Some of the hillsides also are cultivated, and there are farms on many level hilltops. Long ago, be- fore Australia, Argentina, and many other distant lands began to produce wool for the European market, many flocks of sheep were kept on the hilly pastures of the Central High- lands. Now, instead of sheep, goats and cows are usually kept because these animals give milk, while wool can- be imported from foreign lands. To feed the animals in winter, large crops of hay, barley, oats, and beets are grown. It is too cold for corn, and little wheat is grown, except in the French section along the upper Rhone. Rye is often grown on the uplands. Fig. 409. Five leading nations in production of beet sugar, 1913. Short tons A. Germany 2,900,000 B. Austria-Hungary . 2,090,000 C. Russia 1,340,000 D. France 950,000 E. United States 690,000 Courtesy U. S. Dept. Agr. An Austrian forest called the Vienna Forest. Why should this in forest? The foreground is young forest. The background is mature forest being clean cut, ready to start another. The poorest part of the whole region is the upland of the Cevennes west of the Rhone, much of which is only a poor pasture. Many of the hillsides sloping south are covered with orchards and vineyards. The most famous wine-producing section is near the upper Rhone in France, in the province of Burgundy. It is called the “Cote d’Or,” meaning “side of gold,” because the valuable grapes from its hillsides have brought in so much money. The largest agricultural section of this whole region is in the valley of the upper Elbe, the Bohemian plain around Prague. Here the patient workers weed by hand the little beets which in autumn will make the rich harvest of beet sugar, enough for their own dense population and much to spare for export. Great quantities of potatoes, barley, oats, and rye are also grown, for much food is needed where so many people live, and the small farms have to be intensively cultivated. 518. Mining and manufacturing. — There is a small coal field and some iron ore in the French highland west of the Rhone. These resources have made the French town of St. Etienne a famous iron-manufacturing center. Many French cannon have been 262 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Photo. Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 411. A street in Prague. Locate the city. Of what country is it the capital? produced there. The French town of Nancy is also an iron-manufacturing center. One of the great iron-ore regions of the world is in Lorraine. It produces much of the ore for French, German, and Belgian furnaces (Sec. 448). Longwy and Briey are ore- mining districts. The most important field of good coal is in the valley of the Saar River, which is a branch of the Rhine. This valua- ble field belongs to Germany, but the exclusive right of mining coal for fifteen years was given to France in 1919 by the Paris Peace Conference, to help pay for the French mines near Lille which the Germans had destroyed during the World War. Czechoslovakia has coal fields in connec- tion with which have grown up industries in iron, glass, and steel. 519. Fine goods. — Since this Central Up- land region has less coal than England, and since it does not enjoy the advantage of being situated near the sea, its people have had to make the most of small things. There are so many people that labor is cheap, and much work is done by hand, such as toy mak- ing and wood carving. Most of the toys we had before the World War came from this region, and most of the canaries in our cages came from the Hartz Mountains, where the people raise birds in their homes. The city of Jena has a great factory famous for the manufacture of field glasses, opera glasses, and microscopes. Lyons manufactures much silk. Why do you think that the industries of this beautiful upland region should be some- what like those of New England? (Sec. 316.) 520. Trade and transportation. — This re- gion cannot greatly increase its output of wood or of food, because the forests and farms are already so carefully used. There is little coal, and it is not of the best quality, but there are great quantities of iron ore in Alsace and Luxemburg. This will continue to furnish a great export to the iron furnaces of Germany, Belgium, and France. (Sec. 448.) If manufacturing cities increase in the uplands, it will be the result of the great labor men have done and are still doing to build railroads, dig canals, and deepen rivers. Manufacturing can prosper only where there is good transportation. The French have begun to make a barge route from Switzerland to the Mediterranean by way of the Rhone River. The project will require twelve or fifteen years for comple- tion, but when finished the route will be as good as that furnished by the Rhine (Sec. 445) from Switzerland to the North Sea. It will permit boats much like those of the New York Barge Canal to go from Mar- seille to the Swiss boundary. Not only will the River Rhone be improved for navi- gation, but water-power plants will be built for manufacturing, and several hundred thousand acres of land will be irrigated, so that agriculture may be much more in- tensive, and several crops a year be grown. These two waterways, to the north and to the south, will be a help to Switzerland as well as to the Central Highlands through which they pass. 521. Tourists.— Among Europeans, a fa- THE BALKAN MOUNTAIN REGION 263 vorite way of spending a summer vacation is that of taking walking trips through these forested highlands, stopping for the night at comfortable inns which offer inexpensive hospitality. Before the World War tens of thousands of people, carrying knapsacks, enjoyed themselves in that way. Among these travelers were many groups of school- children with their teachers. There are ex- cellent roads and many good paths in the shady forest. The summer climate is cool, and the distances are short enough to make walking trips a pleasure in these highlands. Almost every town is in beautiful surround- ings and has a local organization called the “Beautifying Union,” that marks historic spots with monuments, and lays out walks, parks, and pleasure grounds. Travelers will continue to bring income to parts of this region, where hotelkeeping has become an art. QUESTIONS 1. What countries of Europe lie in the Central Upland Region? 2. What makes the Rhine so pic- turesque? 3. Do you think it would be an easy river to cross? Wdiat is its greatest use? 4. Describe some scenes as one sails down it. 5. Why was the loss of Bohemia a great blow to Austria? Tell of its wealth in agriculture, mining, and manufacturing. 6. On what river is its capital city? 7. Tell the story of your travels as you go with a cargo of Czechoslo- vakian goods to Manchester from Prague. 8. Name five products your ship is carrying. 9. Name five prod- ucts she will bring on the return voyage. 10. Should Austria rule the Czechoslovaks? 11. Why are the vineyards planted on the south-sloping hillsides? 12. How is land protected from erosion in this region? 13. What does the Elbe do for the trade of Czecho- slovakia? 14. Name the countries of central Europe that must send their exports through another country. 15. How might this condition lead to war? 16. How should such trade be controlled? 17. Make a list of and locate all the coal fields in this region. 18. What makes Alsace-Lorraine so desirable to France and Germany? 19. After the World War, how did the peasant of France show his love for his devastated homeland? What countries use the River Rhine to carry their freight? 20. Fill in as many facts as you can about one important city in each country of this region: City. Country. Chief Industry. For What Especially Noted. 21. Of what value to agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce will be the French improvements on the Rhone? 22. What countries will be benefited? 23. Fill in the following diagram: River. Source. Flows Empties Cities Through. Into. on It. Rhine. . . Elbe .... Rhone.. . 24. Tell about a cheap vacation trip you would like to take in the Central European Uplands: about a more expensive one. Photo. Keystone View Co., N. Y. Fig. 412. Balkan peasant women spinning flax. THE BALKAN MOUNTAIN REGION 522. An isolated region. — The region of the Balkan Peninsula is very different indeed from the Central European Uplands. Travel is very difficult there. So many rivers have cut deep valleys in the Central European Uplands that boats can go to the interior by several routes. (Sec. 514.) In the Balkan Peninsula there is only one navi- gable river. This mountain region is the most shut-in and isolated part of Europe. The mountains of the Balkan Peninsula are not a range or a plateau. They are for the most part a jumble of mountains which often shut people in from all the world and separate the different groups of peoples each from the other. The life of the peoples who live here is more backward or primitive than it would be if the same people could 264 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Courtesy The American Red Cross society Fig. 413. A view of Serajevo, a city in Bosnia, long a part of the Turkish Empire, later taken by Austria, but now a part of Yugoslavia because the people are Serbs. The sharp minaret and dome show Turkish influence. live somewhere else where means of com- munication are easier. Many of the Balkan Mountains are made of limestone rock with the usual caves and under- ground passages into which surface waters disappear, to come out miles away as large springs. (Sec. 21.) Thus, some sections have no surface streams at all, and it is hard for the people to get drinking water. In a few places one finds a valley having a flowing stream. But suddenly the stream disappears and the traveler is surprised to find that it flows underneath a mountain, and because there is no valley the traveler must climb over the mountaintop to reach the other side. • The high mountain wall of the Dinaric Alps shuts both travelers and streams away from the Adriatic shore. (Sec. 548.) Where do most of the streams that drain the region near the Adriatic finally go? The best way to understand the Balkan countries is to think of them as being a large region somewhat like a rough and moun- tainous plateau. (Sec. 3.) It is very diffi- cult to make either highways or railroads through such a mass of mountains and shut-in valleys; and for this reason many people in the Balkans live in places to which they can travel or carry freight only on the backs of animals. 523. A backward region. — Such an isolated country is a hard place in which to make a good living, and the people have been further handicapped by wars and unjust rulers. The Albani- ans seem to have been the original race. No one knows when they came, but their land is so rough and difficult for the traveler that it has never been thoroughly con- quered. The Greeks took the TEgean shores four thousand years ago. Later came the South Slavs, who took the territory to the north of Albania; then came the Bulgars, who took the land to the east; and finally, in 1453, the Turks came across from Asia Minor, captured Constantinople, and took possession of most of the Balkan region; but even they never succeeded in ruling some of the Albanians or the people of the Black Mountains (Montenegro) just north of Albania. 524. The Turkish Empire. — For more than five hundred years the peoples of the Balkans suffered from the unjust and cruel oppres- sion of the Turks. In the height of their power the Turks had a large empire, reaching from the Persian Gulf to the Danube. It also included most of North Africa. Then one by one the peoples gained their independence. The Greeks living in Athens and the parts of Greece to the south of Athens became free early in the 19th Cen- tury. By a gradual process, ending in 1878, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Serbia, which is now a part of Yugoslavia, became almost or quite self-governing, but Turkey still had a strip of territory extending from the Black Sea to the Adriatic. Turkish rule lasted so long because of the jealousies of England, France, THE BALKAN MOUNTAIN REGION Germany, Italy, and Russia. The govern- ments of these five big countries let the sultan rule in the Balkans and live in Con- stantinople, because all feared that his removal would upset the balance of power by letting some strong nation get this key- point to southern Europe and Asia. In 1912-13 all the Balkan countries joined in a war against Turkey, and together they took more territory away from the sultan. After the World War, these countries were again enlarged in the attempt to let each people rule itself. Even this change has not ended the troubles of these peoples, because in many localities people of different races are so mixed up that it seems impossible for any Balkan country to become one people. Perhaps in one village the people are Greeks, in the next Turks, in the next Bulgars or Serbs or Albanians. In the southern part of the Morava-Vardar passage- way, or corridor (Sec. 525), ease of travel has made the people a mixture of races. For two thousand years the south central part of the Balkans has been called Mace- donia, because a kingdom of that name was there in very ancient days. Later it became part of the territory ruled by the Turks. The southern part, inhabited chiefly by Greeks, was given to Greece in 1919, after the World War. On the level prairies of Canada or the United States, it is easy for people to move about and thus to get acquainted and to understand each other. For this reason we can have in America one government ruling a territory larger than four or five of the jealous Balkan countries. 525. The Morava-Vardar corridor. — There is, however, one open valley extending the entire width of the region. (Fig. 385.) It is the valley of the Morava, a river that flows north to the Danube near Belgrade, and near its source almost joins the valley of the Vardar River, which flows southward to the Aegean Sea near the port of Saloniki. The waters of these two streams are so near together that the Germans planned to join them by a canal when they were in possession of the 265 country during the World War. The Serbians hope to complete the canal. This Morava-Vardar valley is one of the world’s oldest thoroughfares. No one knows when bands of migrating people first began to go through it. Four thousand years ago the Greeks passed this way from the region of Odessa to their new home on the shores of the Aegean Sea. In Roman times one of the great Roman roads went up this valley to the provinces on the Danube, and Uskub (or Skoplje), then as now, was a trading center on a much-used route. During the World War the German and Allied Armies fought up and down the valley for possession of the Balkans. Express trains from Paris and Berlin to Constantinople run through the Morava Valley and turn east to Sofia. 526. Governments. — Yugoslavia is the country of the South Slavs. “Yug” (pro- nounced “yoog”) means south. The South Slavs are really three peoples very much alike and called the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The different states of Yugoslavia unite to elect a king and parliament, very much as the various states of the United States unite to elect a president and congress. Bulgaria and Greece have each a king and a parliament. The people of Albania still live in tribes having chiefs. The Albanians are such very independent people that they do not know how to cooperate. Many of them will not even pay taxes, so their country cannot have roads or schools or hospitals or other things found in more progressive countries. An American relief worker, writing about his Albanian headquarters in 1920, said, “ The first fortification is a barbed-wire fence. Inside of this is a half-wild dog. Then comes a brick wall two feet thick peppered with gun holes. There is another dog inside this wall. Then comes the house. The door is massive oak held by a lock, an inside bar, and a hidden catch. The bottom floor has no windows and is used only for stock. The second floor has only very small windows, but the third floor has fairly good-sized windows. Every window has a thick, 266 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Courtesy American Friends' Service Committee. Photo. J. L. Lippincott Fig. 414. How would you travel down this Balkan Valley if the tunnels were not there? The Germans dug these tunnels during the World War. fairly bullet-proof shutter. The walls of the house are about a yard thick.” What does that house tell you of Albania’s past? 527. Agriculture and manufacturing. — The unfortunate peoples of the Balkans have escaped from the rule of the Turk so recently that many of the people are still poor and uneducated, although their lands are rich in undeveloped resources. Before the World War more than one million people' from 1 Yugoslavia alone had gone to the United States, seeking a better chance to make a living and to be free. Owing to bad government and the lack of chance to trade, eighty to ninety per cent of the people of the Balkans are obliged not only to till the soil, but to do most of their own manufacturing windy> winter day> In these sheltered nooks many crops can be grown much farther north than one would expect to find them. (1) One of the warm nooks is south of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in southern Spain. It contains the garden spots of Malaga and Almeria, rich in fruit like Pasadena (Sec. 180). (2) Another warm sheltered nook is the Riviera, along the Gulf of Genoa, in Italy. It is on the express-train route from Paris to Rome, and has become a famous pleasure region. Many of the people from north Europe and elsewhere spend part of the government, better education for the people, and scientific methods in agriculture. 547. Climate. — You remember (Sec. 65) that the United States lies in the zone of pre- vailing westerly winds. Europe does also. Just as California has winter rains and sum- mer drought, so has the Mediterranean Region, and for the same reason. (Secs. 182, 193.) We may think of this region as the California of the Old World, so similar are the two regions in climate and products. In southern California, we found that the forests grew only on the higher mountains. It is the same in the Mediterranean Region. Frosts are com- mon in winter, but snow comes seldom. In spring the land is green with grass. In summer the sun shines without mercy for days and weeks and months. The grass withers; almost the whole region is brown. In summer, dust rises from the roads and settles on everything. Pasturing ani- mals climb far away to the mountain pastures to get fresh grass. The heat of . Photo. Keystone View Co., N. Y. ,, . Fig. 431. San Remo, a pleasure resort on the Riviera. Here the leading tne summer noon IS SO men of Europe held many important conferences following the World War. THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION 277 is the so much winter there, much as our people visit Florida and California. The little patches of land that lie between the mountains and the sea are clustered thick with villages, gar- dens, and hotels. (3) Along the east shore of the Adriatic is a warm coast called Dalmatia, shel- tered by the Dinaric Alps. This region, though fa- mous for the beauty of its steep mountain landscapes and for its rich gardens, is not so easily reached as Riviera, and therefore is not visited. (4) Other strange little areas of warm lands lie along the south slopes of the Caucasus and the Crimean Mountains, north of the Black Sea. The Crimea is as far north as Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Augusta, Maine, but the high mountain wall to the north and the sea to the south give it such a warm winter that it has a heavy export of oranges, figs, and pomegranates. 549. Desert winds. — The Mediterranean Region has one trouble that does not come so often to California. It has the desert wind. From the great desert of the Sahara a hot wind, called the sirocco, may sometimes blow for two or three days at a time. It dries up the crops in Spain and Italy. On the island of Madeira, off the coast of North Africa, this wind is called I’este (the east), and it has been known to bring ruin to the grape crop of that populous little island. 550. Climate and men. — We have seen that the Med- Fineh & Baker, u. s. Dept. Agr. iterranean Region Fig. 432 . As in all countries of has a rainy winter scanty rain, only a tiny fraction an( ] spring and a of the land can be irrigated. . TT Contrast with Fig. 130. dry summer. How Courtesy U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 433. Peasants in southern Italy making hay with American mowing machines. Chicago furnishes many such machines to Europe. do people live in such a countiy? We shall see many ways in which this climate decides what man must do. 551. Mediterranean food. — The common- est meal in America is bread and butter, meat, and potatoes. The commonest meal in the Mediterranean region consists of bread, olive oil, beans, and some green vegetables. We have already found (Sec. 133) that the winter rain suits wheat and barley well. Therefore the hills and plains in the moister, northern parts are green with wheat in the spring, and yellow with its harvest in early summer. In the drier southern parts barley, which looks much like wheat, but needs less rain, often takes the place of wheat as a crop. As this whole region has many people to the square mile (table, p. 278), the need for bread has made them work very hard to raise grain. They sometimes grow grain in most difficult places, even in little patches of ground on mountainsides where the plow cannot go, and where the ground must be broken up with a spade or a fork. At har- vest the grain is cut with a sickle, and car- ried down the mountain on the backs of men or donkeys. In spite of all this labor, no part of the Mediterranean lands except North Africa produces enough wheat for the bread it needs. Does corn, the great forage grain of America, grow well in the Mediterranean climate? (Sec. 203.) 278 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 434. Portuguese peasants beating corn from the cobs with flails. Are wages high or low here? Why? (Sec. 551.) We can now see that people in these countries have hard work to get enough to eat. Animals cannot get corn, as animals do in the United States, or potatoes, as they do in Germany. Then, too, the population is so dense that the small farms must be used Table of Areas, Population, and Density of Population in Europe and the United States Country. Area, Sq. Miles. Population. People to Sq. Mile. Spain 194,780 21,000,000 106 Portugal 35,490 6,000,000 329 Italy 110,632 36,000,000 326 Greece 41,933 4,821,000 115 United States. . . 2,974,000 105,972,000 35.5 California 155,652 3,426,000 22 to raise food for men instead of food for animals. Therefore, not having animals, instead of meat people eat many varieties of beans, some of which are unknown to us in the United States. Many different kinds of vegetables are abundantly produced. 552. Fish. — The pounding sound one often hears in the towns of these countries is not made by the carpenter. Someone is pound- ing a hard, dried codfish from Norway or Newfoundland, getting it ready to cook. Because dried codfish keeps well in hot weather it is a very important food in Mediterranean countries, where there is so little meat. On the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal, quanti- ties of sardines are caught. Enough sardines are packed each year at the port of Vigo for every person in the United States to have a box. 553. Irrigation. — In the Mediterranean Region one often hears a creaking sound. It is the noria, a simple machine by means of which a donkey, walking in a circle, lifts water from a well or cistern. This water is used to irrigate a little patch of ground so that vegetables may grow in the dry summer. The Bible, which was written in parts of the Mediterranean region, often speaks of wells and cisterns, and tells of watering the gardens. Irrigation is greatly needed in all this region, but in only a few places is there water enough for a large area. One of these places is at Granada, in southern Spain. Granada is fed by snow water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains. For this reason this old capital of an ancient kingdom in . Spain has, for centuries, been famous for its rich crops. At the mouth of several of the Spanish rivers are famous irrigated sections, such as Malaga, Almeria, and Valencia. Here the skilful Spanish gardeners grow crop after crop of vegetables in the early spring and during the long summer. In a thousand other valleys, the careful watchers of water irri- gate tiny patches of g a r d e n vegetables. There are many little -u ix jL>aa.eiy u. u. JL/cpu. ngi. . I r Fig- 435. European citrus fruit acre- patcnes or a g e- Find some places in North irrigated America that have the same latitude , , as the northernmost of these orange corn, but groves. THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION 279 the total Mediterranean crop is only a third as much as in some of our American states. Yet corn is a very important article of food in these countries, because it is cheaper than wheat and is also very nourishing. In all this region corn can only be grown without irri- gation on the Atlantic shores of northern Spain and northern Portugal. In a few favored spots where irrigation is possible, such as southern Italy, Sicily, and Valencia, in Spain, the orange is largely grown. Sicily produces most of the lemons used in Europe and some of those used in the United States. In the late spring, while the Dutch, the Germans, and the British are wearing over- coats in their damp, raw, foggy weather, the stevedores on the wharves of Malaga, Va- lencia, Palermo, and Naples are singing under a sunny sky as they trundle boxes of fruit and vegetables on board ships, bound for the English Channel or beyond, f The Po Valley is by far the greatest agricultural district of the Mediterranean world. Like the valley of California, this wide, level plain was filled in by water-borne soils. On the north the valley is walled in by snow-clad mountains, from whose top streams of snow water pour down in summer. This abundant moisture (Sec. 510) on the rich plain of Lombardy (the Po Valley) helps the busy men and women to produce heavy crops of rice, vegetables, corn, and hay. 554. Crops of the dry lands. — Since there is water enough to irrigate only a tiny frac- tion of the dry land, what do the people grow besides wheat and barley, fruit and vege- tables? It is plain that they must have crops that can stand drought. Fortunately, there are many such, among them the grape, the olive, the fig, and the almond. All of these d r o u g ht- resisting crops are very impor- tant in the Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Qgjjfomia fig. 436. Olive acreage of some of the . , Mediterranean lands. °t the Uid © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 437. Picking olives in Palestine. See the rocky hills in the background. How long has this industry been in Palestine? World, as well as in the California of the New World. These crops can endure drought better than some others, because their large, long roots reach deep into the earth for moisture, and store the nourishment of one year to help make a crop the next year. The writers of the Old Testament often speak of the vineyard, the vine, the vine dresser (or tender), the fig tree, oil (olive oil), and wine. 555. Grapes. — On mainland and island, from the western coast of Portugal to the hills of Palestine, the vine dresser may be seen at work. Vineyards cover a very large part of the land in all these countries. Grapes, one of the chief exports of Spain, may be shipped as fresh fruit, as raisins, or as wine. Wine has long been a leading export of Italy and Algeria. Little dried grapes, which are called currants when we buy them in boxes at the stores, are the chief export of Greece. 556. The olive. — The human body needs some kind of fat as a part of its food. We can get fat from meat, butter, or peanuts, from the rich kernels of nuts, and from oily seeds such as cottonseed. In lands of sum- mer rain like the Mississippi Valley, New England, the north European plain, and England, grass serves to feed the butter-yield- 280 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 438. Hauling Spanish cork from the forest. ing cow and helps to feed the bacon-yielding hog. In such places most of the people eat the fat of animals. But the Mediter- ranean lands are parched and dry in summer and there is little grass, corn, or potatoes, so the herds of cows and swine are few. In- stead of eating animal fats, the people eat vegetable fat in the form of olive oil. Every- where the gray green of the olive tree may be seen; from Lisbon to Rome, from Athens to Jerusalem, from the edges of the Sahara to the valleys of the Rhone and the Po. In autumn, when the people of Dakota and Manitoba are busy harvesting wheat, and the people of Iowa are busy with their corn, the people of the Mediterranean lands are very busy, too. They are gathering grapes and crushing them for wine; gathering olives and crushing them for oil. Olives are mashed or pounded into pulp and then are squeezed in the olive press. In some years, Spain actually makes more pounds of olive oil per person than we in the United States make of butter. In central Tunis, on the edge of the desert, where the rainfall is less than ten inches in a year, olive trees cover the plain as far as the eye can see. (Fig. 459.) The French and the Arabs of Tunis are beginning to restore orchards that were very large in Roman times. In those ancient times, tribute-ships crossed the Mediter- ranean with oil from Tunis and wheat from Egypt with which to feed the people of Rome. The olive tree is one of the most enduring pieces of property that men can possess. It is said that olive trees which stood in the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem at the time of Christ are still standing there. This is perhaps uncertain, but it is known that olive trees which were planted in Tunis by the Romans before 648 A. D., are still producing fruit. 557 . Figs and almonds. — If we had a Mediterranean garden, we should eat figs just as people in America eat apples and peaches. In the villages near the port of Smyrna, on the coast of Asia Minor, Turkish farmers raise quantities of figs, many of which go to New York. Figs are also the chief export from certain of the hilly districts of Algeria and from parts of eastern Spain. Many of the almonds which we import come from the Balearic Islands and the neighboring parts of Spain. In what parts of the United States do almonds and olives grow? (Sec. 197.) , 558 . Industries moved to America. — Trees and plants can be moved from one part of the world to another part that has similar climatic conditions. It was from the Old World California that the people of our own California received the first trees and vines and seeds of many crops that are now grown in California. We are raising more and more of all these crops which we once imported entirely from Europe. 559 . Tree crops on the mountains. — Since trees can thrive in steep and rocky land, if rainfall and temperature are suitable, the Mediterranean peoples have built up a rich tree-crop agriculture on steep mountainsides. Besides the olive, the chief tree crops of the mountains are the chestnut, the cork oak, and the acorn oak, and sometimes the Eng- lish walnut. The chestnut is the most wide- spread of all the tree crops. These trees are of choice varieties, and yield Fig. 439. Bushels of grain pro- duced per person (1911-13): A. Argentina 34.9 B. Italy 10.2 Does this explain anything about emigration? about the rate of wages? THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION 281 nuts nearly half as large as an egg. As food, chestnuts are to the Mediterranean moun- taineers what corn is to the mountaineer of the southern Appalachians — providing material for bread and porridge, food for animals, and also a crop to sell. Schools are closed during chestnut season, because boys and girls, as well as men and women, are busy picking up the nuts that fall in the groves. For a long time a mountainside chestnut orchard of Spain, France, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, or Corsica, has sold for as much per acre as the best corn land of Illinois, or for even more. In all the Mediterranean countries there is much land that is now pro- ducing only poor pasture or poor forest, which if put to tree crops would yield several times as much food as it now does. (Fig. 437.) 560. Cork. — Nearly half of the world’s supply of cork comes from the forests of oak trees in Portugal, and most of the rest of the cork comes from Spain, Algeria, and Tunis. Cork is the light outer bark which protects the tree from the sun’s heat and from fire. A valuable harvest is secured every nine or ten years. Then the barefooted corkgatherer climbs the tree to strip off the thick bark. Between cork har- vests, the shepherd pastures his goats beneath the trees and the swineherd leads his pigs out to fatten themselves on the acorns of the cork- oak tree. Indeed, more than half of the pork of Portugal is produced on acorns, instead of on corn as in America, or on potatoes as in Germany. 561. Animals of the dry land. — The dry climate of the Mediterranean has forced its people to use dry-land animals as well as dry-land crops. The horse and the cow require good pasture or rich hay. Since these foods are scarce in the Mediterranean world, that region is not as well suited to horses, cows, and sheep as it is to goats (Sec. 575) and donkeys. The goat can live on poor, dry herbage and still give much good milk. In many sections the entire milk supply is furnished by goats. The donkey is kept instead of the horse or the mule. Donkeys, like goats, can live on poor food and climb to rough pasture land. 562. Intensive agriculture.— In the Med- iterranean world, the people, in order to get a living, must use their land more fully than we do. In doing this they have in many lo- calities what may be called “ two-story farms”. This means that wheat, beans, vegetables, and other crops are grown under crop-yielding trees such as chestnuts, walnuts, olives, cherries, almonds, figs, oaks, or mulberries. In the Spanish island of Majorca about nine- tenths of all the cultivated land regularly produces these two sets of crops, one above the other. We can see how fully Italy uses her land by comparing her with the United States. If the United States had as many people and as many animals to the square mile as does Italy, we should have the same number of swine have that we now have, twice as many horses and mules, three times as many cattle, seven times as many sheep, and ten times as many people. 563. The Madeira, Canary, and Azores islands. — These are three groups of small islands in the Atlantic. They are the tops of mountains which long ago were pushed up out of the sea. They are located where the water-warmed winds make the winters warm and frostless and keep the summers from becoming very hot. These islands are even more densely peopled than Italy. The chief income is from bananas, oranges, tomatoes, and early vegetables, which are sent to the north European market in steamers that stop at the islands for coal on the way from South America and South Africa to Europe. 564. The two plateaus. — In the Mediter- m’, ■ -.v #H.y v _ r ,,* 4 # > ’ if . . ■ ]•. ; Photo. Keystone View Co., N. Y. Fig. 440. A shepherd with his flock on the hills of Judea. Name some Bible characters who may watched sheep here? 282 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS English of Shakespeare’s time called the Spanish swords “bilboes.” For a long time the people of Sicily shoveled most of the world’s sulphur out of old volcanoes, in which this mineral is always formed. Of late the sulphur deposits of our Cotton Belt have Fig. 441. The plan for one of the longest tunnels and greatest power plants surpassed those of Sicily, in the world. (Sec. 567.) What will limit the amount of water that can be used? .T _ (Sec. 49, Fig. 32.) Large ranean region are two large plateaus where the elevation makes winters so cold that the fruit, wine, and vegetable industries cannot exist. The interior of Spain is one of these plateaus. There the summer is very dry and hot; but at Madrid it is so cold in winter that people can skate, although oranges grow not far away on the coasts of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. This section has two great products: (1) wheat, and (2) great flocks of sheep that feed on scanty pastures. These sheep are chiefly of the merino breed. (Fig. 627.) The other plateau, much like that of Spain, lies in Africa, directly across the Mediter- ranean, in a place where the people look very different indeed from the Spanish (Sec. 546). This plateau, enclosed between the northern and southern ranges of the Atlas Moun- tains, is nearly one thousand miles long, and from one hundred to two hundred miles wide. It, too, is a land of pastures, parts of which may some day be rich in grain, if the region is used as fully as is Italy. 565. Minerals. — Minerals are an impor- tant part in the foreign trade of some Mediterranean districts. The quicksilver mines of Almaden and the copper mines of Rio Tinto, in Spain, have been worked for centuries and are still rich. The town which grew up around our own California quicksilver mines is called New Almaden. Southeastern Spain has many lead mines. On the Bay of Biscay, in northern Spain, is Bilbao, which ships much iron ore to Great Britain. For centuries Bilbao has been so famous for making excellent steel that the deposits of potash, still unworked, have recently been discovered in Spain. 566. Trade and manufacture. — In the midst of this region the Mediterranean waters furnish one of the great highways of world trade. Each year thousands of ships pass in through the rock-bound Strait of Gibraltar. Other ships pass in and out through the two gates on the east — the Dar- danelles and the Bosporus, and the Suez Canal. To what do these gates give en- trance? The Mediterranean Region is poor. It is not a land of opportunity. That is why so many of its people have emigrated to America. It is very poor in cotton, lumber, petroleum, and coal. It has but little water power, except in the Alps and in the Pyrenees. (Sec. 510.) What can a region like this sell when it has a dense popula- tion? The scarcity of raw materials and of power shows why the exports of all these countries have been largely farm products, wine, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, all of which are products of the small orchard or gar- den, and not of the large field. Ships from America and the Black Sea bring cotton and petroleum, wheat and com. The ships that come from northwestern Europe 44 f RainfaU °f bringing coal, machinery, inches per year. Can cotton cloth, and manufac- you , tel | f I on Vur ls . . , graph why the Bible tures stop on the way home speaks so often of cis- at Smyrna for figs; at tern , s > of watering T ,. „ „ , . gardens, and of cool Piraeus for Greek currants ; water? THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION 283 at Palermo and Naples for oranges and lemons; at Marseille and Algiers for wine; at Valencia for oranges, almonds, and onions; at Almeria and Malaga for grapes and raisins; at Cadiz, Lisbon, and Oporto for wine. In the spring and early summer there is much traffic in early vegetables, like the trade in this country from our southern states and California to our northern cities. In the attempt to find something to sell, the people of Milan make straw hats and in Lombardy and the Rhone Valley they have undertaken the great labor of making silk. This is one of the most intensive uses man can make of land. The Rhone Valley silk has helped Lyon to become one of the leading silk-manufacturing centers of the world. We shall study more about silk in Japan. (Sec. 664.) Of late years, Barcelona in Spain, and Turin, Milan, and Naples in Italy have be- come busy manufacturing centers, and Italy is now exporting cotton cloth, although the manufacturers who do not use water power must pay high prices for imported coal. Manufacturing is far less important in this region than it is in England, Switzer- land, or the Low Countries. A short time ago, Constantinople (Sec. 542), a city larger than Detroit, did not have a single smoke- stack. Many articles that are made in England by the use of machines are still being made by hand in parts of every Mediterranean country. 567. New sources of power. — Any large increase of population in the Mediterranean world must be supported by manufacturing. This requires power, and imported coal is very costly. Perhaps Italy can harness her volcanic forces. In a volcanic region near Florence, Italian engineers have learned to run steam engines with the heat of springs, whose water is made hot by the heated earth. This power is now taken by wire to Florence and other cities, and it is possible that Italy may get much power from the hot earth near volcanoes which have in the past only destroyed lives and property. Palestine has hopes of a great water-power plant on the shores of the Dead Sea. (Fig. 441.) The plan is to dig a tunnel 37 miles long from the Mediterranean to the cliffs overlooking the Dead Sea. Since this fast-evaporating sea is below the level of the Mediterranean, the sea water, after flowing through the tunnel, will fall to the level of the Dead Sea, which is a distance of 1292 feet, thus making power for one of the greatest power plants in the world. There is plenty of water in the Mediterranean. All the water of the Jordan may be used for irrigation. How would the drying of the Jordan be a help to the power plant? Power from such a plant might run factories to support thousands of people living within 300 miles, perhaps 500 miles, of the plant. If this project is carried out, Jerusalem may become more prosperous than she was in the days of King David or King Solomon. QUESTIONS 1. What is the western entrance into this region? Who controls this entrance? Who controls the gate- ways to Persia? to India? 2. Name the islands of the Mediterranean and tell to what countries they belong. 3. Name some of the cities of the eastern coast of the Adriatic; of its western coast; of the western coast of Italy; of the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Locate Smyrna, Sevastopol, Adrianople, and Marseille. 4. Write out a menu for a dinner you would order in Italy; in Chicago. 5. Why is the Mediterranean one of the world’s greatest highways of trade? 6. What kind of grapes get their name from a place in this region? 7. Why is olive oil more expensive to a consumer in eastern United States than cot- tonseed oil? 8. What is made in Milan from wheat straw? 9. Why are Mediterranean countries unable to produce sufficient wheat to supply all their people? 10. What uses are made of the tree crops of this region? 11. Why may the discovery of potash in Spain be of so much importance? 12. Make a graph comparing the density of population and of animals in Italy and in the United States? 13. Plan a pageant illustrating scenes one would witness as he passed from port to port from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Crimea. 14. What kind of wheat, spring or winter, grows in this section? Why? 15. When was Palestine put under the care of Eng- land? Whose name is connected with its deliverance from the Turk? 16. If you could visit only one country in this section, which would you choose? Why? 17. Describe the outgoing cargo on a ship sailing from the Piraeus. Describe the return cargo. Do the same thing for Palermo. 18. Where do you think Italy can most advantageously get her raw material for her cotton cloth? 19. Why have so many Mediterranean people emigrated? 284 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS THE GREAT HOT DESERT AND ITS OASES 568. Bounds and appearance. — South of the Mediterranean region is the Sahara, or Great Desert, as the Arabs call it. The desert of Arabia, east of the Sahara, is just another part of the same great desert region and separated from it by a narrow sea. What is the northern boundary of the desert? (Fig. 445.) The southern boundary is a climate boundary, where the rainfall gradually increases and the desert gradually changes into a land with bunch grass and bushes. Farther south the increasing rain makes a belt of grasslands, reaching across Africa from sea to sea. (Sec. 743, Fig. 552.) This desert of North Africa and South- west Asia is one of the largest natural regions in all the world. The distance from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea is greater than that from New York to San Francisco. From the Red Sea to the Persian Highlands beyond the Euphrates is as far as from New York to Chicago. A traveler crossing the desert on his camel might ride for days across bare rocks, from which the hot wind had blown every grain of sand. In other parts of the region he might travel for days across heaps of sand which are always drift- ing with the wind. The desert is not every- where the same. In some places the earth is bare; in other places where there is a little moisture, coarse tufts of grass and clumps of thorny bushes grow. Later we shall read about the oases (Secs. 578-582). 569. Climate. — Why is it that Europe is green with crops and forests, while just to the south of it, in Africa, millions of square miles are brown and bare? The winds make the difference. We have seen the effects of the trade wind (Sec. 379) as it blew across the Caribbean, and carried moist winds against the West Indian mountain- sides. In Africa this northeast trade wind blows across lowland, and becomes hotter and hotter as it goes toward the equator. This hot wind dries up the moisture from the land instead of giving it moisture. Thus the trade wind makes the Sahara a desert. Trade winds do this in other continents too. Geographers often speak of “Trade Wind Deserts.” (Secs. 776, 857). 570. Summer heat. — The sun heats the dry ground very hot. The air over it becomes so hot that it quivers like the air over a hot stove. The desert Arab wraps thick layers of wool around his head to keep out the heat. He wears a long, flowing robe, or burnoose, made of pure wool. At night he needs this woolen garment to keep him warm. The temperature is often 130° or 140° F. during the day, but there may be frost at night, because the sand cools off so quickly. In our country moisture and clouds at night keep the earth warm just as our clothes keep us warm. By watching the thermometer for a while in winter, you can notice that cloud- less nights are colder than cloudy ones. Traveling in the desert is often done at night, especially if the journey is short, or the traveler does not need to rush on with all speed to reach some distant spring. 571. Rain storms and dust storms. — In the winter the cyclones crossing the Mediter- ranean bring a few inches of rain to northern Arabia, Egypt, and the northern edge of the desert. No part of the Sahara is entirely rainless, but in some places years pass between showers. Thunder clouds sometimes form (Sec. 71), and rain may fall violently. But often the rain actually dries up before it reaches the earth. There are wind storms which gather clouds of sand and dust and drop them in burning hot, stifling showers. Sometimes people and animals perish in sandstorms. 572. Desert watercourses and lakes. — It seems strange to think of watercourses being in a desert, but many such are there. On the southern slope of the Atlas Mountains, in some of the highlands in central Sahara, and in central Arabia, streams flow at the time of the winter rains, but soon sink into the desert sands. Some of these streams run every year; some of them run but rarely. The watercourse that passes through the oasis of M’zab (Algeria) has flowed only twelve times in one hundred and fifty years. These THE GREAT HOT DESERT AND ITS OASES 285 Courtesy American Geographical Society, N. Y Fig. 443. A small caravan of camels crossing the desert. What goods may the caravan be carrying? old water-courses are often the best of roads and may be used in safety for years and years. Then suddenly a cloudburst may descend, turning the road into a raging torrent, which rises like a wall and rushes onward like the wind, overwhelming and sometimes drowning people. A traveler in central Arabia, speaking of a certain watercourse or “wadi,” says: “Never within the memory of man had the wadi been known to flow. But during the summer of 1917 a flood of exceptional violence, descending from the mountains, burst through a barrier of sand dunes that had filled the old channel, and flowed down the long-dry wadi. The governor was seated in the audience chamber drinking coffee with his guests when they brought in the news. ‘Bring me a cup and let me drink up this flood,’ said he, thinking there was no flood. That eve- ning, the first trickle of water reached Faraa, and for seven days a broad, swirling river flowed through the oasis, reaching a point some miles below its eastern extremity. For several months thereafter a deep and gradually evaporating lake stood where water had never been seen before. The havoc wrought by this flood was terrible. It completely wrecked many wells and de- stroyed one small hamlet . . . 150 human lives, 450 camels, and thousands of sheep were lost.” Thus many strange and unex- pected things happen in deserts. 573. Desert springs. — Through cracks or breaks in the rocks, the water which falls on distant high parts of the mountains comes up in springs at some places along the foot of the Atlas and other mountains, or even far out in the desert. (Fig. 114.) From one spring to the next — sometimes a distance of several days’ journey — the caravans travel across this wide, white, glaring furnace. The springs are the stations on their route. The car- avan leader must measure his march care- fully, for although the caravan is on the move sixteen hours a day, it may cover during that wearisome time only about thirty miles. 574. Desert plants. — Everything that lives in the desert must learn to get along with but little water. The plants have deep roots which reach far down for water. They also have small leaves, so that they do not give much moisture to the air. Some plants grow very quickly when it rains, and then make seed and die. There are only a few plants, and many of these have a bitter taste, while others are so poisonous that no animal will eat them, or they are so thickly covered with thorns instead of leaves, that no animal can eat them. Fig. 444. A village once stood on this hill. See how the wind has blown away the sand and clay until the houses have been. undermined. This process is called wind erosion. See the men. What became of the sand and clay ? II £33 S3S SS u a: D h- (J) CC 0 Q. O Z I Fig. 445. 288 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Photo. J. Russell Smith Courtesy American Geographical Society, N. Y. Fig. 446. A camel eating the tips of a thornbush on the edge of the desert in Tunis. In how many ways is the camel fitted to live in the desert ? 575. Desert animals. — The animals are strangely fitted by nature to get along in such a place. The camel is a kind of living storehouse. When he has a chance to get food and drink he takes so much that he adds a hundred pounds or so of fat to his hump. Then for a week at a time he can walk across the burning sands and neither eat nor drink, but each day pounds of fat stored in his hump go into his blood and take the place of food. In order that the camel may eat thorny bushes, his lips are shod with coarse thick hairs that lie flat. To avoid dust, he can shut his nostrils, as we shut our mouths. His eye has a double lid, one of which is almost transparent, so that he can see through it even in sand storms. Instead of a hard hoof, his foot is a wide, soft cushion that spreads out on the sand and keeps his feet from sinking in. The desert sheep resembles the camel in its ability to store fat, but instead of a hump it has a broad, thick tail that often weighs half as much as the sheep itself. (Fig. 480.) The donkey, or ass, and the goat are natives of deserts, and, as we found in Section 561, the donkey requires much less food than the horse. Throughout the desert region there are wild antelope and wild gazelles. They do not store food on their bodies in the form of fat, but they can travel for long distances with astonishing speed, and thus escape their ii enemies and find food and water. Even the desert man can, like a camel, resist thirst. Many of the Sahara tribes are said to be able to go without water for four days, suffering little discomfort. 576. The nomads. — The desert does not have a clearly defined edge. In- stead, it tapers off gradu- ally into a country where there are patches of grass in the low places, and still farther from the desert good pasture lands, as described in Sec. 743. Here on the edges of the desert live the nomads, people who have only flocks of sheep and goats, camels, donkeys, and a few horses. To get water and food for their animals they drive them from place to place. Many small tribes live by this means. They also buy things here and there, which they carry across the desert to sell. For ages nomads have carried negro slaves across the Sahara, just as the band of Ishmaelites took the little boy Joseph down to Egypt 3000 j years ago, and sold him to the Egyptians. | The desert nomads (or Bedouins) have a hard life. If springs dry up and pastures fail, the flocks starve. Then the nomads must either starve or rob, and they rob. In speaking of this custom, an Arab chief once said: “It has been a part of the Pboto. J. Russell Smith Courtery American Geographical Society, N. Y. Fig. 447. A Bedouin family and their tent. The man wears a woolen burnoose spun and woven by hand. The woman is grinding barley in a hand mill. THE GREAT HOT DESERT AND ITS OASES 289 customs and nature of the Arabs from the earliest time to make war upon each other as well as upon neighboring nations. The poor Arab needs a horse so that he can ride to fall upon the goods of his enemy, take possession of them, and grow rich, and the rich Arab likewise needs a horse to protect his fortune and his head.” Since the Arab depends so much upon his horse, he has bred a kind of horse that shows more endurance than any other horse in the world. Why should the nomad’s property be only flocks that can walk, and bundles that can be carried on beasts? No desert nomad owns a piece of land. Why should he? Where he wants to pitch his tent, there he pitches it. When he wants to move, he goes. Grass and water are the only things worth having, and he must move to get them. 577. Caravans and signal fires. — Because nomads are such robbers, the traders of the desert nearly always travel in large caravans for protection. To be safe from robbers the Berbers of the Atlas Mountains have built their towns upon the tops of hills, where defense is easy. In parts of southern Tunis these hill Berbers have regularly kept sentinels on high rocks overlooking the vil- lage. There, night and day, winter and summer, year in and year out, men for generation after generation have watched, with live coals at hand, ready to start a signal fire. At the first sight of the enemy, the fire would be lighted. Seeing it, the watchman on a distant hill would light his fire, to signal the next lonely watcher. Thus the news of danger would be passed from village to vil- lage, until all were called to arms. Even a city like Sfax, on the coast of Tunis, still has a solid stone wall higher than the houses, and all the people were living inside of the wall when the French took possession in 1881. The Bedouins can rarely read, but they have good memories and know many stories such as those in the book called Arabian Nights, which they tell around the camp fire, and thus pass them on from generation to generation and from century to century. © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 448. A monastery a thousand years old built around a spring at the base of Mt. Sinai. Why is this monastery walled and the country so bare ? The trees in this picture are said to be one thousand years old. 578. The sand oasis of Suf. — In the north- ern Sahara a traveler may leave one of the oases and cross about sixty miles of waterless, wave-like sand dunes, which spread before him like the waves of the sea. After many hours he beholds a dark green spot in the white sand. It is the tops of palm trees in the oasis of Suf. Long ago plants growing here showed the Arabs that there was moisture beneath this sand. This discovery made the place gradually become the home of thousands of people. Because date palm trees can send their roots through many feet of earth to reach moisture in the ground beneath, date gardens can be made to flourish in some places where there are no surface springs or streams. These trees are capable of supporting many people. When a palm garden is to be planted , the people dig a wide pit eight or ten yards deep. In this pit the trees are planted. Because the sand dunes move before the 11-15 290 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 449. A Bedouin woman milking her goats in the kingdom of Hejaz. Why does she not have a cow ? wind, sand would soon bury the palm trees if the people did not prevent it. This they do by carrying the sand in baskets out to the desert, where they dump it in piles. Each day the wind blows some of it back and so, from childhood to old age, the Soufas are tugging baskets of sand out of their little date gardens, and piling it on the surrounding sand hills. This awful labor reminds us of how the Dutch pump water out of their land ; but carrying sand is a much harder job, because the Dutch get the wind to do their lifting (Sec. 441). All the people of Suf live in stone houses beside their palm gardens. Camels, goats, and sheep can find a scanty living in the damp places between the dunes. So the people have wool and milk. Why are they not nomads? The eyes of these people are trained in a most astonishing way. If a Soufa wants to get his camel, he will go to the place where he last saw it and follow the pad foot tracks across the sand. He can tell the track of his own camel from that of his neighbor’s camel. One of us could scarcely tell the difference between a camel’s track and that of a horse. 579. The oases with wells. — In another part of the desert west of Suf, most of the surface is bare rock, in which water from occasional rains has cut such a network of channels that the name of this region is M’zab, meaning in Arabic, “the net.” Thevalleysare full of earth, and beneath the earth there is water, but it is too far down for even the roots of the palm trees to reach it. By irrigating the oases with water lifted from wells, thousands of people, called Mozabites, live here. The water is drawn up in big leather buckets that are fastened to the ends of ropes. A rope passes over a pulley at the top of the well and runs thence to a donkey or a camel (Fig. 450). As the beast walks away from the well, he draws the leather bucket up to the top, and the water is dumped. It then flows away to the gardens through a carefully lined channel. If the wells yield water all the time, the privilege of using it is sold, and all day and all night one can hear the creaking of the pulley, the yells of the donkey driver, the thump of the beast’s feet, and the splash of the water as it falls from the bucket. The labor is hard, but the Mozabites, like the Soufas and the nomads of the pastures, are big strong men. 580. The oases with springs and small streams. — In most of the many hundreds of oases of the Great Desert, living conditions Fig. 450. A donkey pulls the rope and lifts water to irrigate an oasis garden. A garden here means work. THE GREAT HOT DESERT AND ITS OASES 291 Photo. J. Russell Smith Fig. 451. The entrance to an oasis in Tunis. Here you see date palms, a fig tree at the right, and the stream that makes the oasis. The water is flowing across a log with notches in it. A man counts his fortune by the width and depth of his notch in the 'water-measuring log. Why is the house built outside of the oasis? are easier than at Suf and M’zab, because the water comes from flowing streams which the people can turn into their gardens, thus giving the date tree what the Arabs say it wants: namely, “its feet in the water and its head in the fires of heaven.” The date gardens yield crops year after year, century after century. Some oases are known to have been yielding steadily since the time of the Romans. The date garden yields twenty times as much food as a wheatfield of the same size. 581. Three-story farming. — Because much food is needed in these oases, the people have developed a wonderful system of agriculture. Beneath the tall open topped date trees are smaller trees, such as apricots, olives, and oranges. Beneath these trees vegetables are grown. This three-story agriculture yields so much that a tiny patch of ground will support a family. Arabs will sometimes pay at the rate of $5000 an acre for a bit of oasis land with palm trees on it. i The villages, which are always on the desert beside the oases, swarm with people who are busy in the early morning and in the late evening working their gardens, carrying water, and milking the goats. At noon the settlement is as quiet as death, because everyone sleeps during the heat of the day. 582. Mysterious Arabia. — Much of Arabia is still unexplored. Since. Roman times only two white men are known to have crossed Arabia from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf. Between the tropic of Cancer and the Arabian Sea is a strip of land which the Arabs call the “Empty Quarter,” because it is entirely uninhabited for most of the year. In central Arabia, however, there is a pla- teau, and its greater elevation causes more rainfall. Many streams flow down its slope. Once these streams ran together and made a river which reached the Persian Gulf, but this was ages ago. Now all streams are lost in the sand a short distance from the plateau. But immediately at the foot of the plateau there is a strip of land four hundred miles long and twenty miles wide, where every little valley has an oasis or two. Some of the 292 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS CULTIVATE D LAND Fig. 452. Cultivated land , . in Egypt follows the dependent Nile. Why? oases are so tiny that there is room for two or three trees; others are five or ten miles in length and their trees and gardens support thousands of people. 583. An independent town. — One of these many oasis towns lies with its springs in a little valley entirely surrounded by a water- less plateau, yet it has 10,000 people. The town is absolutely in- About the year 1900 the governor of central Arabia sent a tax gatherer to collect taxes from the town. The people whipped him publicly and drove him away. The governor could not attack the town be- cause it contained too many people. If he had tried to besiege it, he would have had to camp out in a desert where there is no water. This shows why the Turks, who have claimed to rule Arabia, have really ruled only a rim around its shores. They have never been able to rule the vast, mysterious inland territory. 584. Camping in the Empty Quarter. — At the end of the rainy season the nomads along all the desert’s edges often go into the desert and live for a short time in places where they could not possibly live all the year. At this time the oasis people living at the south end of the central highland of Arabia often make a trip into the Empty Quarter. The water of the springs is so salty that men cannot drink it, but camels can. The camels, after pas- turing, must return to the springs to drink; so the people camp by the springs, and milk the camels when they return for water. Camel’s milk, dates which they bring with them, the flesh of gazelles, and other game furnish food for the desert camp. At times these people cross the eight hundred miles of the Empty Quarter to raid the tribes on the shores of the Red Sea, but no white man has ever been known to have gone with them. 585. Yemen and Mocha coffee. — A small part of southern Arabia, called Yemen, has a high mountain facing the Red Sea. This section receives enough rainfall to grow Mocha coffee, and a grain somewhat like Kafir corn. Mocha coffee is one of the most expensive coffees. It was from this region that the people of Europe first received coffee. The agricultural district of Yemen is so small and precious that the people have ter- raced their hillsides like steps, thus making more garden land on which the rain can fall. 586. The great rivers and the great oases of Egypt and Iraq (Mesopotamia). — In two places large rivers, rising in distant lands of heavy rainfall, carry their great waters into the heart of the desert and on across it. Thus the broad plains of Egypt and Iraq (Mesopotamia) can be irrigated. They are the greatest oases in all the world and support millions of people. 587. Egypt — the world’s greatest oasis. — In Egypt (population 13,000,000) there are more people than can be found in all other oases and all the nomad camps combined. The Nile, called by the natives “Father Nile”, rises in the rainy parts of Africa and carries water across the entire width of the Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 453. Arab women traveling in Egypt; the veils are worn in Mohammedan style. Donkeys carry most of the burdens of Egypt. Note the carved screen. THE GREAT HOT DESERT AND ITS OASES 293 desert. This river alone makes the great oasis called Egypt. Once each year the waters of the Nile rise and overflow its banks. (Sec. 763.) The water spreads over the plain along the lower courses of the river and in the delta. When the flood begins to go down, the natives of Egypt walk out into the pools of water to sow the seeds of wheat and barley and a native grain called durra, which is much like Kafir corn (Sec. 108). The seeds fall into the water, settle in the mud beneath, and when the water has gone, the plants, fed by the moisture of the soaked earth, grow rapidly, and ripen their harvest in the blazing desert sun. For thousands of years grain has thus been grown in the Nile Valley. In twenty-five years the Nile builds up its plain only about one inch, but that is enough to keep it yielding one fine crop after another, thus feeding millions of big, strong, good- natured black people, called fellahs, or fellaheen (Fig. 454). 588. The native Egyptians. — These natives have been ruled first by one foreign con- queror, then by another. No matter who ruled them, the fellaheen have for centuries lived much as they do to-day. Thousands of years before Christ, lordly tribesmen from the North took possession of the Nile Valley. Those ancient conquerors wanted to erect tombs for their kings, so they built the huge S, pyramids. For this great work they used thousands of slaves and thousands of camels, but just how they managed to put the great blocks of stone in place is not known. Enormous pillared temples built by these ancient Egyptians still amaze us, as do their writings in stone and on the sheets of papy- rus, the pith of a reed that grew by the Nile. 589. Native life and native farming in Egypt. — To-day, as for several thousand years, the traveler sees flood-plain and delta dark green with heavy crops. Here and there a few tall palm trees stand on little mounds of earth a few feet above the flat plain. On the mound is a village of brown mud huts. The simple house has walls of sun-dried brick, set in mud. The roof is only a few rafters covered with straw, or © Underwood & Underwood. N. Y. Fig. 454. Natives lifting water up the bank of the Nile. Each man pours his bucket of water into a pool behind him until the last man pours it on the edge of the field, where it flows to the roots of the growing plants. Many men are needed for even a small field. Suggest a better method of lifting the Nile’s waters to the field. palm leaves, and plastered on top with mud. There is an opening that serves as a door, but there are no windows at all. Inside are a few sleeping mats, a few earthen vessels, a hand mill to grind grain for bread, and a few yards of cotton cloth from Manchester. Such is the home of the man who plows the fertile plain with a crooked stick drawn by oxen. His methods have not changed from those his ancestors used before the time of the Pharaohs. 590. Modernizing Egypt. — Of late years, under the rule of the English, even Egypt has begun to change. The age of machinery and engineering has begun in Egypt. Rail- roads and telegraphs have been built. Egypt has become prosperous because the people can now grow a crop and sell it and get the money for themselves, instead of having it 294 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS Cairo has more people than St. Louis or Boston. It has become a great cen- ter for European and Amer- ican tourists who want to make a winter trip in search of health and recreation. Here the traveler sees a real Mohammedan city, full of men of many nations. Near by are the ruins of many ages; in museums are col- lections of Egyptian curi- osities and works of art. Alexandria, the Nile port, has more people than New Orleans. 592. The Assuan dam. — © Publishers' Phsto Service, N. Y. Fig. 455. The city of Cairo. The towers show the educated Arabs’ sense of beauty. From these towers the Mohammedan priests call people to prayers. taken by a robbing tax-gatherer. Never be- fore did Egypt produce so much wheat, corn, rice, durra (millet), and sugar cane. Her swarming people eat most of these products, but they export some early vegetables. There are fields of clover for the donkeys and camels, and there is cotton to sell. It has been found that Egyptian cotton is the best cotton of all. Its threads are longer and stronger than those of other cotton, so we use much of it for automobile tires. During the World War the price of cotton was very high, and Egyptian cotton growers made so much money that they bought automobiles as American farmers do. After all, Egypt is a very small place in comparison with our own Cotton Belt. Her cotton yield per acre is greater than ours, but her total crop is only about one-eleventh as large as that of the United States. 591. Cairo and Alexandria. — The Egyp- tian capital, Cairo, is the metropolis of the oasis world w and the largest city of Africa. It is at a crossroads. Here the Nile Valley reaches the Mediterranean, the Isthmus of Suez makes a bridge to Asia, and the Suez Canal (Sec. 610) provides the great shipway from Europe to the Far East. Because Egypt has over a thousand people to the square mile, more land is needed. The English are turning desert into farmland by making new irrigation works. At Assuan on the Nile they have built a great storage dam. It holds back some of the flood waters so that the water may be carried in canals to lands which natural floods do not reach. Thus Eng- land is increasing the area of Egypt’s fields, but the yield is not so good as that of Courtesy Wm. Thompson Fig. 456, Native Egyptians selling lemonade in the streets of Cairo. THE GREAT HOT DESERT AND ITS OASES 295 © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 457. Arabs and their “ ships of the desert ” before the Sphinx and the pyramids, near Cairo. These are among the most interesting of the many monuments of the past. Ruins tell us how the ancient Egyptians lived. ■ the lower plains, because this water, unlike that of the floods, does not carry the rich mud. The English are pleased with the success of the Assuan dam. They plan to copy the example of Hol- land and drain the shallow, salt lakes or bays at the outer edge of the Nile delta, and irrigate them with the water stored in dams a thousand miles upstream. 593. Iraq (Mesopotamia), the oasis of the Tigris and the Euphrates. — These two rivers, fed by the winter rains and melting snows of the mountains of Armenia, flood thousands of square miles each year. Like the streams of Cal- ifornia (Sec. 194), they have partly filled a great arm of the sea with earth. Even in historic times all that part of the plain below the junction of the Tigris and the Euphrates has been built by the two mud- bearing rivers. The streams wind back and forth across this plain much as the Missis- sippi and Rio Grande do in their flood plains. This valley shares with the valley of the Nile the honor of being the seat of early civilizations and the site of many changing empires. To-day many things which are new to this locality may be seen there. If we ride about in an automobile, we may see English army airplanes flying overhead. We pass a string of auto trucks which are stirring up a great cloud of blinding dust as they speed along, carrying supplies to the garrison. These modern machines, the airplane and the automobile, have not replaced the ancient burden-bearers of the East, for we see strings of camels shambling along the road, and carrying bales of goods down from Persia to a steamboat landing on the Tigris. A donkey plods along almost buried beneath his huge load of straw stuffed into a rope net; his mean looking Arab master stalks behind, yelling loudly as he clubs the strong little beast. Looking in one direction, one sees the bare, dry desert; in the opposite direction, on the river’s bank, is a fringe of palm trees and gardens, watered by natives who laboriously lift the water from the stream (Fig. 454). Everywhere the earth seems filled with pieces of broken pottery and old bricks; near by, great arches and gateways mark the entrance to ancient cities that are now only mounds of ruins. Digging in the side of these mounds, one will see one pavement above another with several feet of dirt between, showing that cities have been built, ruined, buried, and others built on the same site. Close by is an ancient empty canal built by King Nebuchadnezzar to irrigate this plain. Since the World War, this valley with a population of three million people, has passed to the control of England, and modern industry is busy making another Egypt of it. Even under the Turks, steamboats went up the Tigris from Basra to Bagdad, and ocean steamships carried from Basra to New York nearly all the dates that we used in this country. Europe looks to these two hot valleys for a quick supply of cotton fiber, which is so im- 296 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS portant for the world’s clothing and industry. But these valleys cannot furnish all the cotton that Europe needs, because there is not enough land that can be irrigated. 594. Other resources. — There is oil (petro- leum) at Mosul, in the upper part of Meso- potamia. (Fig. 445.) This may make great business as long as the oil holds out, but we know it cannot last many decades (Sec. 301). It is strange, but the desert has fishermen. They live on the shores of the Persian Gulf, go out in small boats, dive down into the shallow waters, and bring up in their hands oysters, inside the shells of which pearls are found. 595. Government. — We have already seen (Secs. 590, 593) that Egypt and Mesopotamia are ruled by the British, who let the natives rule themselves as much as they can. During the World War the British promised the Arabian Arabs that if they would help against the Turks and the Germans, they could have a kingdom of their own. This kingdom is called Hejaz, and the Arabs plan to let no one but a Mohammedan enter it. It con- tains the sacred city of Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, to which all Mohammedans who can will make a journey once in their lifetime. The King of Hejaz will probably have no better success than the Turks in ruling central Arabia. (Sec. 583.) Libia (Fig. 10) now belongs to Italy, and most of the Sahara belongs to France, but the nomads of the Sahara and the people of the small oases may be said almost to rule them- selves. The French soldiers do not interfere much unless the natives fight or rob. 596. Future development. — Much of this enormous region that stretches over the whole width of one big continent and occupies a large corner of another one will remain as it is now, a dead desert. Great changes can be expected in the two big oases, Egypt and Mesopotamia, where as long as there is water in the rivers, there is a challenge to man to find a way to use it. In any case, Mesopotamia is not likely to be a white man’s land. It is too hot. An Ameri- can traveler, speaking of the British army in Mesopotamia, said : “ Through the months of gasping heat when from eight to five no soldier is supposed to do any work and even the animals do nothing, when people must wear helmets made of cork, and spine pads made of wool all day, when men out in the blue lie pantingly in their tents longing for night to come, the most important piece of knowledge is the location of the heat-stroke station.” Now that we know how to build railroads in almost any kind of a place, the discovery of minerals may make a busy town almost anywhere in the Great Desert. In Tunis thou- sands of nomads have quit following their flocks, and have moved into the towns of tin shanties and sun- dried brick built around certain phosphate mines that are sending more than a million tons of phos- phate rock a year to feed the fields of Europe. In the little oases the native, by hard work, is often using every bit of j water in raising crops. In some places on the edge of the desert it is © 1920, by The Curtis Publishing Co. Fig. 458. The arch of Ctesiphon, near Bagdad, Mesopotamia. Inside the arch was the great hall of an emperor. This is a part of one building in one of the several large cities of ancient Mesopotamia. THE GREAT HOT DESERT AND ITS OASES 297 possible for olives, and per- haps for other tree crops, to bring agriculture where now there is only pasture (Fig. 459). However, life at the desert’s edge must always remain uncertain, as the lost civilizations of the Syrian desert show. 597. A lost civilization. — Between the Jordan River and the upper Euphrates, the desert is sprinkled with the ruins of villages and Photo, j. Russeii smth houses, which show plainly Fig. 459. View from a tower near Sfax, Tunis, where the olive orchards it- nnm V.arl o rrrostor reacl1 in ^ directions as far as one can see. Yet the total rainfall in five t,nat it once naa a greater , population than any part of the United States or England outside of the great cities. We know that this region is at least twice the size of Maryland, although no one has yet traced all its limits. Historians know that it was populous when the Old Testament was written, and that it was in the height of its prosperity from the time of Christ to 600 A. D. The ruins of olive presses and wine presses prove that it was a land of the vine and the olive tree, as the Medi- terranean world was then and is to-day. The ruins of the villages show that the people lived in comfortable stone houses. Inscrip- tions on the buildings show that wealthy citizens left public baths, monasteries, churches, and other gifts to their towns. In the year 610 A. D. this territory was conquered by the Persians. Soon after that it was conquered by the Arabs. Misgovern- ment helped to ruin it and so did erosion. Bare fields were washed into gullies until only rock remained. To-day this great region is a marvelous and desolate scene of the ruins of ancient glories, and a warn- ing to us about our own civilization. QUESTIONS 1. Locate the Great Desert by stating its position in the continents. How long is it? How wide? Use scale. 2. Name some of the desert plants. Compare the plants of the desert with those of the Arctic regions. In what respects are they alike? 3. Which do you think is the most interesting animal of the desert? Which would you rather own? Why? 4. The camel has been called “The ship of the years was only 35 inches. desert”. Do you think the comparison a good one? Give your reasons. 5. On the physical map of Africa locate the sources of the Nile River. In what regions of Africa are these located? How can you account for the great amount of water fed into the Nile? Describe location and direction of flow of this river. 6. What causes the falls in the Nile? 7. What effect do these have on transportation on this river? 8. Explain the flood plain of the Nile. Explain the delta. 9. Compare farming in Egypt with farming in some part of the United States. 10. Locate and describe the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Can you find any interesting stories connected with the his- tories of these rivers? 11. Where is Mt. Sinai? 12. Why does the monastery in the picture (Fig. 448) look like toy houses? 13. Which do you think would occur most frequently— a rain storm or a sand storm? Why? 14. What damage is done by sand dunes? 15. Give some reasons why you would like to travel across the desert, and some of the hardships of such a trip. 16. Which would you rather own, an acre of date oasis or an acre of American farmland? Why? 17. Explain how the northeast trade wind is the cause of the Great Desert. 18. Why do the trade winds bring rain to the West Indies and dry weather to the Great Desert? 19. Why are they called northeast trade winds? (Sec. 364.) 20. Locate and describe the important cities near the Nile. 21. Locate the most important seaport. To what country does it belong? 22. What is there in the picture (Fig 455) that would make you know it was not an American city? 23. Why do we import cotton frora Egypt? 24. What is meant by a nomad? 25. Com- pare the nomads with the Indians of North America. 26. What do the ruins in Fig. 458 tell about the kind of people who once lived there? 27. Imagine that you are traveling with a caravan across the Great Desert. Write an account, which you might place in your diary, of the experiences of a day on the desert. 28. Dramatize from the Bible the story of Joseph . Study the text carefully to see that you make everythingin harmony with facts of desert life- 298 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS U. S. Official Photograph Fig. 460. The city and fortress of Kars, Armenia. Can you tell anything of the history and climate of this country by looking at this picture? 29. What other deserts have you already studied? Compare them with the Great Desert as to location, size and cause. 30. If you were planning to visit the Great Desert, to what city would you sail? Tell how you would travel — over what lands and bodies of water. How long would your journey take? 31. In what other part of the world have we found dry watercourses? 32. Compare the climate and sur- face of such a place with that of the Great Desert. 33. The temperature of the desert is often 140° F. during the day, but there may be frost at night. Why? Give two reasons. 34. What is the value of land in your community? How does this compare with the price which is stated as the cost of some oasis land? 35. The Egyptians worshipped the Nile River. Can you tell why? 36. Man’s greatest need is food. The earliest peoples lived in food- producing regions. How then can we connect ancient civilization with this desert region? 37. Write a play, “Scenes in the Desert”; plan scenery, costumes, and acting, true to desert life. THE PLATEAUS OF ASIA MINOR AND IRAN 598. Bounds and climate. — On all its shores the plateau of Asia Minor rises abrupt- ly from the sea. What are the seas? (Fig. 469.) Its continuation, the plateau of Iran, also rises abruptly from two seas and three low plains. What are they? (Fig. 474.) From the western end of this plateau one may travel on a highland for twenty-five hundred miles across Asia Minor, Armenia, Persia, and Baluchistan, until at last one looks down upon the dry lowlands of the Indus valley. This high dry region is larger than all of the United States west of the Rocky Moun- tains. Even the peninsula of Asia Minor is longer than the distance from Lake Erie to the Atlantic Ocean. We can best understand this region by thinking of it as another Utah and another Southwestern Plateau, both of which it resembles in climate, surface, appearance, and products. As in Utah and Mexico, we here find a few cities in a dry, high land, depending for water upon streams from the moun- tains. The city of Teheran is at an elevation of 4000 feet, Hamadan at 6000 feet, and near both cities rise still higher mountains. Fig. (474.) As in the southwestern United States, high mountains shut out the rain- bearing winds, so that the plains between the mountains are often deserts where mountain streams sink into the sands or flow away to salt lakes, as in Utah and Mexico. The mountains of Armenia, which are higher than the Alps, stand upon this plateau. Mt. Ararat is one of these famous peaks. Streams fed by rain and melting snow flow from these mountains into the rich plain of Iraq. Thus the plain has been able to support the empires of the past. (Fig. 458.) 599. Plateaus of hate and despotism. — This region has many different peoples, and for a long time they have got along very badly indeed with each other. The Turks are in western and central Asia Minor. The Armenians are in northeastern Asia Minor. South of the Armenians are the Kurds, and north of the Armenians are the Georgians and Tatars of Azerbaijan. East of the Armenians are the Persians and the Baluchis. Arabs with their flocks and herds are scattered in many parts of the plateau. All of these peoples have often fought each other fiercely for land and water. The Armenians especially have had a bad time of it. They were civilized people three thousand years ago, and have one of the oldest of the Christian churches. They live in THE PLATEAUS OF ASIA MINOR AND IRAN a country where the other people keep flocks and herds and till the soil. The Armenians do these things, too, but in addition they are skilled artisans and traders. Because the Armenians differ from their neighbors in race and religion, and are better business men than their neighbors, they are hated. The Turks to the west and the Kurds to the south have often massacred Armenians by the thousand. Of the seven chief peoples, the Armenians, the Georgians, and the Persians are dark-haired white people. The others are black-haired, yellowish-skinned peoples. Before the World War, four nations ruled or pretended to rule this region. Russia ruled all the land between the Black and the Caspian seas; the Turks claimed all the rest that lay west of Persia; the English ruled the wild tribes of Baluchistan; and Persia was independent. Like the Armeni- ans, the Persians had an empire long ago; but for a long time the Persian shahs, or kings, have ruled almost as badly as have the Turks themselves. 600. The jealousy of European countries has hurt this region, as it has hurt the Balkans. (Sec. 524.) No nation has inter- fered when Turks have killed Armenians in Asia, because each nation feared the other © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 461. Harvesting wheat by hand in Asia Minor. ©'JJnderwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 462. Viewing the Gulf of Smyrna from a moun-= tain ridge. What kind of trees do you think you see as you look down on the shore plain? (Sec. 557.) would get the Turkish territory. Jealousy of European nations has also kept railroads from being built in this region. 601. Trans-Caucasia. — The land between the Black and the Caspian seas is called the Caucasus and Trans-Caucasia. Many tribes inhabit it. All were conquered years ago by Russia. Then Russia built a railroad from Batufn on the Black Sea through Tiflis, the ancient capital, to Baku on the Caspian Sea. At Baku, near the east end of the Caucasus Mountains, is one of the great oil fields of the world. For hundreds of years this place was visited by fire worshippers from Persia, who made the long pilgrimage to visit the natural fires that burned in the rocks where natural gas escaped. Now, instead of fire worshippers, oil workers go to Baku. The place bristles with the der- ricks of oil wells, and many thousands of Georgians, Tatars, and Russians are at work there. For many years this region was sec- ond only to the United States in oil pro- duction. Oil is taken nearly six hundred miles by train and by pipe line to Batum, where ships load it for Europe. 300 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS 602. Living the life of the ancients. — There are few railroads in Asia Minor, and almost none in Persia. In this country, 800 miles wide and 1300 miles long, people are living almost as they did 1000 or 2000 years ago. In fact, the roads were better 2500 years ago when Persia was a great empire than they were in 1914. At the opening of the World War, except for a few miles of railway and a few wagon roads, all travel was by the backs of horses, camels, or mules. All trade was by caravans which climbed high mountains and crossed dreary desert plains. If the traveler could find an inn he was fortunate. Even then he must furnish his own bed and food, as is the custom at Persian inns. 603. Agriculture. — This plateau is a land of little rain. In some localities there is rain enough over small areas for wheat and barley. Near some of the mountains, as in Utah and the Mexican plateau, water may be had for irrigating small areas. These precious spots are used intensively. Rice is grown where there is water enough. Where water is less plentiful, there are rich gardens in which vegetables are grown beneath fruit © E. M. Newman Fig. 463. Children weaving a Persian rug. To the thread of coarse net-like linen cloth, a short piece of woolen yarn is tied, then another and another, until finally thousands stand close together. When the network is full the ends of the yarn are clipped off evenly, and often the ends stand up solidly as much as half an inch. trees. People who need more land so much, usually grow fruits and vegetables together. We also see the intensive use of land in the production of opium, of attar of roses, and of silk. These products require little land, but with much labor they yield large cash returns. The wheat and barley cannot be sent far on muleback to market. Therefore each locality must raise its own supply. Some- times more is raised than can be used. Then the price is low. Again, in bad seasons, less is raised than is needed, and the price is high. The price of needful things is always affected by the quantity to be had. This is especially true in places like this region, where the people have no opportunity for world trade. This interior district, which is almost without railroads, supports over 200,000 people in Teheran and as many more in Tabriz. Salt Lake City has 117,000 people. * * Much of the world’s licorice is made of the extract from the root of a wild bush that is dug up by the people of Asia Minor. 604. The nomads. — As most of this wide upland, like our own Southwestern Plateau, is fit only for pasture, nomads are to be found in almost every part of it. The total number of nomads in Persia is estimated as a million and a quarter. Compare that number with the population of the four states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada. The Kurds of Kurdistan are almost entirely nomads. These nomads have about as hard a time of it as do those who live in the desert of Sahara itself, for on the plateau there are sometimes heavy falls of snow which cover the grass. Men and animals sometimes freeze to death in the snow. Poverty and suffering encourage these people to be raiders and to plunder their neighbors. 605. Manufacture and trade.— A region almost without coal, water power, railroads, or good highways cannot use machinery as it is used in the factories of Europe and America. The Armenians and Persians, like the craftsmen of ancient times, work by hand, and are very skilful. They make THE TRADE OF EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 301 beautiful metal work, and their firearms and other weapons are often inlaid with lavish designs in gold, silver, and pearl. The most wonderful and expensive rugs in the world come out of this plateau. These rugs, together with other valuable exports of silk, furs, wool, and skins, go for long distances to market on the backs of pack- animals. When sold they pay for the im- port of cotton, sugar, tea, kerosene, and small manufactures. 606. Future. — This region, which has more people than Canada, is ready to enter the age of transport, machinery, and trade, if only it can have peace and order. Then man could work and build and be sure of keeping his property after he has acquired it. The people are poor but willing to work. If this region has a chance, one of the first things produced will be minerals. It is rich in iron, copper, zinc, and manganese. Coal is also found. There are promising oil fields on the south shore of the Caspian and in southern Persia. Even before the World War, there were railroads in the Trans-Caucasus, and, as a result, hundreds of ships sailed each year from Batum and Poti, with oil for Europe and manganese ore for the steel mills of England, Belgium, and Germany. Some of the ore came even to the United States. This is only one example of what railroads may do here. In many a mountain defile in this long plateau there is room for irrigation reser- voirs such as we are building in our own country, but first peace must come. When this land really enters the world’s trade it will send its goods out by the four seas that touch it. The Caspian, with the great river Volga, gives Russia a fine chance to trade with Azerbaijan and north Persia, while the Persian Gulf and the British possession of Mesopotamia give Britain, with her ships, an open road to southern and western Persia. QUESTIONS 1. Why do England and Russia both covet pos- session of Persia? 2. Compare the occupations in this region with the occupations of people in Utah. Why the difference? 3. Locate Teheran, Bagdad, Photo. Keystone View Co., N. Y . Fig. 464. Persian charcoal merchant on the way from mountain to market. Why do not the people bum coal ? Erzerum, Batum, and Tiflis. 4. Compare the life of the nomads of this region with that of the nomads of the Great Desert. 5. What advantages would there be in going into this region to live? What dangers? 6. What are the advantages for manufacture possessed by this region? The disadvantages? 7. Fill up the chart: Trip from Trip from Topic. Bassora to The Hague Teheran. to Moscow. Mode of travel Hotel accommodations. . . . Temperature(Figs.328,329) Rainfall Nature of country Streams crossed Cities you would want to visit on the way 8. What conditions have produced the high de- velopment of rug-making in Persia? Look up the prices of these oriental rugs; stories of their making; pictures of their colorings and design. 9. What has been the effect of wars and of jealousies of nations upon this region? THE TRADE OF EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 607. Likeness of North America and Europe. — We found that the greatest trade in North America was carried on between the densely-peopled factory area in the northeast, and the food and raw material areas of the north, west, and south. In Europe and the Mediterranean world we find a similar ex- change of goods. Where are the raw material areas? (Figs. 319, 467.) 608. The easy routes of Europe. — Look at the maps (Figs. 14, 319) and explain why it 302 EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGIONS sage to Basra near the head of the Persian Gulf. Doubtless a railroad will some day go on from Iraq (Mesopotamia) to India. From London a traveler going eastward may take boat for Rotterdam. From that city he may proceed by train to Berlin, and at Ber- lin three main routes spread out: one northeastward to Leningrad (Petrograd) and Finland; one southeast- ward to Breslau and Odessa ; and one eastward to Moscow and Siberia. From Moscow a line goes south to the oil fields of Baku at the eastern © Keystone View Co., N. Y. . . , , , Fig. 465. The harbor of Hamburg showmg ships, harbor boats, river enc * ^ne LaUCaSUS, and boats, and warehouses with cranes for lifting freight. Name three cities another goes through Oren- (Fig. 385) these river boats may serve. burg, past the shores of the is easier to trade in Europe than it is in North America. Show how Europe can have two sets of routes: (1) the water routes for heavy freight, such as grain, ore, iron, and wood; and (2) the railroads for express, mail, and passenger traffic. Why are several nations anxious to control the straits of Gibraltar and the Bosporus? Except in Russia, the European railroads run many fast trains, which are nearly always on time. 609. Travel centers and connections. — The greatest European railroad centers are London, Paris, and Berlin. Express trains leave London and connect at channel ports with boats that run across the channel like ferries, taking the traveler by one of several routes to Paris. From Paris the traveler may go to Madrid, Marseille, Geneva, Rome, and Naples; or he may take the Oriental Express to Vienna, Belgrade, Sofia, and Constanti- nople. Across the narrow Bosporus is the great terminal station that was built by the Germans at the end of the Bagdad road. On this railroad the traveler may cross part of Turkey. The line is planned to reach Bag- dad, where he may take steamboat pas- Aral Sea, far into central Asia. The main line crosses Siberia to Vladivostok, and when the road is in working order it is one section of the quickest route around the world. 610. The Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. — The Mediterranean and its arms make a most useful natural route, but men have made it a still greater route by building the Suez Canal. The waters of the Red Sea came so close to the Mediterranean that men carried freight across the narrow, level, sandy isthmus for several thousand years. Even in Pharaoh’s time a small canal was there, but it became filled with desert sand. When steamships came into general use, there was much more freight to be carried across from one sea to the other. Thousands of camels then labored back and forth shifting cargo from Port Said to Suez. When the French engineer De Lesseps finished the Suez Canal through the desert isthmus, he enlivened the trade between Europe and Asia. Especially did he wake up the cities of the Mediterranean and South Europe. Algiers, Malta, and Port Said became great coaling stations. So did Aden, although it is in a place so dry that even THE TRADE OF EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 303 After 0. R. J. Howarth Fig. 467. Map showing, in a general way, the occupations of men. Why are both the industrial regions in the same latitude? Can you find points of similarity in other latitudes all over the world? the drinking water must be condensed from sea water. The traffic through the new canal built up Genoa, the port of North Italy and Switzerland, and made Marseille a greater center for the trade in olive oil, peanut oil, and palm oil. By bringing trade to Medi- terranean ports, the Suez Canal helped put three great tunnels under the Alps. Fast through trains now ran from France, Germany, and Den- mark to the Italian cities. 611. Ports of international concern. — This region has a number of cities called “ Ports of International Concern.” They are so called because the League of Nations has been given some authority over their trade, so that the peoples and countries near by may all have a fair opportunity for trade. Name these cities. (Fig. 325.) 612. Europe’s needs. — Europe has a great trade within itself and with the other parts of the Mediterranean world, but it has so many people and so many factories that it also needs other continents to supply food and raw materials in exchange for manufactures. We have already seen that the American producers find in Europe a market for their wheat, corn, meat, cotton, oil, and lumber. We shall see that every other continent that we study also has a great trade with Europe; in most cases a greater trade than with North America. This happens because Europe has many more cities and more people than North America (Appendix), and conse- quently has need for more things. QUESTIONS 1. Name one article of import and one of export from each country of Europe, North Africa, and Southwest Asia, and show a place where you think each would be traveling by ship. 2. Name five ports through which the trade of the plateaus of Asia Minor and Iran should pass. 3. What would be the shortest way you might travel by water from Marseille to Paris? 4. Why is the control of Constantinople of so much importance to all the countries of Europe? 5. What cities would export and import the following: cork, olive oil, figs, manufactured silk goods, gloves, fine china, carved wood, and Persian rugs? 6. Has Swit- zerland a large or a small foreign trade? Why? 7. What coun- tries of Europe have most diffi- culties in carrying on trade? Why? 8. What will be the return cargo in boats carrying cotton to Marseille? coal to Genoa? meat to Lisbon? 9. Plan a trip to visit the most important places of the British Isles and of the continent of Europe, starting from Liverpool. Consider that your time and money are limited. Trace the route of travel. 10. Which are the great manufactur- ing countries of Europe? Courtesy Wm. Thompson Fig. 466. Port Said and the Suez Canal, which links the Mediterranean and the Red seas. Can you tell what route ships had to follow before this canal was cut? Where can a ship on this route find coaling stations? (Fig. 9.) Of what value is this canal to Great Britain? to the United States? OCCUPATIONS | Industrial Mired DEM] Agriculture I-M Pastoral Courtesy The Washington Post Fig. 468. The city of Darjeeling, a cool summer resort on the Himalaya slopes, Bengal, India. In the background, a hundred miles away, is the highest mountain peak in. the world, Mt. Everest, 29,002 feet. EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA ASIA— THE CONTINENT 613. Size. — Asia, the largest of continents, is larger than Europe and Africa together, or than North and South America combined. We can understand its size better if we look at the map (Fig. 469). On the map Europe looks like just a little peninsula stuck to the comer of Asia. The two continents are really one great land mass which is some- times called Eurasia. The mainland of Asia reaches farther north than that of any other continent, and it also reaches southward almost to the equator. 614. Geographic wonders. — Asia has every kind of land to be found in the world and many wonders not found elsewhere: (1) the highest mountains, the Himalayas; (2) the highest plateau, Tibet; (3) the district of greatest rainfall, where the warm moist winds from the Indian Ocean sweep up against the south slope of the Himalaya Mountains; (4) one of the world’s emptiest deserts, the great Empty Quarter of south- ern Arabia (Sec. 582) ; (5) the longest desert, which extends a distance of forty-five hun- dred miles from Mecca in Arabia almost to Tsitsihar in Manchuria, with but a few small oases to break the almost endless waste; (6) the coldest place in the world, which strange to say is not at the north pole, but at Verkhoyansk, in the midst of the continent near the arctic circle, east of the Lena River. (Fig. 329.) Why is this place colder than the pole? (Sec. 409.) 615. Fierce animals. — Asia has the largest of wild animals, the elephant, and the most deadly of animals: (1) the cobra of India, a snake whose bite is fatal, and (2) a wild buffalo which lives in the jungles of the Malay peninsula and secretly hunts the hunter, springing on him from the thicket and stamping him to pieces. 616. Ancient civilizations. — Asia is the seat (304) Bering Stx CM CO 305 M- 10 OXEJU12H o>||Ojjon oq^uu^ABS ©pnmtn 0A!4.gJgdLUOQ JopEjqET jjj0q;nos 8pn;mn >JJOA M0fs|O 0A;}\2J EdlUOO Fig, 469. O SEOEJEQ 306 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA lands. More than half the people of the world live in Asia. The islands off her shores have more people than has the United States or all of South America. India and China are the countries having the largest popula- tions, while China proper is the most densely peopled of all large countries. No other continent has so many kinds of people. India alone has as many kinds of people as the whole of Europe, and Europe has many more kinds of people than North America. Asia has great numbers of men and great resources. In the future she may rise again to great power. 618. How we shall study Asia. — We have already studied large parts of Asia, © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. , Fig. 470. Indian snake charmers with cobras. The cobra is one of the because they were SO much largest and deadliest of snakes. of some of the world’s oldest civilizations, most of which have fallen into decay. We have seen how, time after time in Mesopota- mia, one great empire was built upon the ruins of another. The same thing has happened in other parts of Asia. But in China we see a country whose civilization has continued century after century since thousands of years before Christ. No other country has remained so little changed while the civil- izations of western Asia and of Europe have risen and fallen again and again. A Chinese student in an American university was asked a question about his family. He began his answer by saying, “I trace my family his- tory four thousand years.” All of the great world religions — Judaism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, Confucian- ism, Brahminism, and Buddhism — have had their beginnings in Asia. 617. Many people. — Asia is a continent of vast, empty spaces and of painfully crowded like parts of Europe and Africa that they needed to be studied at the same time. Now we shall begin at the north- ernmost region and pass southward, seeing how climate and surface divide the greatest of continents into regions that differ greatly from each other. QUESTIONS 1. Give 12 ways in which Asia stands out promi- nently in comparison with the other grand divisions. 2. Name the plateaus of Asia; the plains; the penin- sulas; seas, gulfs, and bays; deserts, and the largest islands. 3. How many things can you name that you eat, drink, wear, or have in your neighborhood that may have come from Asia? Can you tell why and how they came? 4. What countries in Asia would you like to visit? Why? 5. Are there any you would prefer not to visit? Why? 6. How would you go to Asia from a place in central Europe? from London? 7. Com- pare the size of the desert area of Asia with the Sahara. 8. How can you account for ancient civilizations being connected with a continent which has so many desolate, unexplored regions? 9. Why is there so little general knowledge of Asia’s wonders compared with the knowledge regarding Europe? 2 3 4 5 307 i! Fig. 471. 308 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 472. A Japanese priest in native costume of silken robes. A famous volcano is in the background. THE ASIATIC TUNDRA 619. Likeness of Europe and Asia. — Some belts of territory in Europe go on without a break into Asia. The tundra that reaches across the vast length of cold Siberia is the same kind of tundra that we found in Russia. (Sec. 488.) The only difference is that it is colder in winter and warmer in summer, because it is farther from the Atlantic. (Sec. 409, Figs. 328, 329.) It has the same reindeer, tended by various wandering Mongolian tribes, peo- ple much like the Lapps (Fig. 393) and the Eskimos (Sec. 357). The Tunguses are one of these peoples, and they show that a pleasant land is not necessary to make pleasant people. A traveler says: "All observers speak in enthusiastic language of the temperament and moral qualities of the Tunguses. . . . Full of animation . . . always cheerful even in the deepest misery, holding themselves and others in like respect, of gentle manners and poetic speech, obliging without servility, unaffectedly proud, scorning falsehood, and indifferent to suffering and death — the Tun- guses are unquestionably an heroic people.” 620. Government in the tundra. — This region is marked on the maps as belonging to Russia, but really the Russian Government has little to do with it. These people are so far away and so few in number and so constantly on the move that it is almost impossible to rule them. They are living as they have been living for ages, except for the great help they receive from an occasional sledgeload of rifles, knives, needles, and trinkets that comes through hundreds of miles of forest to the south of them, in exchange for their furs and skins. 621. The future of this region will be the same as that of the European tundra. If you look at the map you can see that it is larger by far than England, France, and Italy together. As long as its resources are only moss and grass, it can export nothing but skins and perhaps reindeer meat. If oil or gold should be found, conditions might change while the mineral lasted. (Sec. 491.) QUESTIONS 1. In which continent is there more land within the Arctic Circle: Europe, North America, or Asia? 2. Which does the climate of this region more resemble: that of the Arctic region of North America, or of Europe? Why? (Sec. 409.) 3. Would the discovery of gold bring a permanent population to the Asiatic tundra? Why? 4. Compare the Mongolian tribes of this region with the Lapps of the European tundra, from these stand- points: homes; occupation; food; government. THE TAIGA, OR GREAT EVERGREEN FOREST OF SIBERIA 622. The world’s largest forest. — The northern forest belt of Asia — called the Taiga — stretches eastward from the Urals, on and on and on, like an evergreen sea, all the way to the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea. It is unbroken save for a few mountain ranges whose heights extend above the timber line. The Taiga is as large as the entire United States. Its nearest rival in size is the Great Northern Forest of North America, which, like the Eurasian Forest, lies between the tundra on the north and the land of wheat THE TAIGA, OR GREAT EVERGREEN FOREST 309 and oats, barley, rye, and potatoes on the south. This cold Siberian forest, like the cold American forest (Sec. 348), is a vast expanse of evergreen, buzzing with mosquitoes in sum- mer, and blanketed with snow for the many months of the long, cold winter. As in America, the wolf, the bear, and the fur hunter roam over its vast area. Like the American forest, it was scraped and dug by glaciers, and made rough and swampy. But in the winter it becomes smooth and level because the snow covers the roughness. Snow has always been a help to the lumber- men of the north woods and to the fur hunter traveling on snowshoes. Look at the tem- perature maps (Figs. 328, 329). What are the January temperature and the July temperature east of the Lena Valley? What is the difference between the two months? Is there any other place with as much difference between winter and summer temperature? What is the difference where you live? 623. A little-used land.— The Siberian forest has no Gulf of Bothnia, no Gulf of Finland, and no White Sea, to which ships may come in summer to carry away wood. The Arctic ice pack is jammed against the Siber- ian coast for most of its great length, and the trading ship comes not to such a place. On the southern edge of the forest some lumber is cut for the Russian farmers of central Siberia, but most of this forest, like the Great North Woods of America, lies as a vast reserve, awaiting the time when man can use it, — if it is not burned before that time. 624. Useless rivers. — It is a great misfortune that the Siberian rivers, those great log carriers of forest regions, flow north toward the land of ice and polar bears instead of south toward the land inhabited by man. In which part of such a stream does the ice break up first in summer? The loose ice, floating north, finally jams against the tightly frozen ice in the lower part of the streams and forms great ice dams, which cause the rivers to overflow during the spring and summer, and thus to flood large areas of forest and tundra. 625. Minerals. — The south central part of this region has coal, and in an area of such great size, of which so little is known, we may expect discoveries of valuable metals. The southern and eastern parts have rocks that give promise of many mines. Much gold has already been mined on the upper Lena. If the ore is rich enough it can be mined anywhere in the forest or tundra, for now we know how to build railroads to such places. 626. The forest fire — a world problem.— The minerals will wait for men to find them, but fire often runs ahead of the lumberman and eats up the forests. This gives us Fig. 473. Annual rainfall map of Asia, a continent of little rain, most of Asia receive heavy rainfall or light rainfall? Does II Fig. 474. Fig. 474. 312 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 475. Flour mill on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Is there any other wheat region from which it costs so much to get flour to Loudon? one of the hardest problems we have, — to live in this world and leave it as good as we found it. If we remove the trees and grow food on all the good farming land we must take great care to keep forests pro- ducing lumber on the land we do not want for farms. Nature takes two centuries to make some trees. A lumberman can cut a tree down in a few minutes. If forest fires occur, they may kill, in a few minutes, the forest that took two centuries to grow. So much damage of this kind has been done in a very short time that even Pennsylvania, a state, most of which should be forest (Sec. 293), is not able to furnish as much lumber as is used in the Pittsburgh district alone. The world will soon be facing a lumber famine, largely because of forest fires. Every one needs wood in many forms, and the world will soon need the lumber of the great northern forests of America and Eurasia. Can these world resources be saved and used, or must they, too, burn? It will take work to save them. This is one of the many big problems that world trade has produced. Man must solve the problem of threatened lumber famine or his children will feel the keen, sharp want of wood. We must find some new ways of doing things so that the lumber-using farmers on the plains of Illinois, the plains of the Po, and the Dutch meadows, can join with their lumber-using city brothers ii in the skyscrapers of New York, London, Paris, and Rome to help keep the fires out of the forests of Siberia, Russia, Canada, Alaska, the Appalachians, and the Rockies. QUESTIONS 1. Why is the Taiga set apart as a distinct region? 2. It might be said that In this region Nature has built a great store- house of wood, and thrown away the key. Why? 3. What kind of trees would you expect to find here? 4. What common interest has all the world in this region? 5. What is meant by the timber line? Is it higher or lower in this region than in the Himalaya Mountains? Explain. 6. What are the possible exports from Okhotsk. 7. Describe a scene in this region as it is to-day. Imagine one fifty years hence, if railroads in that time have been extended generally throughout the region. 8. How many of man’s uses for wood can you name? Can you suggest any substitutes for wood? SIBERIAN WHEAT BELT 627. Location and bounds. — In Canada, a wide wheat belt lies to the south of the cen- tral part of the great northern forest. In Siberia, also, a wheat belt lies south of the Taiga. On its southern edge, where there is less rain, and greater heat and evaporation than farther north, it is too dry for grain to grow, and the farming region gives way to pasture lands, as in our own Great Plains (Sec. 105). How wide is the Siberian Wheat Region? We do not know just where its boundaries will finally be, because men do not yet know how far south on the dry steppes men can learn to grow wheat, nor how far north in the land of forest and frost men can learn to grow wheat. (Compare with Canada, Sec. 91.) To the eastward, the region ends at the highlands near Lake Baikal. On the west, the unbroken plain extends into the plain of east Europe. About the time that the Americans were building the later transcontinental railroads across the Rocky Mountains, the Russians SIBERIAN WHEAT BELT 313 Courtesy American Red Cross Fig. 476 A water tower and station on the Trans-Siberian railway in the edge of the forest country. What change in daily living did this road make? were building the trans- Siberian line through the flat lands of the wheat belt, and across the mountains beyond Lake Baikal and on to the Pacific at Vladivostok. Then came the Russian peasant farmer to settle this fine wheat country, just as the American and Canadian set tiers were doing in Dakota, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. The two regions, each in the middle of its continent, are, indeed, very much alike in soil, in climate, in the appearance of the country, and in the kinds of crops that men grow there. 628. Surface and soil. — Flat, flat, very flat is the land, and very black and very rich is the soil of central Siberia. Day after day the train will carry you through flat, black land, past villages of one-story houses built of wood brought by rail from the Taiga. There, also, are the sod houses which serve as homes for the newest settlers. (Fig. 96, Secs. 93, 95.) 629. Climate and agriculture. — The winter is cold, with months of freezing days without a single thaw. Not much snow falls, but there is enough for sleighs and sleds. With horses galloping across the bitterly cold plains, farmers can haul their grain and frozen meat many miles to market. The summer, like that of the Northern Wheat Belt of the United States and Canada, has light rain which just suits spring wheat. This land can also pro- ducerye, barley, oats, potatoes, beets, and hay. At the northern edge there is less evaporation, so that the scanty rain makes moisture enough to support the forest. In some places the settler must clear away the forest to get a field, as settlers do in the northern part of the wheat region of western Canada. What shall the new settlers in this region sell? It is a very long way to the markets in western Europe. The freight rate must be high, so the settler must sell small valuable things like butter, eggs, and wheat; not bulky cheap things like potatoes and oats. The people of western Siberia sent for Danes to come and teach them how to make good butter, which, before the World War, used to go by carloads to the Baltic ports for ship- ment to England. The Danes also showed the farmers how to work together and run cooperative dairies. Siberian coopera- tive societies were among the best in the world at the beginning of the World War. 630. Future. — Siberia is one of the world’s great grain reserves, but it would be more useful if its several navigable rivers (Fig. 529) gave outlet to the Indian Ocean rather than to the Arctic. But the Arctic is not without hope. In 1919, a Swedish ship made the two-thousand-mile journey from Gottenborg, through the Kara Sea, to the mouth of the Ob River, and traded her cargo of manufactures for a cargo of farm produce that had been brought down in boats, through the forest district, from the Siberian Wheat Belt. Some people think that ships may visit this place regularly between July and October. If so, it will be a great boon to Siberia and to the entire commercial world. From what we know of the reason for the growth of cities (Sec. 321), we can tell that this region will not have a big city like Chicago. The Trans-Siberian Railroad and others not yet built will help the boat traffic of the rivers to build up a number of small cities. We do not know how valuable this grain country may finally be to the world. We do 11-16 314 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA Courtesy International Harvester Co. Fig. 477. The ancient Steppes, the ancient dry-land beast of burden, and a mower from America. Of what are the traces made? Would the harness fit a horse? not know how big it is; but certainly it is longer than our Great Plains between Mexico and Canada; and certainly it is wider. It is a place of enormous possibility, once it is all used, and, as in Canada (Sec. 91), new crops and new methods, especially the use of the tractor, may cause its extension both north- ward and southward. QUESTIONS 1. The Wheat Region of Siberia is larger than the Great Plains of the United States. Then why is Siberia not a leading wheat-exporting country? Why is spring wheat raised here? 2. Compare a wheat harvest scene here with one in Kansas under the following topics: Time of year; Appearance of har- vesters; Farming implements. Is there a part of Fig. 477 that might have been taken in Kansas? 3. Compare the cities of this region with those in the Red River region of North America. Compare transportation facilities. 4. What characteristic has this region that would lend itself especially to the cultivation of wheat with modern tractors and harvesters? 5. Do you think the wheat here is shipped as grain, or as flour? Give reasons for your answer. 6. What would encourage the amount of produc- tion of wheat per acre? What would cause an exten- sion of the wheat area? 7. Why is there so little snow in this region? 8. In what way should the Trans- Siberian Railroad help famine in China? 9. What commodities could be exchanged between Omsk and Obdorsk on the Ob? Omsk and Tashkend? 10. Take two journeys from southwest Siberia to western Europe, one north by sea to Sweden; one west by rail to Paris. (Figs. 474 and 319.) 11. Name countries and rivers crossed, and the Siberian products these countries buy. 12. What cargo goes back to Siberia? EURASIAN STEPPES AND DESERTS 631. A dry, flat land. — Europe’s dry district is near the Caspian Sea (Sec. 462). It is called the Steppes, and extends far into Asia. Steppe is the European word for a flat plain with scanty grass. How long is the region of the Eura- sian Steppes? (Fig. 474.) In this land of dry flat- ness, a little rain falls in summer. Fortunately it comes at a time when it can do the most good by making grass grow, giving a pasture-land that is like parts of our Great Plains. Other sections are like parts of our Great Basin. Some parts are salty plains; some are sandy desert. The three bodies of water in the Steppe region are all salty, like the Great Salt Lake and the lakes of Nevada. (Sec. 137.) 632. Three nomad races. — In such a land of scanty grass and little water, the people must be nomads (Sec. 576). They are rich Photo. Ellsworth Huntington ■. Kirghiz milking a sheep. These people also get milk from mares and camels. EURASIAN STEPPES AND DESERTS 315 in horses, sheep, donkeys, and camels. The camel in this dry land (the Bactrian camel) has two humps, and the desert sheep have humps of fat on their backs or on their tails (Fig. 480). The people live in thick felt tents, wear coats and caps of sheepskin, and have piles of wool blankets to keep themselves warm in the bitter cold winter. There is little snow, so the animals can pick their living in winter as they do on parts of the Great Plains of the United States. A nomad people called Kirghiz live with their flocks and herds in the central, northern, and eastern parts of this region. They claim to be descended from Japheth, the third son of Noah. In the corner of the region between the Caspian Sea and Persia are the Turkomans, who live much as the Kirghiz do. It was their brothers, the Turks, who swarmed across the plateau of Iran nearly seven hundred years ago, bringing great sadness to the lands they conquered. The country north of the Caspian Sea is the homeland of the Cossacks, who are such wonderful horsemen. Their great sports are horseback tricks, such as riding three horses at once, jumping or even somersaulting off of a horse as it goes at a full run, and jumping back on it again while it still runs at full speed. These people can do the riding tricks of the circus performer. For generations they have been cavalrymen in the Russian armies and are greatly feared. 633. The Caspian Sea fisheries. — The great River Volga flows through the arid land of the Cossack country to the Caspian Sea. Not long ago, as geologists count time, the Caspian was an arm of the Arctic Ocean. At that time it was supplied with seals and a great sea fish called the sturgeon. The seals and sturgeon still live there, and the sturgeon fisheries of the Caspian and the Volga have long been the greatest in the world. 634. Irrigation and cities. — Name some rivers that flow into this plain from the Asian mountains. They bring enough water from the mountains to irrigate rich valleys. Here oasis cities have arisen in the midst of Photo. Ellsworth Huntington Fig. 479. Kirghiz costumes, and house of felt on frame of poles and reeds brought from some distant stream. gardens such as those in the irrigated lands of Arizona and Nevada. (Sec. 139.) There are Tashkend, Khiva, Samarkand, and other cities. They are all ages old, older by far than London, Paris, or Rome. Perhaps they belong to the time of Babylon and the pyramids. 635. Conquest and emigration. — Such fertile spots in a nomads’ land have always been great temptations to hungry rovers. Nomad conquerors have often ruled these cities. The people from the central plain of western Asia and eastern Europe, seeking homes or booty in better lands, have for ages been a terror to all farmlands within their reach. These migrating bands fought fiercely for the land they wanted. Many times have they forced their way into Europe, Persia, and India. To keep out these home seekers, the Chinese finally built a great stone wall, longer than the railroad from Boston to Chi- cago. We can still see it (Fig. 474) reaching over hills, mountains, valleys, and plains. It is wide enough on top for a wagon road. Night and day, year in and year out, for 316 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA Photo. J. Russell Smith Fig. 480. This sheep of the desert’s edge stores fat in his broad tail as the camel does in his hump. Fat sheep tails are of several shapes. several centuries, the Chinese armies watched from the top of that great wall. 636. Russian conquest and the railroad. — After railroads made traveling easier, the Russian Empire conquered all this country. About 1880 a Russian railroad was built con- necting Tashkend, Samarkand, and Merv with the steamboats on the Caspian. Later a more direct line was built from Orenburg, on the Ural, to Tashkend. The railroad made a great and sudden change in trade. For hundreds and thou- sands of years these towns had sent light things, such as wool, skins, handmade rugs, and silks, by caravan to Bagdad, Constantinople, and Nizhni Novgorod. Then came the railroad and made it possible to ship heavy things too. In a short time the oasis orchards began to supply Russia with dried apricots, and with cotton, which grows here in the hot sum- mer, as it does in Arizona. 637. Future. — There can be no great increase of population in this region, except by irrigating more land . The grasslands have been fully used for ages. Rice, silk, fruit, corn, and the splendid gardens of the oases are using all the water that is now to be had. Fortunately, reser- voirs may be built in the mountains of Cen- tral Asia, as in the Rocky Mountains of the United States. These will enable flood waters, now wasted, to feed millions of men. QUESTIONS 1. Why is herding the chief industry of the Eurasian Steppes? Tell five ways in which sheep are useful to the nomads. 2. What is there about this land that resembles our Great Basin? Tell how the people and animals of the Eurasian region differ from ours. 3. What is unusual about cotton and seals being found in the same locality? 4. Point out a resemblance in the development of the dried fruit business in California and in central Asia after the railroads came. 5. Why do the Russian Cossacks make excellent cavalrymen? 6. Why does Moscow want the oasis cotton? 7. Trace the journey by rail from Tashkend to Moscow. Through what continents, countries, and regions do you pass? How much of the journey from Tashkend to Nizhni Novgo- rod can you take by water? 8. What is sent to Nizhni Novgorod? What is brought back? 9. Compare the prospects of this region with those of Nevada and Arizona. 10. If you were elected to govern this region, what would you do to improve it 9 THE HIGH, DRY PLATEAUS AND MOUNTAINS OF CENTRAL ASIA 638. A high, dry, and vast region. — In the very center of Asia, shut in by mountains, is one of the large regions of the world, almost as large as the United States. It is little known because it is little used. It Courtesy American Museum of Natural History, N. Y Fig. 481. Two yak picking a living in the snow of a high Asian plateau Why should they have very long hair under their bodies? HIGH, DRY PLATEAUS AND MOUNTAINS OF CENTRAL ASIA 317 Courtesy Trans-Pacific Magazine, Tokyo Fig. 482. Caravan of camels with their hales of carpet wool resting in Hatumen Street, Peking. Where did this wool grow? Where may it be made into carpet? (Sec. 266.) is little used because it has little that man can use — it is so high, so cold, so dry, so hot, and so hard to reach. Geogra- phers usually speak of it under the names of its four parts: Tibet, Sin Kiang (or Eastern Turkestan) , Mon- golia, and Afghanistan. 639. Tibet. — A few years ago an Englishman with his camel train left Srina- gar in the province of Kashmir in northern India for an exploring trip across Tibet. Traveling was so difficult that it took him eighty days to reach Kho- tan in Sin Kiang. How far is it? The journey took him across the north- western comer of the plateau of Tibet, the highest plateau in the world. Large areas of it are higher than Pikes Peak or the top of the Alps. As the plateau is shut in on the south by the still higher walls of the Himalaya Mountains, the winds from the ocean cannot bring much rain to Tibet and the other Central Asia plateaus. Therefore the region is dry. Because it is very high, it is cool in summer, and in winter so very cold and snowy that much of it is quite impassable. Perhaps you see now why the Tibetans have been able to keep nearly all strangers out and to keep their country to themselves like a little closed world. You can also see why Tibet is sparsely peopled and by shep- herds only, except for a few towns in valleys where snow water permits irrigation. The Himalaya Mountains, the highest in the world, are little known because traveling there is almost impossible, and because the natives have not wanted white men to go there. Until 1921 no white man had ever been within sixty miles of Mt. Everest, the highest peak in the world. In 1921 the greatest mountain-climbing expedition ever seen set out from London for a two years’ campaign to find a path to Everest and if possible, to climb it. Can you tell something about this expedition? 640. Turkestan and Mongolia. — The pla- teaus of Turkestan and Mongolia are not so high as that of Tibet, but they are much drier and most of their surface is desert. These wide, dry plateaus of Central Asia are so difficult to cross that they keep peoples apart. A journey from Samarkand in Russian (western) Turkestan to Peking in China is longer than a journey from New York to San Francisco. Take the map (Fig. 474) and trace out the route. From Kashgar to Kami the camels must follow the base of the high Tianshan Mountains. Small streams, fed by melting snow, run down to the edge of the plain and furnish drinking water, a little pasture, and perhaps a few irrigated gardens, making a string of little oases at the edge of the great, dead desert of the Tarim basin. Trace a caravan route from Peking across Mongolia. (Fig.529.) 641. The nomad shepherds. — A few nom- ads with sheep, goats, and camels get only a scanty living on this high, dry world, that is hot in summer and bitter cold in winter. They know the water-holes and mountain pastures, and they believe it brings bad luck to plow the ground. By 318 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA © E. M. Newman Fig. 483. A Korean valley. How many villages do you see? What do you notice about the plan of the houses? caravan they send out bales of wool, and skins from their flocks and from the wild deer, antelope, and other animals that they hunt. China claims to rule Mongolia, Sin Kiang (or Eastern Turkestan), and Tibet. China has governors in such towns as Kashgar and Hami, but most of the people are nomads and rule themselves, because the governors in an oasis town do not know where the nomads may be at any particular time because they are constantly on the move. 642. Afghanistan is not as high as Tibet, and a railroad might be built through the country from the plains of Central Asia to the plains of India without much difficulty. Before the World War there was a jealous fear between Russia and England that an army might follow such a route. Neither nation was willing to have the armies or rail- roads of the other enter Afghanistan, so both nations left Afghanistan as a kind of no-man’s- land. Its ruler, a tyrannical despot called the Amir, has but little authority over some of the wild tribes that live in the high mountain pastures, the little irrigated val- leys, and the dry plains that are so hot in summer and so cold in winter. 643. Future. — Afghanistan, Tibet, Sin Kiang, and Mongolia are nearly as large as the United States, but have few men in their wide spaces. With no large streams for irriga- tion, this land will continue in the future in much the same condition as at pres- ent, except where valuable: minerals may be discov- ered. In that case rail- roads may be built and 1 mining towns may spring up as quickly as they have done in Nevada. (Sec. 141.) Already much gold and copper have been pro- duced on the Siberian side of the Altai Mountains, which form a part of the great mountain wall along the northwestern edge of the region. QUESTIONS 1. In 50 or 60 days you can travel around the world by crossing Europe, Asia, and the United States. Why did it take nearly three months crossing one corner of Tibet to reach Sin Kiang? 2. If there were no Him- alaya Mountains, what kind of a region would this be? 3. Why is there so much interest among explorers in regard to this region? 4. Why is there more interest in exploring Tibet than the other plateaus? 5. Tell some of the dangers and some of the pleasures of travel in Tibet. 6. Would there be much freight on a railroad from the Yangtze to the Caspian? 7. Account for the many camels seen in the city of Peking. 8. Do> the Chinese have camels? Why? 9. Name the plateaus of this region, and tell of what country each forms a part. Make them of sand or clay. With strings show the caravan routes. Make the camels in clay. With what exports should they be laden? 10. Where will you put the Great Wall of China? 11. Is it as much needed now as when built? 12. If you had to live on one of these plateaus, which would you choose? THE JAPANESE RICE REGION Part I. — The Land 644. Bounds and character. — The Japanese Rice Region includes most of the Japanese islands and a part of the Korean peninsula. In this region the summers are warm enough, moist enough, and long enough for rice to grow well. Most of the people both of Japan and Korea live in the rice region, and eat rice as THE JAPANESE RICE REGION 319 their chief food. Most of the land is forested mountains. Some of the mountains are vol- canoes. One of them, the beautiful Fuji- yama (Fig. 472), is regarded as sacred by the Japanese. Because the country is volcanic, Japan has many earthquakes. The valleys and plains are green with crops, and are dotted with villages in which millions of farmers live. They toil day in and day out on their little farms, the women and children helping them— working, working, working. Big and little, male and female, they seem to be forever at work. Because the climate is favorable for food production, this tiny region has more people than all the rest of Asia that we have studied. All the other Asiatic regions, except the wheat belt, are too dry or too cold to support many people. 645. The cyclones. — Japan and Korea have rain both winter and summer. In autumn, winter, and spring they have cyclones very much as the United States and England do. Rains at these seasons let the people grow winter wheat (Sec. 74), and also barley and rye. Summer brings a new kind of rain wind, the monsoon. 646. The monsoon. — In summer the great, dry center of Asia becomes very hot. The heated air expands, becomes lighter and rises, and to take its place a great sea breeze of warm, moist air from the In- d i a n and Pacific oceans blows into southeast- ern Asia. This is the monsoon. It blows day and night for several months, bringing Fig. 484. Japan’s rice acreage. Why moisture is there none in the central parts , of the islands? and sum- © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 485. Decorating porcelain in a Japanese factory, mer rain to all shore lands lying between the Indus and Amur rivers. Summer heat and summer rain make plants grow and help the farmer to produce abundant crops. For this reason the monsoon lands of Asia hold about half the human race. Part II. — The Old Japan 647. An independent civilization. — Japan has a history very different from that of the other Asiatic countries we have studied. We have read of roving peoples, of conquests, of empires that rose and fell. Japan is different. She is protected by the sea. No foreigner has invaded her shores. For hun- dreds of years her emperors have ruled their beautiful land, while the industrious people, aided by their good climate, developed agriculture, hand industries, arts, and a high civilization. For many centuries the Japa- nese have been taught reading and writing. 648. An artistic people. — For centuries the Japanese were a nation of expert and careful farmers and skilled workers in wood, metal, clay, porcelain, silk, paper, and lacquer, which is a kind of varnish that we, in America, do not make. Japanese paper umbrellas and lanterns are so pretty that we sometimes use them for ornaments. 320 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA © Publishers’ photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 486. The fine lady of Japan goes calling. Why does she not have a horse and driver, or an automobile? 649. Japanese flowers. — Many plants in American gardens were brought from Japan. The people are wonderful gardeners, both in fruits and flowers. With patient skill they have produced many varieties of fruits new to us. In Japan there are cherry and other fruit trees that produce beautiful, large flowers but no edible fruit. Cherry-blooming time in Japan is a kind of spring festival. Thousands go out to see the cherry trees that almost bury the little houses in seas of red and pink and white blossoms. Often poems are written to the cherry trees. 650. Good manners. — The people have lived close together for such a long time that they have made a great many rules about how one person should treat another. Even the little children are taught to obey these rules of conduct. Indeed, the Japanese and the Chinese are among the most polite people in the world. 651. Love of country. — The Japanese have long loved their country. They love it so well that they are willing to obey its laws more thoroughly than we in the United States obey our laws. As soldiers, the Japanese have shown great bravery, and the people declare they would die to the last man. to save their country from invasion. 652. Sports and games. — Japanese, both young and old, are fond of sports and games, and have many that we do not know in this country. Their wrestlers and acrobats some- times come to America and give amazing exhibitions of what they can do, 653. Japan’s problem — the food supply. — For many centuries the Japanese supported themselves by farming and household indus- tries. They had no foreign trade. After many centuries the population became so dense that the people had a very hard time to get enough to eat. That is Japan’s great problem — something to eat. The three large southern islands are about one-twenty-fifth as large as the United States, but they have more than half as many people as the whole United States. Japan is so hilly that only about one-sixth of her land can be farmed. On the average, one acre of cultivated land has been made to feed four Japanese people. 654. Little land, much labor. — When four people get their food from one acre of land, it means that they must work very hard, and by intensive farming raise many crops. As one acre of ground can not be made to produce enough to feed both men and beasts, the Japanese do not keep animals. Man must, therefore, do his own plowing. Some- times men and women pull plows, but most of the land is turned by hand with spades and forks. This is called garden agriculture, or hand agriculture. In the main island of Honshu the average farm is only 70 yards by 175 yards (two and a half acres). The field that grows wheat, barley, or rye in the winter is immediately spaded up after har- vest and planted to rice or some other summer crop. More than half of the cultivated land of this part of Japan has been leveled for rice fields, called “paddies.” (Sec. 672.) 655. Bamboo. — Our Bureau of Forestry at Washington tells us that we are using up our wood in the United States about four times as fast as it grows. We are able to do this for a time because we have only been in this continent a little while. Long ago the Japanese found that they must Fig. 487. Bushels of grain per person raised in 1911-13: A. United States 50.8 B. Canada 47.4 C. Japan 5.0 You know that Japan does not import much grain. What does this fact tell about her wealth? THE JAPANESE RICE REGION 321 grow wood as fast as they used it. The wood that they cultivate is the bamboo (Fig. 516). It grows very quickly and is wonderfully use- ful. To the Japanese, and to the Chinese as well (Sec. 675) it is lumber, water buckets, pipes, and innumerable other useful things. A list of all the uses made of bamboo would fill a page or two of this book. The young shoots are even used as lettuce. 656. Japanese food. — The usual meal of the Japanese garden farmers consists of rice, beans or other vegetables, much cabbage and other greens, a little fish, soy bean oil, and soy bean sauce for flavoring. The Japanese meal is nourishing, and because of the green vegetables it is more healthful than a meal of bread and butter, meat and potatoes. Instead of bread and potatoes the Japanese eat rice, because it is the best crop to grow in a land that has a warm, wet summer. They use fish and beans instead of meat, because land is scarce, and therefore animals are scarce. For the same reason soy bean oil is used instead of butter. We may not know it, but we often use meat to make our meal taste good. For that purpose the Japanese use a bit of fish, or a sauce made from fer- mented soy bean meal. 657. Fisheries. — As the Japanese have neither room to raise meat, nor money with which to buy it, they must go to sea and catch fish. The waters near the Japanese shores are dotted with the sails of little fishing boats. No other nation except Norway has so many of its people catching sea food. Just as the people of California, Oregon, and Washington sail up to the coast of Alaska to catch salmon, so the Japanese now sail up to the cold Asiatic shores of Kamchatka oppo- site Alaska, and catch salmon and other fish, and crabs. This sea food is canned. Part III. — The New Japan 658. Japan’s sudden change. — After we in America had the steamship, the railroad, and the telegraph, Japan was going along as she had done for centuries — beautiful, artistic, polite, but crowded and getting hungry. For many generations Japan had refused to have anything to do with foreign- ers, and travelers from other continents were asked to go away. But in 1853 and 1854 an American fleet visited Japan, and the American Admiral, Perry, made a treaty with the Mikado, or Emperor. Japan then sent a minister to Washington and we sent one to Tokyo. Thus Japan entered the society of nations. In 1868 there was a revolution. Japan then became a limited monarchy, with a parliament to help rule. 659. Learning science and using it. — In 1868 Japan was living very much as Europe lived eight hundred years ago. In forty years she became one of the great powers of the world. The changes that have come in Japan have been among the most amazing things in all the history of the world. Most of the old Japan has remained, but to old Japan there have been added the new education, like that of Europe and America, and the new science which has made possible machinery, factories, railroads, steamships, trade, and a modern army and navy. How did this happen ? Because Japan learned the scientific way of doing things, and used her knowledge. As an example, see the health of herarmy. When the Japanese army invaded Manchuria in 1904, in a war with Russia, a sanitary squad with micro- scopes went in ahead of the army. The squad rhoto. Ewing Galloway, N. X. Fig. 488. The horseless carriages of Tokyo, 322 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA Fig. 489. A bale of cotton and skeins of raw silk of equal value. What makes silk so expensive? (Sec. 664. ) tested every spring and well, looking for disease germs. If the water was found to be bad, the squad posted a notice to boil the water before using it. The soldiers obeyed, and the Japanese army came through that campaign in better health than any other army that had ever been heard of. 660. Equipping a nation. — This sudden change in ways of doing things happened because the Japanese government had sent many students to the universities of America and Europe. Japan began sending them as soon as she decided that she must use scien- tific methods. These students studied every- thing. They learned how to build and run railroads, ships, and factories, and to do things as they were done in Europe and America. Japan does not now send many students abroad, for she has colleges and universities at home, taught by professors who were trained abroad. The libraries and laboratories of a college in Japan are like those in America and Europe. Many of the Japanese have even laid aside their picturesque and comfortable national clothes, and dress as do the Americans. They use automobiles, bicycles, trolleys, and trains; they have the telephone, the telegraph, the wireless, factories, the airplane, and steamship lines to every con- tinent. There are many newspapers in Japan, and an army and a navy that may be the most efficient in the world. Japan has a department of agriculture much like ours, and the Japanese government supports scientific work better than our government does. Her government does many things to aid industry at home and trade in for- eign countries. Japan is, indeed, a highly civilized, very modern, scientific, and efficient nation. 661. Japan builds an empire. — This new Japan of science and machines, factories and ships, is working hard for a place in the world’s trade. Japan’s population is increas- ing rapidly. As she is using about all the land that can be used, the home-grown food supply no longer feeds her people. She must import food as well as raw materials. What has Japan to sell in payment? She is follow- ing the example of England and becoming a manufacturing nation, and with manu- factured articles she will pay for her imports. Japan is rapidly building up, by conquest, an empire in Asia. Her first colony was the tropic island of Formosa, which she got from China in 1894. Here she produces some sugar, some tea, and most of the world’s supply of camphor, which is secured by dis- tilling the wood of the camphor tree. Japan holds a part of southern Manchuria, where she has developed a wonderful bean industry; but most of the beans are grown by Chinese people who live there. She also has control of mining and rail- way rights in Shantung peninsula. Japan took Shantung from Ger- I , — H many during the World A | War and later ceded it to j— ■= — ■= — - China. | Fig. 490. The silk production of five nations (1919-20) : Pounds B A. Japan 48,800,000 B. China 42,800,000 C. Italy 4,000,000 D. Levant 2,200,000 E. France 300,000 t THE JAPANESE RICE REGION 323 After the World War, Japan occupied the northern half of the island of Sakhalin. This island is rich in coal and fish. 662. Korea (Chosen) has been called the “Hermit Kingdom, ” because for centuries it, like Japan, was shut away from the world. The people of Korea lived much as the Japanese did, but the population is not so dense as that of Japan. When Japan sent her students to Europe and America, the government of Korea was too dull, too weak, and too inefficient to do the same. In 1910 Japan annexed Korea and made it a Japa- nese province. The Koreans do not like foreign control, but Japanese methods have increased the Korean rice crop from forty million to sixty million bushels, and Japanese engineers are busy turning waste land into rice paddies. Thus Korea helps to feed Japan. 663. Factories and imports. — Japan’s fac- tories and manufacturing cities have grown almost as rapidly between 1890 and 1920 as have those of the United States. Japan is now becoming a manufacturing and com- mercial nation. She has nearly enough coal for her own use, but little iron ore. The chief import is raw cotton from the United States and India. Next come iron and machinery from the United States and England. She must also import rice from Indo-China, sugar from Java, and, to fertilize her rice fields, bean cake (Sec. 35) from Man- churia. She must import other things, too, for after all Japan is poor in raw materials. 664. Raw silk and tea. — Japan is working hard to build up export trade by selling fac- tory goods, but her chief export is raw silk, a product of hand labor on the little farms. Women and girls make silk by unwinding the threads that the silk worm has wound around itself to make a cocoon in which to pass two or three weeks before it becomes a moth. The Japanese raise silk worms by the hundreds of millions. The worms are kept on trays in warm rooms, carefully tended, and fed enormous quantities of leaves from the mul- berry tree. In the year 1918 we imported from Japan a dollar and fifty cents’ worth of raw silk for every man, woman, and child in America. Silk means work. So does tea, another export, which is made by carefully drying the leaves of the tea tree after they have been picked by hand. 665. Factories and exports. — Next among Japanese exports come cotton manufactures, silk manufactures, matches, porcelain, earth- enware, beans, and peanuts. Japan gets some of the peanuts from Korea and China. 666. The Japan of to-morrow. — Instead of villages with paper walls and bamboo house frames, Japan is now building cities like those of Europe and America. Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka look like Chicago or Manchester. The buildings are of cement, brick, and steel. There are trolleys, tele- phones, and railroads. The iron-clad war- ship lies in the harbor, the freight steamer lies at the dock, and newspapers tell of New York, London, and Petrograd, and baseball games, just as American newspapers do. Factories and trade have made cities grow rapidly in Japan, just as they have in the United States and northwestern Europe. To feed her polite but hungry people, Japan must always keep up her careful and laborious agriculture. She will steadily in- crease her manufactures and foreign trade, for which her people and her government work so diligently and skilfully. QUESTIONS 1. One condition necessary to produce monsoons is large bodies of warm water, with large areas of hotter land near by. Which continent has the most regions under the influence of monsoon winds? 2. Study the map of ocean currents (Fig. 327) and temperatures (Fig. 329), and give a reason why Japan has a mild climate. Compare the climate of Japan with that of the adjoining mainland of Asia, and explain the differences. 3. How does it happen that Japan raises tea and silk, but the United States does not? 4. What countries of Europe carry on intensive agri- culture, somewhat as does Japan? Why? 5. If you were traveling in Japan in regions away from the big cities, what are some of the things about your appearance that would cause the natives to stare? 6. What are some of the customs of the natives that would be hard for you to follow? 7. Compare the houses pictured in Fig. 483 with those in Fig. 431. 8. Of what material are they built? Why? 9. Why is Japan the only country of Asia that is recognized as a world power? 10. How do you think a scene in a business street of modern Tokyo would differ from the one in Fig. 488? 324 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA Fig. 401. Little fields in tlie terraced lands of north China. Uotirtenv U. b. Dept Acrr Will rain be more useful here or on sloping ground? 11. Compare the geography of England with that of Japan under the following topics: Climate; Location; Industries; Needs of the people. 12. What is meant by the Industrial Revolution in Japan? Why is Japan changing from an agricultural nation to one with manufactures? Compare her history with that of England in this respect. 13. What great advantage has England in her natural resources? 14. How does Shantung help Japan’s manufacturing? 15. Which has gained more as a result of Perry’s visit in 1854, Japan or America? Give arguments on both sides. 16. Make an imaginary visit to a Japanese home, and describe all of your experiences of a day and a night. 17. How did Japan’s island location affect her history? 18. Where is a natural place from which to get her raw materials? Where will she find the best market for her cotton manufactures? 19. Describe the cargo of a ship coming into the harbor of Osaka from the United States. Describe its return cargo. 20. Describe a cargo going from Nagasaki to Man- churia, and the return cargo. 21. Why does Japan need colonies? Name and locate all of her colonial possessions. (Fig. 10.) 22. Show on the map what territory she has acquired by the World War. 23. Which one did China contest? Why? Which did the United States contest? Why? 24. Fill in the chart: Chief Imports into Japan. From Where. Chief Exports from Japan. To Where. Fig. 492. Population of the five largest nations anc empires in millions: A. British Empire . .442 B. China (1911) . ...32( C. Russia (1915) . . . 16( D. United States and posses- sions (1920).. 11) 1 ' $ E. Japanese Empire B F| (1918) 71 ll Mr ?? Why is China sometime! . Li U called a sleeping giant! THE CHINESE REGION 667. Bounds and character. — The region called the Chinese region takes in nearly all the provinces that are often called China Proper. It lies between the Central Asian plateau, the Manchurian Region, and the sea. Look at the map (Fig. 474), and describe briefly the physical features of the region. 668. Comparison with the eastern United States. — The Chinese Region and that part of the United States east of the Mississippi River are about equal in size, and each occupies the southeast corner of its continent. They are in about the same latitude and can produce very much the same crops, because the climate in the two regions is quite similar. The chief difference in climate is the greater summer rain of southern and eastern China, brought by the monsoon (Sec. 646). The monsoon sometimes causes sorrow in China by bringing so much rain that floods drown people by the thousand. Sometimes the monsoon comes too late or does not come at all, and then the crops fail and people starve. The greatest difference between the Chi- nese Region and the eastern United States is in the number of people. One has 70,000,- 000 people, the other has 300,000,000 people who live in a region that has more high mountains than has the eastern part of the United States. Much of the coast plain of the United States is sandy and little used. The wide THE CHINESE REGION 325 coast plain of China is very rich delta land of clay and mud, and every foot of it is used. It supports swarms of people, who live as the Japanese lived before they began to develop their for- eign trade. Most of China’s people live on their little farms, and often they travel about the coast-plain coun- try in canal boats. The great river of Amer- ica, the Mississippi, flows south through large areas of unused swamp. The Yangtze, the great river of China, flows east in the same latitude as Charleston, Fig. 495 . China and its railroads shown on the same scale as the United South Carolina. Along this States (Fig. 494). What do the sets of columns marked “Population” and river there were swamps, ‘Railroads” tell of the transportation opportunities in the two countries? which centuries ago were turned into rice- fields. * The Yangtze itself has for ages been a great highway. Thousands of ,* sailboats and steamboats carry freight up and down the river. 669. The oldest nation on earth. — The Chinese have light Fig. 493. Total populations in millions: A. China (1911) 320 B. United States (1920) 105 yellow skin, almond-shaped, slanting eyes, and stiff black hair, which was formerly braided into a long “pig-tail”. They have been civilized longer than any other race. When Solomon built his temple in Jeru- salem, the Chinese had been a civilized nation for many centuries. The various nations of Europe came into being, and still China remained as in past centuries. Greece rose and fell, Rome rose and fell, and China still lived. Why? Because the country was good for agriculture, and was pro- tected by nature from invaders. The waves of migrating people who broke up the Roman Empire did not reach China, because there were high mountains, plateaus, and deserts to the west of China. On the east was the wide empty sea. On the south the tropic forest reared its jungle wall and on the south- Fig. 494. Map showing the railroads in the United States. Compare this west were high moun- with Fig. 495, and state in which country you would prefer to carry on a busi- f n ina olmvn vnlWc onH ness that would require rapid transportation facilities from the interior to the ’ . " ^ ’ coast. Has nature given China more natural waterways than the United States? deep rivers, and yet more 326 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA © E. M. Newman Fig. 496. A Chinese farmer grinding corn with a stone rolling on a saucer-shaped base. high mountains, sharp valleys, and deep rivers. In the winter the mountains are covered with snow, and in the summer the valleys are flooded with monsoon rain. Surely nature gave China an almost perfect barrier! Only in the north could large bodies of people with horses, flocks, and herds cross into China, and there the Chinese built the Great Wall to keep invaders out. Read about it in some encyclopedia. Such invaders as did occa- sionally enter by this northern route could not seriously disturb the Chinese farmer- nation. 670. An isolated, independent people. — Thus for century after century the Chinese had nothing to do with the people of any other country, and wanted only to be let alone. They could live thus isolated, because they had at home everything a nation needed. China reaches from Peking, in the latitude of the land of wheat, corn, and barley in the United States, down to Hongkong, in the latitude of Havana, the land of oranges, bananas, and sugar cane. In the west are mountains rich in minerals, and the nomad’s country, where wool and hides are pro- duced. The different parts of China traded with each other by means of junks (sailing vessels) that went up and down the coast, by boats on many canals and rivers, and by caravans over hills and high mountains and swift streams. 671. A nation of hard workers. — The Chinese have been in their land for such a long time that the population is very dense (Figs. 492, 495). There is only a little land for each family. For this reason they must work hard for a living. Everybody works, even the children. The children of China have rather a hard time of it, because they begin work so young and work long hours. An Iowa farmer often has 160 acres of land, and has horses, tractors, reapers, and other machinery. Each year he raises thousands of bushels of grain. This is enough to give each member of his family the five or six bushels a person needs to eat in a year, and wagonloads besides — enough to> feed many horses, cattle, and pigs. The Iowa farmer raises one crop on each field each year. Some of his land is usually in pasture. The farmer on the Chinese plains often has only two acres or even less, and he raises two crops a year on all of it. None of it is in pasture, because the yield from pasture is too small. In the autumn, with the help of his family, he sows the land to winter wheat. In sum- mer, if the land is in the northern or the inland section of light rain, the farmer uses a part of it for sweet potatoes, a part for corn or millet, and a part for soy beans. The only animals on the place are some chickens, Fig. 497. Porters carrying bales of Chinese tea up the mountains into Tibet. 827 THE CHINESE REGION a cow that pulls a cart and lives on straw and bean stalks, and a pig that eats scraps that no other animal will eat. To prepare the ground for crops a spade is used instead of the plow. Though the land yields two crops a year, there is very little to sell, because the family must eat nearly every- thing that can be grown. 672. Rice. — You remember that Holland is the gift of the Rhine. Look on the map (Fig. 474), and see how the great plain of northeastern China is also the gift of two- rivers. Which ones are they? They have cut sand and clay from the mountains, and have carried them down and built up the wide lowlands. This making of new land goes on so fast that cities that were once seaports are now thirty miles inland. This plain is the land of rice, the great summer crop of the warm lowlands of Central and South China. Here each summer tens of millions of men and women, boys and girls, work hard in the millions of little ricefields. It takes a great deal of labor to grow rice in the way it is grown in the Far East. Rice is a swamp plant. To make it feel at home and grow well, the people turn their ricefields into ponds. To do this they make the land as level as a floor, so that the water may be at the same depth in all parts of it. Then they make a bank of earth Courtesy Trans-Pacific Magazine, Tokyo Fig. 498. The basket merchant with his wares on a carrying pole, a very common device in China. Why doesn’t he use an automobile? Photo. Wm. H. Rau, Inc. Fig. 499. A memorial arch of carved stone near Soo- chow, China. Chinese works of art require vast labor. about a foot high all around the field. To bring water to the ricefields, canals cross the low plain in every direction, as roads cross the farmlands of the United States. Sometimes the water will run from the canal into the ricefields, but if it does not the people must do the hard work of lifting it from the canals up to the field in buckets or by treadmills. The ricefield is fertilized with care and with an al- most unbelievable amount of hard work. Mud that is shoveled out of canals is spread upon the fields year after year and thus, little by little, the plain has been built up. Some- times mud from the canals is piled on stacks of clover and straw, and afterward shoveled over and over to mix it with the decaying stalks. Thus a fine com- post is made, which is spread upon the fields. 328 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA Photo. Wm. H. Kau, Inc. Fig. 500. A Chinese jitney. Wliy is a wheelbarrow a good vehicle for bad roads? People wade nearly knee-deep in mud and water, weeding the rice by hand and pushing the weeds down into the mud so that they may decay, and help to fertilize the rice plants. As the grain ripens, the water is drawn off and the ground allowed to dry. The grain is harvested by hand, set up on sticks to dry, and threshed by hand Then the ground is at once spaded up, and the crop of winter wheat or barley is planted for the harvest of May or June. To save time for the next year’s crop, the rice is planted in little seed beds, before the wheat or barley is harvested. The young plants are moved to the field or “paddy” and set out by hand as soon as the wheat is cut. Think of all the work that must be done to raise these two crops of grain each year! 673. The Chinese meal. — In southeastern China the commonest meal con- sists of rice, beans, a little vegetable oil, and a sur- prisingly large amount of some kind of boiled greens, of which the Chinese have many varieties that we do not use. Long ago they learned that greens are very wholesome. In place of butter they eat vegetable oil made from soy beans or the seed of rape, which is a kind of cabbage. These vegetables give much more edible fat to the acre than does the cow with her milk and butter, or the pig with his bacon. The Chinese eat great quantities of vegetables, and are the finest gardeners in the world. Manyof the Chineseand Japanese who have come to America are vegetable growers. 674. North China. — North China and Cen- tral China have less rainfall than South China and East China. Peking has a climate almost exactly like that of Omaha, Nebraska. In the sections of smaller rainfall, millions of people either do not know what rice is, or they regard it as a luxury. The farms there are planted in winter to wheat and barley, and in summer to soy beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, and millet, a grain that looks something like Kafir corn. Peanuts, a new crop for China, are also grown here. About 1895 an American missionary gave a quart of seed to some farmers in Shantung. The nuts grew well and quickly became an important crop in that province. The peanut industry is rapidly increasing in importance in China and Japan, as well as in the United States and Africa. The province of Shan- tung, the peninsula between the Gulf of Pechili and the Yellow Sea, alone produces enough peanuts each year to make five pounds for every person in the United States. Many of them are sent to this country. Fig. 501. A ferryboat crossing a Chinese river. The boat is attached to loops which slide along a rope or cable made of bamboo fiber. What industry furnishes the cable we would use for this purpose? THE CHINESE REGION 329 675. Fuel and wood. — This land has had so many people for so long a time that very little forest is left. Houses are made of brick, with tile roofs and dirt floors. The Chinese have learned how to heat their houses with but little fuel. They have a very economical kind of stove called a kang. This is a wide, brick platform built along one side of the room and kept warm by a very tiny fire underneath. On the warm platform the people sit by day and sleep at night. The kang is often heated by burning straw, corn- stalks, or trimmings of fruit trees, and the ashes are carefully saved for fertilizer. A long time ago the Chinese invented a kind of fireless cooker. To get wood the Chinese, like the Japanese, grow the bamboo tree as they do any other crop. (Sec. 655.) This plant, which grows with great rapidity, has a strong, hollow, jointed stalk, which the people, like the Jap- anese, have learned to use in numberless ways. 676. Western ideas. — About a hundred years ago there began for the people of Europe and America a period of time which may be called the Age of Science. Until that time we had nothing that China wanted, and her idea about wanting to be left alone was quite right. But now, like the Japanese, the Chinese begin to see that we have things that they want — new knowledge, new ma- chines, new ways of doing things — so China has changed her attitude towards other nations. She is now sending her young men to the universities of America and Europe; she hires foreigners to come and teach in the Chinese colleges; she is starting schools to teach her own people the new knowledge. Not far from Shanghai there is even a college to teach tea-growing. The Chinese govern- ment has adopted a new alphabet of thirty- six letters to take the place of the Chinese writing, which has thousands of word signs. With this new alphabet the type- writer can be used, and a new school has been started at Peking to train teachers in the new way of writing. Many of the people are cutting off the long queue, or plait of hair, sometimes called a 11-17 © E. M. Newman Fig. 502. Native Chinese taxicabs in Hongkong. See the raincoat of long coarse grass, and the grass hat. pigtail. They are even beginning to give up their native style of clothes for the less com- fortable and less satisfactory kind that we wear. 677. Western machines. — Steamboats are replacing the junks on her rivers and canals. Automobile roads are beginning to replace the old trails where men trundled wheel- barrows and donkeys carried packs. Tele- graph lines and new railroads are being built. Some Chinese farmers are changing from the old, old plan of growing nearly everything needed on each little farm. Instead, some farmers now grow only two or three things and send most of what they raise to market. Factories are being built and equipped with European and American machines. There are even large modern iron works at Hankow on the Yangtze which sometimes send iron to San Francisco. 678. Government and army. — After hav- ing been an empire for thousands of years, China has become a republic in name at least. It is a misfortune that China has as yet a very poor government. The Peking government has little power. In some of the provinces the people are ruled entirely by military usurpers, and sometimes there is a rival government at Canton. After despising the soldier for centuries, China is, unfortunately, beginning to build, train, and equip an army, like the armies of 330 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA © E. M. Newman Fig. 503. A street scene in the older section of Canton. (Fig. 474.) Europe and America. She did this only after she had seen Russia take a part of Manchuria from her, Japan take Formosa, England take Wei-hai-wei and Hongkong, Germany take Shantung, and France take a corner of South China. If China should become organized and armed as Japan is, she might be much the most powerful military nation in the world. The United States has taken nothing from China, but has helped her all she could, and is regarded as her great friend. It is not only a duty of decency, but it is to the best interest of the people of the United States to see to it that China is so treated that she shall not become a militaristic nation. 679. Trade. — When the Chinese farm and home were so nearly self-supporting, the country had but little foreign trade. Before the World War the exports and imports were less than two dollars a year for each person, while in the United Kingdom they were over seventy dollars. (See Appendix.) Chief of all the exports is raw silk. Then come beans, bean cake, bean oil, and hides. Among their curious exports are firecrackers, which the Chinese are very fond of using, and dried eggs, which will, of course, keep a long time and can be carried easily. The chief Chinese im- ports are cotton and cot- ton cloth, tobacco, iron, machinery to make manu- factures, and oil for the family lamp. Even the Chinese peasant is willing to pay for a bright light. Most of the foreign trade of China is with Japan, Eng- land, and the United States. 680. Cities. — Shanghai, at the mouth of the Yangtze, is the greatest trade center — the New York of China. Ocean steamers go to Hankow, 600 miles up the Yangtze. Why should Hankow be a great city? Why is it called the Chicago of China? The island city of Hongkong, now a British possession, is the center of the trade of south China and the Li Valley. Much of this trade comes by way of Canton, which, next to New York, is said to be the most crowded city in the world. Here thousands of people live in boats. Tientsin, the port of Peking, is the center of trade for North China. China has many large cities, most of which are in the district served by boats. Name the imports and exports of each port city. (Fig. 474.) 681. Future. — Some parts of China are so well cultivated that the land cannot be made to produce another thing. In parts, especially in the west, there is still unused land, and there may be some increase in Chinese agriculture. The great change in China will be in the growth of factories and in manufacture. Most of the things used in China are still made on the hand loom and the hand spinning wheel, and by other hand tools; but there are already 100,000 factory workers, and an American official says that in a few more decades there may be 40,000,000 factory workers. That would be only the proportion that we now have to the total population in the United States. China is rich in resources for manufacturing. THE CHINESE REGION 331 China has more coal by far than all Europe, of which a supply is found in each one of the eighteen provinces of China Proper. Where there is coal, there is often oil; indeed, the Chinese have used a little petroleum for a long while. She also has iron, which has supported a primitive iron industry for many centuries, but the resources are almost un- touched, and are said to be very rich. An iron mine on the Yangtze sends Japan some of the iron used in that country. The moun- tainous southwestern province, Yunnan, is famous for its mines of gold, copper, zinc, and other metals. She has so many people that they have never been counted; thus 320,000,000 is only an estimate. With all these raw materials and all these workers at hand, and with a new education started, we may expect to see great changes in China in our own lifetime. The chief difficulty is a political one. Can China have a good government? Can she have peace? In this age of science and machinery, peace and good government are more important than ever before. American and European engineers are ready to help China with plans. American machinery is ready to chug in the mines, quarries, and fields, and to whirr in the factories. If China develops riches, it means riches for us too, through our trade with her. There is nothing to be gained from poor neighbors, and much to be had from rich ones. The lack of prosperity in Europe after the World War soon made hard times in the United States. QUESTIONS 1. What great river of the United States resembles the Yangtze? of Egypt? of Austria? of Mesopotamia? How? 2. Of what value is the Yangtze to China? 3. Why are flood plain and delta soils so rich? 4. What rivers of southwest China have deep valleys? 5. Why is the labor of rice culture much more difficult in China than in Louisiana and Texas? (Sec. 51.) 6. What is meant by different grades of rice? 7. Why has it become a staple food used by people almost everywhere? 8. Why is it said to be a luxury in some parts of China? 9. Why is winter wheat grown in this region? 10. Where are the largest cities of China located? Why? Find a city near the Yangtze that might have been on the coast at one time. 11. What opportunities are there in China for an ambitious young American? 12. Why has China not become a modern nation like Japan? 13. Compare transportation facilities in China, as pictured in this chapter, with those with which you are familiar. 14. Imagine you had traveled in China and taken the pictures shown in this chapter. What interesting thing about that nation would you tell from each picture? 15. Why are the great powers of the world so much interested in China? 16. America and England have great coal fields. Of what importance are China’s coal fields to them? 17. What countries have shared in the partition of China? 18. Name some modern discoveries in science that had been long known in China. 19. How has China been able to develop an ancient and an advanced civiliza- tion without foreign aid? 20. From the history of China, would you say that there is any reason for Europeans or Americans to look down on China? 21. What is a houseboat? Why do so many people in China live on them? 22. Take the shortest journey from Peking to London. Tell what countries and cities are passed through. 23. Why is not all trade with Europe by railroad? 24. Take machinery from Philadelphia, and oil from Texas, to Tientsin. What would each ship carry on its return trip? 25. The great Chinese famine of 1921, in the region of the upper part of the Hwang Valley, was caused by both drought and flood — drought in the upper region and flood in the lower region. Can you explain these conditions? 26. Explain how the same wind can bring death to China both by coming and by not coming. Also how it is the cause of her dense popula- tion along the southeast coast. Courtesy Hollister Sturges Fig. 504. A native Chinese boat on the Woosung, a river of the Yangtze delta, on which Shanghai is situated. 382 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 505. A temple at Calcutta showing the wonderful development of native Indian art and workmanship. In very early times the Indians built entirely of wood and when they began to use stone they continued the same forms of architecture. Does your home county have any buildings as beautiful? THE MANCHURIAN REGION 682. A region like parts of North America. — How wide is the Manchurian region? (Fig. 469.) How long? What countries own ter- ritory in it? (Fig. 471.) If we could move it over to eastern North America, in the same latitude, where would its bounds be? In climate, this part of Asia is much like the part of North America bounded by the Great Northern Forests, the Atlantic Ocean, latitude 40°, and the Great Plains. The Manchurian Region is not quite so wide as this American region, but Hokushu and southern Sakhalin have the climate of Nova Scotia, and the plains of Manchuria have the climate of the northern part of the Prairie Corn and Small Grain Belt, and of our Northern Wheat Region. The harbor of Vladivostok is frozen in winter, but Dairen is open. The islands of the Manchurian region and the parts near the ocean are for the most part forest-covered mountains. Central Manchuria is a great treeless plain, like the upper Mississippi Valley and the valley of the Red River of the North. North of the Amur are more mountains and forests, much like the forests of Ontario. 683. A new frontier. — The Japanese, accustomed for centuries to the warm Rice Region, do not like cold climates. Therefore they only began to settle Hokushu, which means “northland,” in the last twenty years of the nine- teenth century. This was about the time the Cana- dians began to settle Man- itoba, and Americans were rushing into North Dakota. Hokushu is, therefore, a real frontier, and quite unlike the Rice Region. Settlers are clearing the forests to make homes, and sawmills and paper- mills are using the timber. To aid the settlers, Japan has established, in Hokushu, one of the finest agricultural experiment stations in the world. The farms here are four times as large as they are in the southern islands. This development is a part of the New Japan. 684. A region of riches. — The mainland of the Manchurian region is also a frontier and a land of great resources. Its coasts are rich in fish; its mountains are rich in forests. The Japanese are cutting much lumber along the Yalu River in northern Courtesy U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 506. First the elephant is crane to load the wagon; then he is tractor to pull it away. The “chauffeur” guides him by talking to him and by tapping him with the stick. THE MANCHURIAN REGION 333 Courtesy Philadelphia Commercial Museum Fig. 507. Chinese grain elevator. Do you see how these workmen in South Manchuria are raising the sacks of beans to the top of the heap? Chosen (Korea) . The sec- tion near the coast and near the Amur has vast forests and very few peo- ple indeed. Great riches of coal, iron, gold, and other minerals seem to be there, and coal mining is increasing rap- idly, since Japan has had control of South Man- churia. Most of the wide plain of Manchuria has a climate that is good for beans and millet. It has cold winters, hot summers, and moderate summer rain in the south, like Iowa; in the north the climate is like that of North Dakota and Saskatchewan. (Sec. 93.) Corn grows well in the south, and spring wheat in the north grows as it does in Minnesota and the Cana- dian wheat provinces. As yet but little of the land is used. How long is the plain from the Gulf of Pechili to the Amur River? Trade is easy on this plain. Steamboats travel for hundreds of miles up the Amur and up its branch, the Sungari, even to Kirin in the midst of the wide plain, which is crossed by two railroads. There are large, rich coal fields in this plain. 685. Who owns Manchuria? — Manchuria is a great, rich, almost empty land, for which three peoples, the Chinese, Japanese, and Russians, have striven. China has long claimed Manchuria as one of her dependen- cies, but most of the time she ruled it about as we rule the Indians of Alaska. While China has become populous, Manchuria has remained almost empty, because it was be- yond the Great Wall and exposed to nomads and bandits from Mongolia. Robber bands made Manchuria an unsafe place for a farmer and his goods. When Russia, push- ing her armies through Asia, reached Man- churia, she obtained permission to build railroads through Manchuria and to police them. As policemen, she sent in armies and settlers. Then in 1904-1905 came the Russian 1 war with Japan, in which Japan won. As a result, Japan now owns and polices the rail- roads of South Manchuria, and manages affairs there as though she owned the country. Most of the people are Chinese, but both Chinese and Japanese are going there, railroads are being built, and industry is thriving. 686. Future. — Will the rich resources of this promising land, which is larger than England, France, and Germany combined, be used? That depends upon government. If the people can have peace and good government, the land may become the home of as many people as are in Japan. It is the only large region of good, unused land in eastern Asia. Russia does not need this territory because she has the great and almost unused wheat region of central Siberia. Both China and Japan need the land as a place to which their people can emigrate. China’s government is not well organized and she is not strong enough now to secure this land. Japan would like to have it and she may take it. She can keep order and she can use the land. She has shown this by the way the Japanese people are now settling the cold Japanese island of Hokushu, a land of forests, wheat, barley, oats, and potatoes. Since Japan took Russia’s place in South Manchuria, the export to Europe and America of soy beans grown by the Chinese farmers has increased enormously. 334 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA QUESTIONS 1. Compare northern Korea and the highlands north of it with New England, in coast line, rivers, and industries. The industries here are most like those of which New England state? 2. Compare the cities with those of New England in number, size, and industries as carried on. 3. Do you think it will ever become the rich manufacturing country New England is? Why? 4. What natural resources has Manchuria that are lacking in Japan? What resources are there in Manchuria that Japan needs more than China? 5. Why is Mukden an important place? What kind of a place do you imagine it to be? Compare the cities of the Plain of Manchuria with those of Nebraska and Dakota in size, number, and characteristics. 6. What southern port is coveted by Russia? Why? Under which of the three nations contending for it would Manchuria be best developed? Which one, if any, do you think should have it? Why? 7. What export of Manchuria comes to America? 8. If Manchuria is developed, what kind of towns would you expect to grow up in the extreme northern part? What kind on the western boundary? Why? 9. Question for discussion: Fifty years from now the plain of Manchuria will be as productive as the Dakotas. Give arguments on both sides of the ques- tion. Compare Newchwang as it is to-day with what it may be fifty years from now. 10. Compare the effects of bad government and war in China, Man- churia, and the Balkans with good government in Denmark. Would Japan rather own a country like Denmark, or Manchuria? Give reasons for answer. INDIA 687. Almost a world apart. — The peninsula of India pushes its great wedge of land into the warm Indian Ocean. On each of the two sides of the peninsula which lie along the Indian Ocean is a range of mountains, and between the ranges is enclosed a large plateau. Name the mountains. Arched around this plateau on the north is a long, wide area of low plain drained by three great rivers, all of which rise in Tibet. Name them. Beyond the plains three highlands wall India off from the rest of Asia: (1) the plateau of Iran is on the west; (2) the mountains of Burma are on the east; and (3) on the north are the towering Himalaya Moun- tains, so high and cold that no man has ever been near their tops. One party of explorers was driven down from one of Fig. 508. Total populations in mil- lions : A. British India (1911) 315 B. United States (1920) 105 the Himalaya peaks, in the summertime, by a snowstorm that lasted for thirteen days. By distant observations surveyors have cal- culated the height of Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world. (Fig. 468.) What a difference there is between the north and the south side of these mountains! On the north side lies Tibet, the highest plateau in all the world, cold, dry, and with but few people. On the other side of the Himalayas in India, one hundred miles away, there is quite another world. It is a low plain, very hot, very moist, and very green with growing things, and the people seem to be as thick as flies. You wonder how they all can make a living. India is only half as large as the United States, but she has three times as many people. 688. Climate and famine. — How can India feed so many people? India is a monsoon land. (Sec. 646.) All summer long, nearly every year, the southwest monsoon sweeps across the peninsula, carrying clouds and much rain, and making the air moist and the ground wet. In India, as in China, the monsoon adds the gift of moisture to the heat of summer, which maxes it possible for the people to raise abundant crops on the fertile soil, and thus to support a population so large that India seems like a human hive. The damp, muggy, burning hot weather during the monsoon makes people from Europe or America think they are going to melt. In winter the prevailing wind is from the northeast. It blows from the land and brings but little rain ; so there is a long season of winter drought. At this time, the air is dry, many of the trees shed their leaves, and the grass is brown and dead. It is terrible for India when the monsoon fails, or is late, or stops for a time, as it some- times does. Crops may then fail completely; famine comes. For centuries these famine years have come from time to time, especially in northwestern India. Then millions and millions of people have starved for want of even the cheapest food. 689. People. — Like China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, India is a land of very ancient INDIA 335 Fig. 509. The summer rainfall of India. How does this map show the need for irrigation, and the water supply for irrigation in the Lower Indus Valley? civilizations. Forages one set of invad- ers after another have set up kingdoms in different parts of the country. These kings have made India a land of wonderful buildings. But so many hundreds of years have passed since then that many of their palaces and tombs have become ruins. About seventy per cent of the people are Hindus. Since they came down from central Asia their skins have become very dark, but they still have straight hair and features like those of their European cousins. The people in the Indus Valley were the last to arrive from Central Asia, and because they have not lived long in India their skins are nearly white. In southern India are the original natives and their skins are very black indeed. Each succeeding conqueror always re- garded those whom he was able to conquer as inferior. As one race after another thus be- came conquered, the people gradually formed into groups called castes. Those in one caste will not associate with those in another caste, and a child must stay in the caste of his father. The caste idea became the style. Consequently people of different trades are in castes; the blacksmith may not speak to the shoemaker, or the shoemaker to the ditch-digger. This caste system is a great bother, especially now when it is easy for people to travel and trade with each other. It keeps people from doing many things that we can do in America, where we believe that everyone should have an equal chance. Many of the people of India were highly civilized long before the people of North Europe were. As workers, they have amazing skill, and make wonderful carvings of wood, metal, and ivory, and many other beautiful things. Their country still contains some of the most gorgeous and beautiful buildings in the world. (Fig. 505.) 690. Government. — Just as Europe has many small countries, such as Switzerland and Holland, so India has many kingdoms and empires. Thirty languages are spoken. Since 1774 England has ruled over India, and has kept the native states from fighting each other. Many of the native states still keep their own rulers, just as each of our own states has a governor; but the King of England sends out a governor-general, or viceroy. This gov- ernor-general and his council really rule India, for the native princes must obey them. But the native princes attend to local govern- ment, and make much show with palaces and processions, jewelry and bright clothing. Since England began to keep order in India, many railroads have been built, and the country has some factories and a heavy foreign trade. 691. India has four natural divisions: First, the slopes of the Himalayas; Second, the moist plains of the lower Ganges and Brahmaputra; Third, the drier plains of the Indus Region ; Fourth, the plateau of Hindustan, and the island of Ceylon. 692. The Himalaya slopes. — The Himalaya slopes, too small to show on the map, have all kinds of climate, from stifling tropic heat at the base, to glaciers and unending snow at the top. These slopes have a terrific rainfall. As the moist monsoon from the Bay of Bengal goes up the steep slopes, the water fairly pours out of the clouds. Forty inches of rain have been known to fall at one place in a single day, and 900 Fig- 510. The winter rainfall of India. . . What is remarkable about the rainfall inches in a Of Ceylon? (Fig. 509.) 336 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA Courtesy Ludlow Manufacturing Associates Fig. 511. Weighing jute in a Calcutta warehouse. What is the chief use for this fiber? single year; the average for some districts is over 400 inches a year. In some places the mountain is just bare rock, because all the soil has been washed down into the Ganges plain. Like the Great Valley of California, the Ganges plain is made up of soft earth thus washed down by the moun- tain streams. 693. The Ganges and Brahmaputra val- leys. — The monsoon seems to swing around the plateau of Hindustan and up the valley of the Ganges, making it, too, a land of heavy rain (Fig. 509), but not so heavy as the rain of the Himalaya slopes. The lower Ganges valley is called Bengal. Millions of dark-skinned farming people make their living on this plain as the people do on the plains of China. Two crops suited to wet land are the leaders here: rice to eat, and jute to sell. The rice is grown as it is in China and Japan (Secs. 654, 672). Juteisa tall, reed-like plant which has in its stalk the cheapest of all important fibers. It is made into burlaps and gunny sacks, the coarse sacks and bags which are much used throughout the world to hold grain and coarse materials. In Calcutta, the great city of the Ganges delta, many factories are making burlap, and many ships go down the Hoogli River (Fig. 527) carrying bales of burlap and bales of raw jute to every continent. The lowlands of the Brahmaputra, in a section called Assam, are much like those of the Ganges. On the higher lands of Assam, English companies have developed many large tea plantations with the aid of native workers. 694. The Indus region. — In northwestern India, a part of which is called the Punjab, the plain between the Himalayas and the sea is much wider than the plain in Bengal. The Indus plain is level, wide, and hot. The monsoon does not blow here as strongly as it does farther east, and it makes but little rain until it reaches the Himalayas. (Fig. 473.) The wide, almost rainless stretch east of the Indus is called the Thar, or Indian desert, but streams flow down from the deluged mountains and form the Indus, which flows through a land of little rain. Instead of the rice and jute of the lower Ganges valley, the Indus region produces wheat and barley. These crops grow between November and March, but the scanty, irregu- lar rainfall makes the crop uncertain. In good seasons, the fields of the upper Indus produce wheat for export from the wheat port of Karachi. For thousands of years people have irri- gated land in the Indus valley. Hundreds of thousands of farmers are working year in and year out, irrigating their little bits of land from wells, as they do in the M’zab. (Sec. 579.) Under the English govern- ment, large, ancient irriga- tion works along the rivers have been rebuilt, new ones have been made, and still others are planned. 695. The plateau of Hin- dustan makes up most of Fig. 512. Tropic monsoon rain, Calcutta, India, 61.76 in. per year. "Winch season has the land wind? Which the sea wind? Why is this a good rice region? INDIA 337 Fig. 514. Adding sections to a ferryboat of inflated bullock skins on one of the headwaters of the Indus River. Compare with Fig. 501. Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. the peninsula. It is deluged with rain where the monsoon strikes the Ghats Mountains on the southwest coast. (Fig. 473.) Farther inland it is dryer, and the plain is covered with grass. Here the farmers grow the drought-resisting crops of sorghum and millet. These grains (Sec. 108) have tall stalks and small, round seeds. They are grown on millions of acres of ground, for they are the main food of millions of men and millions of cattle. This partially dry region furnishes a large partof theworld’ssupplyof goat skins, many of which go to the American tanneries and shoe factories. Inland from Bombay is a large area with a rich black soil made of decayed lava. (Sec. 130.) Because of the climate of India, this lava plain becomes a land for cot- ton, and India is second only to the United States as a cotton export- er. The cot- ton is shipped from Bombay, the chief trad* 1 center of the western part of the plateau, and from Madras, the trade center of the east coast. Many peo- ple on this plateau make their living by rais- ing crops that require much labor, such as drying the fruits of jthe myrobalan tree to make tanning material, gathering gums from the trunks of forest trees to make varnish, and picking castor beans to make oil. Much castor oil is now used in airplane motors. Bombay has a great export of oil seeds. 696. Ceylon. — Ceylon differs from most parts of India in having heavy monsoon rains on one side and trade wind rains over on the other side when the monsoon is not blowing. The well-watered highlands of the interior are tilled by scientific farming on a large scale. The farming is managed by white men, but the work is done by dark- skinned Ceylonese, and also by thousands of very black workers from southern India. Coffee was raised in Ceylon until blight killed the trees. Then tea was raised, but the crops were so large that the price went down. Rubber was tried next, and so much was raised that the price for it, too, has gone down. On the coast lowlands of both Ceylon and the mainland of India are vast quantities of coconuts. They come to Europe and America as coconut oil, as dried meats (copra) ready for crushing, or as shredded Photo. Doubleday, Page & Co., N. Y. Fig. 513. Tapping rubber trees on a Ceylonese plantation. 838 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA Fig. 515. Hauling iron pipe in India ninety miles from a railway. cart, going ten miles a day, give a cheap freight rate? coconut. Many steamships stop at Colombo on the voyage between Singapore and Europe and America. 697. Animals. — India, with its many kinds of climate, has a great variety of animals. In the dry parts of India the camel is used. In the wetter sections the water buffalo does the work, because he will work in the mud. Whenever the buffalo gets a chance, he will lie down in the mud and bury himself in it up to his eyes, in order to keep cool and escape the flies. Most of the plowing in India is done by zebus, a kind of cattle (Fig. 520). Can you tell why? (Sec. 527.) These animals are white, with large humps on their necks. In some places the ele- phant plows and pulls wagons, but he is most useful at lifting heavy logs in lumber yards. 'The Indian jungles have many wild animals, including the elephant and the tiger. The latter sometimes kills people. Thousands of people are killed each year by the cobra, the deadliest of the many poison- ous snakes of India. 698. Trade of India. — The chief import of all India is cotton cloth, most of which comes from England. The United States supplies some iron, hardware, machinery, and petroleum. Ceylon is a heavy importer of rice, but in ordinary years, except for the import of sugar, the rest of India feeds herself. What are the exports? (Secs. 693 to 696.) 699. Future. — Agriculture, which is the occupation of most of the people of India, is of the intensive kind, but there are still large stretches of forest and jungle where tigers and wild elephants live. This land may be made into fields. If the land is rough, it can grow various tree crops in which hot countries are already rich. Rubber, tea, coffee, coconut, nut-yielding palms, myro- balans, and various spice trees are now used. There are also many others as yet but little used, which will yield large crops. India might use much better methods of grow- ing crops. On the Indus alone, Can this five new irriga- tion enterprises now planned will provide water for six million acres of rich desert land, an area as large as Mary- land. India is be- ginning to manu- facture. Native companies have built great stor- age reservoirs in the Ghats Moun- tains. These furnish water power at all sea- sons for many cotton mills in Bombay. Ad- ditional water power may be developed in the Ghats and also in the Himalayas, where the streams come © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 516. Giant bamboo grown as a crop in Ceylon. Compare this with Fig. 164. INDIA 339 down thousands of feet from the plateaus of Tibet. Although India is beginning to manu- facture, it must be remembered that she is in the part of the world that be- longs naturally in the zone for producing raw materials. India is hot. It is not so easy to work where it is hot as where it is cool. So the people do not do as many things as people in the stimulating climate of colder lands. (Secs. 207, 416.) One sea- son the rice growers of a district in Ceylon had a crop big enough to last two seasons; so they did not plant rice the next season, but loafed the whole year and ate up what they had. In the third season the crop failed, and the people had to beg the gov- ernment to save them from famine. In such a country one of the great problems of the government is to prevent famines. (Fig. 550.) Irrigation is helping to do this, and so are the railroads which carry food from regions of good crops to regions where crops have failed. India has many railroads, but they are so far apart that she needs many more. QUESTIONS 1. Point out the thickly populated centers and tell why they are so located. Why is the valley of the Ganges a more densely populated region than the valley of the Indus? What cities of India would you like to visit? Why? 2. Locate on the product maps of India (Figs. 517-519) the chief producing regions. 3. Compare a wheat-harvest scene in India with one in Dakota under the following topics: time of year; farming im- p 1 e m e n t s; workers; ship- ping. 4. What are the natives doing in Fig. 513? Why is it necessary to do this with great care? 5. If India’s caste custom s h o u Td be changed into Denmark’s cooperative system, what Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. ^ r ^ * 6 f+o Fig. 517. India’s cotton acreage. See TT U ^ result, how it avoids the wet Ganges Plain (Com pare as it avoids the wet Gulf Coast Secs. 689 and (Fig. 30). 465.) 6. Of what country do the thickly popu- lated river val- leys of India make you think? 7. Why does India export her raw ma- terial and im- port cotton cloth? Why so much cot- ton cloth? 8. To what city of Scot- land does Cal- cutta send large quan- tities of jute? Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 518. Acreage of India’s rice, a wet-land crop. (Fig. 509.) (Sec. 423.) Show the journey on the map by way of the Suez. Is any product of India used in your neighborhood? 9. Describe a forest scene in India. Compare it with a scene in the Great Northern Forest of North America from the following points of view: kinds of trees; nature of forest growth; flowers, birds, and animals. What modern invention has raised the value of one of India’s resources? 10. Compare the four sections of India, using the follow- ing chart as a guide: Topic. Ganges Region. Indus Region. Slopes of Himalayas. Soil Climate Rainfall Amount Time of year . Surface Crops Transporta- tion facilities Chief city .... 11. Give two reasons why the effect of the mon- soons is more noticeable in India than in any other place in the world. 12. Why does the southeastern tip of India have winter rain? 13. Have people in your neighborhood ever given any money to aid famine suf- ferers in In- dia? What Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 519. Acreage of grain sorghum and pearl millet. Compare the loca- tion of these drought-resistant crops with the rainfall (Fig. 509) and with the rice areas (Fig. 518). 340 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA causes the famine? What might be done to prevent so much distress? 14. Why have the people of India allowed their country to become a colony? Compare them in this respect with the Chinese; with the Jap- anese. 15. Since India has been under British rule, which has gained more, India or England? Give arguments on both sides. 16. Compare the expenses of living in India with living in the United States from the standpoint of clothes, houses, food, and wages of a cook. Why is there any difference? In which place would you prefer to live? 17. There is much unused water power in the Himalayas. Would you rather own a power plant there or one near Niagara Falls? 18. What writer of English literature has caught the spirit of this hot jungle land as no one else has? 19. Dramatize sections of the story of Mowgli from The Jungle Book. 20. Suppose you were a jungle boy in India, what would you do to become happy and prosperous? FARTHER INDIA AND INDO-CHINA 696. Bounds and area. — Farther India and Indo-China comprise the southeastern cor- ner of Asia east of India, south of Tibet and China, and north of the Malay peninsula. How long is this region? How wide? Com- pare it in size with New England; with the United States. It does not look large on the map, but it has one-third as many people as the United States. Most of the inhabitants are dark brown or black, and they are worshippers of Buddha. Burma, in the west, belongs to England, and is ruled by the governor-general of India. Burma is larger than the whole United Kingdom. The French possessions in the eastern part of the region are larger than France and have nearly half as many people. Between the French and the English colonies is the inde- pendent kingdom of Siam, from which both England and France have, from time to time, taken large slices of territory. Siam is, never- theless, larger than the United Kingdom, with about as many people as Pennsylvania. 697. Climate, character, and trade. — The northern part of this region has many mountains, from which four big rivers flow down through wide, hot, tropic valleys, hav- ing stretches of forest here and there. Like the Plateau of Hindustan, much of this region is grassland, for it has the same kind of rainfall as India. What is that? Much of the land, even in the valleys, is unused, and many strange animals are caught here for our zoological gardens. Most of the people live along the streams and especially on the deltas, where they can irrigate the land to grow rice, as the people do along the Ganges and the Yangtze. This is an easy place in which to live. People do not need fire except for cooking. A grass house is warm enough. Little children go naked, and grown-ups need but few clothes. There are quantities of fish in the rivers. The warm weather makes food grow easily; so why work, or why worry? It is no wonder the people are not as industrious as they are in Scotland, or Sweden, or the United States. The chief exports of this land of easy living are rice and teakwood. Teakwood is much used for the wooden parts of steel ships. These exports are of the kind that come from places with scanty population and plenty of resources. This Fig. 520. Logs of teakwood in the streets of Bombay. Where is the dinner for the hump-necked zebus (Indian cattle)? THE MALAY PENINSULA, EAST corner of Asia furnishes nearly all of the world’s exported rice. It goes out by ship- loads each year from four ports, each at the mouth of a southward-flowing river. Name the ports and the rivers. (Fig. 474.) This rice is grown by natives and floated in native boats down the muddy rivers to the big rice- cleaning mills owned by Europeans or C hinese. 702. Future. — This region is like Man- churia in having room for many more people, provided some one can give good govern- ment, and build and operate railroads, large irrigation works, and other big enterprises. The English and French are already doing this in their parts of this region. Apparently things will have to be managed, for a time at least, by people from some cooler climate, for such people like to do active things. Per- haps the energetic Chinese will help. Already they have gone to Siam by hundreds of thousands, and have taken possession of nearly all the industries of the country, because the easy-going natives are not so willing to work as are the Chinese. QUESTIONS 1. Name the greatest rice exporting ports in the world. 2. What in Siam’s location influenced her to join the Allies in the World War? 3. Would you rather live in a tropical land where all your needs are easily supplied by nature, or in a frosty land where you must work hard to live? Why? In which are the great civilizations found to-day? 4. Name the principal rivers of Indo-China, the countries in which they flow, and the ports to which they carry freight. Why is the Brahmaputra such a winding river? 5. In which part of this region can the natural difficulties of travel be most easily over- come? 6. What cities of the United States, of Germany, and of Great Britain use teakwood? 7. How does pleasure- travel in this region compare with travel in desert regions and in the country north of the Caspian Sea? Which would you prefer? Read Kipling’s story about Toomi of the Elephants, in The Jungle Book. I THE MALAY PENINSULA, EAST INDIES, AND THE PHILIPPINES 703. Bounds and character. — Between Asia and Australia lies a world of water dotted with thousands of wet islands, calm, silent, and almost black with forest. Many of them undisturbed except for the low buzz of insects, the voices of birds, and the mur- INDIES, AND THE PHILIPPINES 341 Courtesy Philadelphia Commercial Museum Fig. 521. Carabao, or water buffalo, drawing a bamboo sled on which children are riding. At what season is this better than a wagon on the level Philippine plains? mur of waves upon the shore. Some of these islands are no bigger than a hat, others are larger than Texas, with rivers larger than any on our Atlantic slope. Heavy rain falls throughout most of the year; so nature everywhere covers these islands with rank- growing forests, so tangled that one often has to chop paths to get through. Along these coasts are many hidden rivers creeping out through swampy forests. On the hidden rivers are hidden villages, and men whom we may call “wild”. There are whole tribes here who never saw a white man. In this region the hot, damp climate makes the forests grow so quickly and so thick that man has used but little of the land. In all Borneo, an island five times as large as New England, there is not as much land under cultivation as in two counties of Illinois, although in some other parts of the East Indies an intensive agriculture has been developed. 704. People and history. — A long while ago this was a region of the black man, but the ancestors of the brown Malays sailed out from Asia and took possession of most of the coasts west of New Guinea. In some of the islands, tribes of black men still live in the interior. In New Guinea, the people are very black, and have kinky hair like the natives of Australia and central Africa. This island is larger than Borneo, but we TI n THE MALAY PENINSULA, EAST INDIES, AND THE PHILIPPINES 343 © Publishers' Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 523. Rafts of unhusked coconuts floating down a Philippine river. know little about it, partly because it is densely forested and unhealthful for white men, and partly because of an unpleasant habit of the natives, who sometimes eat explorers who come to their country. The Malays have never settled in New Guinea. While Japan, China, India, and Europe were building great cities with beautiful temples, the Malays were satisfied to live in villages along the river banks. Their houses are grass huts erected on poles so as to be away from mosquitoes and wet earth. They live by fishing, hunting, and tending small gardens. The chief recreations are boating, swimming, and fierce tribal wars. The vic- torious warriors often carry home the heads of the defeated and offer them as sacrifices to their gods, or hang them up in the house as ornaments. What European nations now control parts of this wide region? (Figs. 10, 471.) 705. The Dutch East Indies. — For over a hundred years the Dutch government has ruled or claimed more than half of the East Indian Islands; but most of their attention has been given to Java, where the European rulers have kept peace among the different Malay tribes and have really ruled the country. Each tribe still has its own native sultan, who is clothed in gorgeous raiment and lives in much pomp and style; but there is a Dutch “adviser,” who wears a white duck suit and lives very quietly, but who really rules through the sultan. With the Dutch keeping order, the population of Java has increased almost as fast as that of the United States, and this island, but little larger than New York State, has three times as many people. Nearly all the Javanese are farmers. They cultivate small patches of land almost as carefully as the Chinese do. The chief export of the island is sugar. The govern- ment compels the people to raise rice for two years and sugar for one year, so that there may be plenty of food as well as some- thing to sell. (Secs. 672, 383.) The next great export is tobacco. The other products of Java, like the products of Japan and China, are the result of much labor. Tea and rubber are grown, and rat- tans and varnish gums are gathered in the dense forests. Two other important prod- ucts are pepper, the hot seed of a climbing vine, and cinchona, the bark of a small tree that is grown on hillside plantations. ii 344 (VI Fig. 524 THE MALAY PENINSULA, EAST INDIES, AND THE PHILIPPINES 345 Photo. Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 525. A Philippine mountainside turned into giant water steps, or terraces, by a remarkable series of ricefields made by the Igorrotes, one of the moun- tain tribes whom some people call savages. Quinine is made from ground cinchona bark. No other large part of the East Indies is at all densely peopled. Sumatra, three times as big as Java, has less than one-sixth as many people. If you have seen many automobiles you have seen some of the rubber that is grown in Sumatra and used in the tire factories in America. One American company owns plantations reaching farther than you can see, and worth many millions of dollars. The work on these rubber plantations of Sumatra is done by immigrants from Java and China, working under Chi- nese and Dutch foremen. The Dutch part of New Guinea is as little used as any other part of New Guinea. The large islands between Borneo and New Guinea are for the most part uninhabited, although many coconuts are produced along their shores. At Makassar in the Celebes is a great European-owned coconut oil mill, where oil for the European market is crushed from nuts brought in by native boats and small steamers. 706. British possessions. — The chief Brit- ish possessions, called the Straits Settle- ments, are Singapore, Penang, and some other little spots of land along the coast of the Malay Peninsula. But England also rules, indirectly, the native states of this penin- sula, very much as the Dutch rule Java. The native of the Malay Peninsula cannot be hired to do a day’s work for any money. He catches a few fish, and his wife raises rice and vegetables in the garden and has a little surplus to sell. The money so gained is enough to buy the few things the Malay wants; so he swims, paddles about in his canoe, and sits in the shade watching the Chinese work. England has let the Chinese come to these colonies freely. They do nearly all the work that is done in the Malay Peninsula in the tin mines and the rubber and pepper planta- tions, and they also run nearly all the retail stores. With the money they save they buy land, and now own many of the large rubber plantations. There are many rich men among their number, for the Chinese are both good workers and good business men. Singapore (Sec. 438) is a great center for the rubber trade of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, and also for pepper and the other spices that are grown in this region. For the first two or three years while the trees are getting started, pineapples are often grown in the young rubber planta- tions. This industry makes Singapore a great center for the export of canned pine- apples grown by Chinese workmen, usually under the employ of Englishmen, but some- times under Chinese management. 707. The Philippines are America’s chief foreign possession. Altogether there are 7,083 of these islands, and both their area and their population are greater than those 346 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA Courtesy U. S. War Dept. Fig. 526. An advanced class in stenography in the Philippine School of Commerce. of all the West Indian Islands combined. (Fig. 524.) Find the place on the eastern coast of North America having the same latitude as the northern and southern ends of the Philippine group. Compare Luzon and Pennsylvania in length. Most of these islands are mountainous, many of them are volcanic, and the heavy rainfall makes them naturally forest covered. In Luzon, which is nearly as large as Virginia, there is a large low plain north of Manila. It is crossed by a railroad 120 miles long, and has many ricefields and sugar plantations. The valley of the Cagayan River at the north end of Luzon has an important tobacco industry. 708. The Philippine people. — The people calling themselves Filipinos are of Malay stock, but many tribes of dark-skinned people live in the forested mountains of the interior. Some of these tribes are wild people of the forest, but others are farmers, who show great skill at terracing their hillsides. (Fig. 525.) There are also enough Chinese to take charge of most of the buying and selling in the cities and towns. Spain had the Philippines for three centu- ries, and during this time the Filipinos became a civilized people, speaking Spanish. The islands became a United States possession in 1899. The American Congress has tried to help the Philippines by (1) giving a just government in which the Philippine congress makes most of the laws; (2) establishing many public schools, where English is taught; (3) building railroads and roads; (4) organizing a department of agriculture to teach the people how to grow crops. These four things have greatly increased the prosperity and comfort of the people of these islands. The Philippines probably have more people who can read and write than all the other East Indian islands com- bined. There is a university at Manila, and many intelligent Filipinos also come to Amer- ica every year to complete their education. The city of Manila, with a population larger than any city between Baltimore and New Orleans, has many wholesale stores, factories making things for local use, and coconut oil mills and cigar factories making products for export. 709. Philippine agriculture. — Most of the people are farmers who cultivate small tracts of land near their houses, which are often of grass. A small plot with sweet potatoes, ba- nanas, beans, and vegetables furnishes nearly all the food a family needs. Many of these farmers have groves of abaca plants. This is a cousin of the banana, "and has in its pithy stems the very long, strong fibers called Manila hemp, much used for rope and for binding up the sheaves of wheat. Abaca grows well in rainy, damp, hot places, with well-drained soil, of which the mountain- ous Philippines have many, because they have the monsoon rains in summer and the trade wind rains in winter. Abaca is a fine money crop for the Philippine farmer, and so is the coconut. This most useful tree lives for a hun- dred years without cultivation , and yields good crops of oil-giving nuts that will keep for weeks after they have fallen from the tree. The farmer’s wife often makes money weaving by hand, from native fibers, hats' much like panama hats. 710. Foreign trade — Exports. — The Philip- pine exports have increased severalfold since America took possession. The chief exports are Manila hemp, or abaca, coconut prod- ucts, sugar, tobacco, and hats. 711. Imports. — In this region, as in India, the chief import is cotton cloth, needed by all for clothing. Next come machinery and THE MALAY PENINSULA, EAST INDIES, AND THE PHILIPPINES 347 hardware necessary for their simple agri- culture, and oil to light up the long evenings, where the night is nearly as long as the day. While rice grows throughout this region, some parts do not grow enough for their own use, and the Philippines regularly pay for rice from Indo-China with money that comes from hemp, copra, sugar, and tobacco sold in the United States. (For trade, Fig. 522.) 712. Future. — The teeming millions living comfortably in Java show that this little- used East Indies, a land of heavy rain and dark forests, is one of the places where many resources may be developed and where many, many more people may live. Even in Java, with its heavy population, the land is by no means all used. It still has forest areas so large that the wild elephant and the wild rhinoceros roam in them. Some authorities think Java might support a hundred million people as comfortably as it now keeps thirty million. The rapid increase of people and of trade in Java, in the Malay peninsula, and in the Philippines shows what may be done in this region if someone keeps order and provides government that is more just and more help- ful than the natives have provided for themselves. The trade of the settled parts of this region shows that if population in- creases, the things that we may buy will increase, such as rubber, hemp, sugar, spices, coconut oil, and many other tropic prod- ucts which the fruitful soil and climate will help men to grow if they will work two-thirds of full time. If these people have things to sell to us they also will buy things from us. One of the surest ways to make life easier in our own country is to have other countries pros- perous, so that they will have things to sell to us, and thus get money with which to buy things from us. QUESTIONS 1. In what respect are the natives of the East Indies and the Philippines similar to the North American Indians? How are they different? 2. Which of the sports here would you enjoy? Which would you prefer not to take part in? 3. For what three reasons has exploration been slow in the East Indian Islands? 4. Name the most important islands, and tell to what country they belong. 5. What is the secret of Dutch success in Java? What product might you see in the United States transported as coconuts are in Fig. 523? 6. Which island would you most enjoy visiting? What would you do there? 7. Why are England’s possessions in this region very important? 8. Name the uses to which Manila hemp may be put. 9. What is meant by ruling these island people “indirectly”? Give an example. 10. Why is Java the most thickly populated island? 11. In what season do the trade winds blow upon the Philippines? What is its direction? 12. Use the following dia- gram to tell the locations of and the exports from Singapore, Batavia, Manila, Surabaya, Makassar: City. Country. On What Waterway ? Ruling Nation. Exports. 13. Why is there so much rainfall in this region? 14. What other regions that you have studied have climate most nearly like that of the East Indies? Courtesy Philadelphia Commercial Museum Fig. 527. Shipping at Calcutta on the Hoogly River, one of the mouths of the Ganges. To what use do you think each kind of boat is put? 348 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA 15. Look up East Indies in an encyclopedia. Find out how these islands were formed. 16. Give all the evidence of progress in the Philippines since 1899. (Fig. 526.) 17. If you were a Filipino would you rather be free, or a subject of the United States? Give three good reasons for your answer. THE TRADE OF ASIA AND THE EAST INDIES 713. Barriers to travel. — Europe (Sec. 608) is favored with natural waterways and with a surface which makes it easy for ocean steam- er, river boat, or railroad to reach the heart of the continent. Asia is quite different. Most of her vast area is a big block of land, shut off on the north by the Arctic ice, and on the south by the awful barrier of mountains and high, wide, and dry plateaus. 714. Caravan trade. — For thousands of years, while the people of Europe have been skirting the shores of their continent in ships, and boating on the rivers, the natives of Asia have been climbing mountain canyons and following desert trails with caravans of camels, donkeys, and mules, making long, slow, hard journeys, such as those from India to Persia, from India to China, from Peking to Moscow, or from the upper Yangtze valley to Tashkend. Indeed the camel has been a common sight from Peking to the plains of India and westward to the Crimea, to Con- V © Keystone View Co., Inc., N. Y. Fig. 528. Why are these two natives of India making signs to each other about the fruit? (Sec. 689.) stantinople, and the Strait of Gibraltar. Even the sheep that come down from Tibet to India to market sometimes bear twenty- five-pound bundles on their backs. 715. Canal boat trade. — The caravans have carried the articles of trade to the most distant places, but we must not forget that the greatest trade of all Asia has been carried in the thousands and thousands of Chinese junks. For several thousand years the patient Chinese have been tugging these boats up the rapids of rivers and along the hundreds of canals that have been dug in the plains of China. Asia had also an ancient sea trade. In the time of King Solomon the Arabs sailed eastward to India with the southwest monsoon. They learned much from the Hindu while they traded and waited for the north- east trade wind that would take them home to Arabia. Even now we call the seasonal winds of India the “monsoon,” from an Arabic word meaning season. The trade wind also got its name because it brought these ancient Arabs home from trading trips. The figures 1, 2, 3, etc., that we use in arith- metic, are called Arabic figures, but the Arabs learned them from the Hindus on those ancient visits. Asia is old and she has given us much. 716. Railroads. — Asia was slower than Europe in starting railroad building, but she is already possessed of the longest route in the world, the Trans-Siberian railroad. It gives service in times of peace from Dairen and Vladivostok to Irkutsk, Omsk, Moscow, Leningrad (Petrograd), Berlin, and Paris. It is as far from Vladivostok to Omsk as from New York to San Francisco, and that is but little over half way to Leningrad (Petrograd). What parts of Asia have the best system of railways? (Fig. 529.) 717. The great ship route. — The chief trade route of Asia is the ship route skirting her southern shores from Suez to Yokohama. (Fig. 9.) The opening of the Suez Canal (1869) helped the trade of Asia by giving a shorter route to Europe and the Atlantic coast of North America. The Panama Canal opened THE TRADE OF ASIA AND THE EAST INDIES 349 Fig. 529. The railways and leading navigable rivers of Asia. (1914) a similar gateway for the trade of eastern Asia with the eastern coasts of the United States. Vessels now go around the world freely, going from Europe and eastern North America to Japan by way of the Caribbean Sea and the Panama Canal and return- ing by way of southern Asia and the Suez Canal. 718. Character of Asia’s trade. 1 — Asia sells chiefly the things that men pro- duce with much labor rather than with much land. Such are tea and silk, the chief exports of Japan and China; jute, from India; rubber and spices, from Ceylon and the East Indies; hemp and tobacco, from the Philippines. The oil seeds, nuts, bark and other tanning materials from India can be produced only by much labor. Only in a few places do we get the products of the wide fields, such as the wheat of Siberia and of the Indus Valley, the sugar of Java and the Philippines, and the cotton of India, the rice of Indo-China, and the beans of Manchuria. In the wool, sheepskins, and goatskins we see the products of dry lands and high lands, and in the great export of India’s hides and cotton we see the lack of manufac- turing industry in that country. In return for these things Asia gets first of all cotton cloth, chiefly from England, for simple clothing; and raw cotton, chiefly from the United States, to be used in their new cotton factories. Second in importance come iron, machinery, hardware, and tools. Even the simplest farmer needs a hoe and a knife. Almost every Asiatic would like to ride a bicycle, and many already listen with pleasure to the phonograph. Kerosene for the family lamp is another great import of Asia. 719. Future trade of Asia. — There is every prospect that Asia and the East Indies will advance in both agriculture and manu- facture. When she does, Asia’s trade with us will increase, for her factories will be equip- ped with modern machinery and as the people increase in riches and wealth they will more and more buy from us the things that they do not grow or make, and more and more will they send to us the things that we do not grow or make. The greatest trade in the world is the trade between rich manu- facturing countries, such as that between England and the United States, England and France, and the United States and Japan. QUESTIONS 1. What articles in each of the following classes do we get from Asia: food; clothing; medicine; con- diments; machinery; tools? 2. Are there any articles in any of these lists for which we are entirely dependent upon Asia? 3. Make the same kind of a list for the things which Asia must get from us. 4. Compare the canals of Asia with those of Europe; of the United States. 5. A ship from New York is making a trip around the world. Name the port or ports at which she might gather freight from each of the regions of Asia of which at least a part of the area drains into the Pacific or Indian ocean. (Fig. 9.) 6. In which country of Asia would you prefer to travel? to live? 7. Do you think Asia’s trade will increase or decrease? Why? 8. What imports may increase? What exports? WTiat may decrease? 11-18 © Publishers' Photo Service. Fig. 530. Ostriches in a pasture field in South Africa. The ostrich is one of the most recently domesticated animals. For what are these birds chiefly raised? (Sec. 774). How do changing fashions affect the ostrich farmer? AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA AFRICA — THE CONTINENT, PEOPLE, AND HISTORY 720 . The separateness of North Africa. — You remember that we have already studied North Africa when studying Europe and the Mediterranean regions (Secs. 540-567). Africa, north of the Sahara, is really a part of the Mediterranean world in peoples, history, government, and trade. We com- monly think of Africa as the continent of the black race, but black man’s Africa really does not begin until we get south of the Sahara. This desert is one of the greatest barriers in the world. It has always been hard for men to get into North Africa from Central Africa, but very easy to get there from both Europe and Asia. 721 . Neglected Africa. — Since the time of Columbus the white man has sailed all seas and settled all continents, but he has made less change in Africa, south of the Sahara, than in any other continent. He left most of it unexplored and called it the “Dark Continent” until long after he had made populous states in North America and South America. It remained unknown because the continent was hard to enter. When men go into a new continent, they usually sail up the rivers. But African rivers have falls not far from their mouths, so explorers cannot take their ships to the interior. Another difficulty is the scarcity of good harbors. See how smooth the African coast line is. It is much easier to enter a conti- nent like Europe, where an irregular coast line makes many good harbors. Even worse, the coasts of Africa near the equator are wet and swampy and unhealthful. Such coasts long kept men out of Central Africa. The interior of the continent also presented barriers to the explorers. There were terrors to be encountered in the belt of thick forests near the equator. In this unhealthful tropi- cal jungle, wild beasts, poisonous insects, and strange tropical fevers waited to attack the traveler. The Sahara Desert, stretching from sea to sea, was most difficult to cross. Perhaps the worst barrier of all was the ( 350 ) M nguela) ^ ^ A \T L A X TIC f (k 1 \ ST. H ELENA 1 . \ (Br.) y \ 1 Cape Frio\ ^ i 30 40 '■ SOUTHERN i s Bulawayo O C E 1 X 1 S SOUTHWEST SW tRitoB n a t? Windhoek BEOUOANALANE^ \TR0P1C OF CAPRICORnI ' " \ AFRICA ■ /x TR *pX~-, ^ , lx Pretoria vXIl , ! iToivo^,- rJ-u <§1 ]. v ,, r ; Lourenco Marques' I . JghannesbuiKcF feg&Wfc&woa Bay ^ r °1 Angrh PequenaC Isfer^k^rpl;// INDIAN Ijl^gPl^f^retennaritzburg, POLITICAL MAP OF AFRICA SCALE OF MILES 0 200 400 000 800 1000 1200 20° Longitude 10° West 0° Cape Towns* 1 Cape of Good Hope MAURITIUS I / (Br.) o Durban OCEAN, London Port Elizabeth, EUROPEAN POSSESSIONS C opy r i ghl, The John C. Winston Co. 10° Longitude 20° East Great Britain Italy 40° France Spain Belgium Portugal 30° from 40° Greenwich 50° 60° Fig. 531 352 AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA Courtesy H. L. Shantz, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 532. A native African field meet. The marksman, dressed in his best suit of bark cloth, winning the archery championship. nomad Arab of the deserts. He was a slave trader and was as ready to trade white slaves as any other. He was very hostile to the people of Europe during the time when America was being explored. At last, by about 1880, when the other continents were all taken, Europeans, hungry for land, faced the perils of Africa and made the hard journeys which were necessary to enter and take the land. 722. Dividing up Africa. — Sometimes, to get territory, the white men made presents to a native chief. Having pleased him with beads, brass wire, bright handkerchiefs, and other trinkets, they would then make a treaty with him. He would promise to recognize England or France or Germany as his protector, and the protecting country was permitted to develop resources and open up routes of trade. There were some small wars, but most of the tribes, armed only with spears and bows and arrows, were too weak to resist the good rifles of the Europeans. Only the Abyssinians are entirely independent. The Basutos, whom we shall study about later, have remained almost independent. 723. How white men rule Africa. — On the maps great areas of Africa appear to belong to various European countries, but in fact most of the people of Africa are still ruled by their native chiefs. For example, in the large British colony of Nigeria there is only one white man to every six thousand black men, but these few white men have somehow managed to rule. They stop most of the wars between tribes. Gradually the white men get more and more power. They run steamboats on the rivers. They direct the work of making hundreds of miles of railroad and telegraph lines. (Fig. 563.) They establish post offices and develop a large and growing foreign trade. 724. Trade and tribal life. — Railroads and steamboats have the same effect upon house- hold industries in Africa as they do elsewhere. The Africans are rapidly giving up their old tribal industries, which provided all the things they used. Many of them are now selling a few things and buying many other things much as the rest of us do. They are as fond of phono- Courtesy H. L. Shantz, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 533. The African woman does most of the work. These women are returning from their garden patch with native hoe and baskets of produce. Most of Africa’s burdens are carried on the heads of the bearers. AFRICA— THE CONTINENT, PEOPLE, AND HISTORY 353 graphs and toys as are any other people. When a peo- ple joins in world trade, the trade wipes out the house- hold industries. (Sec. 3.) It is also easier for the white men to rule the natives when they depend upon the foreigner for a market for their goods, and upon the white man’s store for their supplies. Railroads now go into Africa from every coast. (Fig. 562.) Steamboats are on most of the navigable rivers and lakes. In many cases, these boats were sent from Europe in Fig. 534. Equatorial pieces, and were thus car- typ e rainfall of r j e d around waterfalls and Gabun, West Africa, African coast at over plateaus. equator, 90.88 725 . Interesting animals, inches per year. , . ° , When does the — Though Africa has about forest man bum the ag man y people as North brush in his new . , ' n garden? When does America, and though most the sun cross the equator? (Sec. 746.) of them are farmers (Secs. 734, 751), there is still so much unused land in Africa that many wild animals are found there. Among them are the elephant, lion, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, zebra, giraffe, and gorilla, and many antelope and other large grass-eating animals. It is no wonder that naturalists and hunters like to go to Africa. 726. The climate of Africa. — What are the latitudes of the northern and southern tips of the continent? The climates of Africa show how much the northern hemisphere is like the southern. If we start from the forest- clad equator and go north or south along the west coast of Africa we find the same three belts of climate on the Atlantic coast north of the equator and on the Atlantic coast south of the equator. These regions having similar climates are alike because the laws of climate work in the same way in both northern and southern hemispheres. We shall understand the climate of Africa as we study the regions of Africa. This is the way they are arranged : 3. Californian -Mediterranean (Morocco, Algeria). 2. Northeast Trade Wind Desert (Sahara). 1. North Tropic Grasslands (Sudan). 0. Equatorial Forests (Belgian Congo). 1. South Tropic Grasslands (Angola). 2. Southeast Trade Wind Desert (Kala- hari). 3. Californian-Mediterranean (Cape Col- ony). We shall study about these belts as we study Africa. QUESTIONS 1. Why is Africa called the Dark Continent? 2. Suppose Africa could be cut in two at the equator, and the southern part pushed 25 degrees south. What differences would be made in the industries and civilizations of this southern part? 3. And suppose the northern part could be placed out in the Pacific Ocean between the United States and China. What would you expect to find there in fifty years? 4. Name all the countries that have colonies in Africa. WTiich have been forced to give up their possessions? Why? 5. Why were some of the battles of the World War fought on African soil? 6. Why do you think the Abyssinians have remained independent? (Sec. 505, Fig. 445.) 7. Wkat names do we connect with the first knowledge of the in- terior of Africa? Find evidence of them on the map. 8. By what factor are the seasons determined in Africa? in the United States? 9. Can you find out why the grasslands have one rainy season, but the Courtesy H. L. Shantz, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 535. Dar-es-Salaam on the Indian Ocean, with its grass huts and towering coconut palms. It is typical of villages on many tropic shores. 354 AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA Courtesy Philadelphia Commercial Museum Fig. 536. African carriers or porters resting beside a path in a forest open- ing. The bales of goods are wrapped in banana leaves. forest belt two rainy and two dry seasons? (Secs. 747, 748.) What effect do you think the Gulf of Guinea has upon the climate of the land north of it? 10. If you had ten thousand acres of land on the shore of the Gulf of Guinea, what would you do with it? 11. Fill in the blanks below: Topic. Trip from Mouth to Source of the Kongo. Trip from Mouth to Source of the Nile. Unhealthy coast. . . . Ciimate Mountains Desert: Arabs Jungle: Wild beasts Poisonous insects . Tropical fevers . . . Food Shelter Which trip would you prefer to take? 12. Can you name some early civilizations in Africa? Why did not civilization extend to embrace the whole of the continent, as it did in Europe? THE TROPIC FOREST REGIONS Part I. — The Congo and Guinea Coast Forest 727. Location and climate. — Persons sail- ing along the west coast of Africa from Senegal to Angola will see three thousand miles of ocean waves breaking on the white, sandy beach that lies stretched at the foot of a dark green forest. The forest extends from the coast eastward to the Central African plateau, near Lake Tanganyika and Lake Albert. (Al, Fig. 445.) Twice each year, once in the fall and once in the spring, the Congo Forest has a rainy season. (Fig. 534.) Two short, drier seasons come in between. Each afternoon during the rainy season thick clouds arise, followed by lightning, crashing thunder, and beat- ing rain. The tangled jungle drips; the earth is soaking wet ; water often lies in pools underneath the trees; the rivers rise in flood. (Sec. 748.) There is so little wind that the place is called the Zone of Calms or Doldrums. On land and sea the climate is hot with a damp, muggy heat — a breezeless, stifling heat. 728. The dark forest. — So much rain makes plenty of moisture for the forest. The foliage of the trees is so thick that the forest is dark and gloomy. The branches of the trees are often tied together with the tangling vines of the jungle. Chattering monkeys run up and down this tangle, and serpents climb the trees and crawl from branch to branch. If a traveler in this forest is skilful enough, he may see the terri- ble man-like gorilla, or the even more man- Fig. 537. African boys spinning cotton by hand. The spinners loop the twisted thread over the end of the stick. Then they spin the stick like a top and that twists the thread. They regulate the size of the thread by pulling more or less of the cotton out of the mass. THE TROPIC FOREST REGIONS 355 Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 538. The end of the elephant hunt beside a water course in the Congo forest. Is this the rainy season or the dry season? like chimpanzee. With the forest people the word “arrive” is “to come out of the forest”; their word for “depart” is “to go into the forest”. If a village is abandoned, vines soon climb over the huts and the forest quickly swallows up the little clearing. Man must fight this great forest for his very life. Is it any wonder that so few white men have gone to this country, and that the few who have gone have lived only a few years? Only the native negro, who has been there for ages, seems able to endure the climate. 729. Pests. — The heat and the moisture make a climate where man has less help and more trouble from animals than in any other part of the world. The heavy rains make ponds and swamps in which mosquitoes breed in countless millions. But mosquitoes do not buzz and bite alone. They are accompanied by biting gnats and flies, and by stinging insects that burrow themselves into one’s flesh until it smarts like fire. One of these little pests may burrow under a toenail and perhaps make such a bad sore that the nail comes off. The worst of all the insect pests is the tsetse fly. Its bite carries to men and animals the disease called sleeping sickness. Sometimes al- most all the people in certain districts die of this dreadful disease, which also kills cattle, horses, mules, and sheep, leaving much of the forest region without any beasts of burden whatever. Therefore, not having tamed the elephant which lives in this forest, man must become his own burden bearer (Fig. 533). 730. The carriers. — There are no roads here, but only little paths through the forest, and along these paths move the human freight trains of the jungle. Lines of sweating black men and boys, walking barefooted and almost naked, but singing as they go, follow the forest paths. On his head each carries a bundle of freight weighing fifty or sixty pounds. The train of carriers, creeping along the forest paths as ants creep through the grass, comes at last to a clearing, where the sun glares down on a village of grass houses. The village is surrounded by a stockade, or strong fence of logs. Black men are on guard at the gate to keep out possible enemies. 731. Village life in the equatorial forest. — The village is beside the deep, still-flowing Congo, where the hippopotamus bellows in the night. By day the flat-bottomed river steamboat chugs along nature’s great, wind- ing water road beside the overhanging forest. The forest path ends at the river bank, and there the carriers put their bales of rubber, palm kernels, and ivory into the corrugated- iron warehouse of a Belgian merchant. Soon the goods will be taken down to the sea by river boats, and trains that go around the falls. The earners return along the forest path to their distant village home. This time their burden is cotton cloth, knives, and 356 AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA Courtesy “Travel Magazine” Fig. 539. A native with a climbing rope walking up the oil palm. See the clusters of fruit. copper wire, also bright colored glass beads for the women and children. These things have come up the Congo by boat and train. From what port? 732. The jungle school. — The jungle people have neither books nor schools, but the children study living things and learn from the parents. The jungle boy knows the animals and trees of his forest better than the average American boy knows anything, except possibly baseball. Jungle fathers teach the boys how to hunt and fish, and how to make all the things they need. The mothers and grandmothers teach the girls how to make a garden, to cook, and to take care of the children. The jungle peo- ple have long known how to make iron, to tan leather, to spin, and to weave a little cloth. 733. Jungle food. — What do these black people eat? They have the same nourish- ment that we have, but they get it from food that is different. They eat cake made from cornmeal or cassava meal (Fig. 551), palm oil, smoked flesh of game, bananas, and vegetables, such as tomatoes and cucumbers. 734. The forest garden. — The natives are farmers and also hunters. On a piece of well-chosen land, down a forest path, is the village garden. Every two or three years the people make a new clearing to get new soil. When all the good garden sites have been used, they move the village. When the natives want to make a new garden, they chop down the trees with the machete, and at the end of the dry season they burn all the trees they can. They use the ashes as fertilizer for corn, beans, peanuts, cucumbers, tomatoes, bananas, the yam (a kind of sweet potato), and the manioc or cassava (Figs. 551, 553). The up-springing bushes must be kept chopped down or they will overwhelm the crops. Villagers usually take turns watching the garden by night and day to keep the elephants and wild hogs away. The elephant is a terror to the African farmer because it will go ten or twenty miles in a night to eat up a garden. These people do not use beasts of burden as helpers in farming. Their crops are grown by hand labor. Their only tools are simple hoes, knives, and axes. 735. Jungle camping parties. — Sometimes the natives make camps in the forest and hunt. One way to hunt is to make a pit which is carefully covered with leaves. A fence is then built, so that animals wandering through the forest follow the fence, walk over the pits and fall in. After the men kill the game and cut it up (at which they are very expert), Fig. 540. The January heat equator and rains in Southern Tropic Grasslands. Compare with Fig. 541. Does the physical map (Fig. 566 ) tell why there is a dry area in the interior of Brazil? THE TROPIC FOREST REGIONS 357 Fig. 541. The July heat equator and rains in the Northern Tropic Grasslands. Compare with Fig. 540. the women smoke the meat, which they take back to the village. It serves as flavoring for dishes of corn-meal mush. These people are very fond of fishing. In the dry season, when the streams are low, they go out and camp by distant streams to fish for a week or two. 736. The oil palm. — A palm tree that yields three grades of oil grows throughout the length of the coast forests and far into the interior. In some places there are forests where these trees are only five or six yards apart. For ages, the natives have used palm oil. When the white man began to buy it, he merely encouraged an old industry. The native oil-gatherer walks up the tree with the aid of a rope (Fig. 539). With his machete he cuts off the bunches of fruit which grow at the top of the tree. Each bunch weighs twenty or thirty pounds, and a good tree should yield one hundred pounds of fruit. The fruit, which is red in color, and yields about fifty or sixty per cent of oil, is carried on the heads of all the family back to the “factory” of the native. The factory consists of an iron pot and a section of a log hollowed out to a depth of two or three feet. The members of the family pick the fruits from the bunch and put them into the pot to boil. A small part of the oil rises to the surface. This oil which first comes out is good to eat. Much oil still remains in the pulp of the fruit, and can only be obtained after the fruit has been put into the hollow log, beaten to a pulp with sticks, and again boiled. The oil from the boiled pulp is soap oil. It is skimmed off and put into big casks holding twelve hundred pounds. To get the casks of oil to market the natives roll them along the forest trail to a boat landing or to a railroad. Have you seen advertisements of soap made of palm and olive oil? When the oil has been extracted from the fruit, the seeds are laid out in the sun to dry. When the kernels rattle inside the hard shell, the women crack the seeds between two stones and pick out the kernels. Palm ker- nels are an important export from the forest region. It takes about a million kernels to weigh a ton. In one year Africa sent three hundred thousand tons of palm kernels to England. This means that African women and girls do a great deal of work with very poor tools. When crushed in European mills the ker- nels yield an oil used for margarine (Sec. 442), and a meal or cake that is used for cattle feed, very much as cottonseed meal or wheat bran is used. 737. A land of future trade. — The West African coast between the northern desert, Sahara, and the southern desert, Kalahari, is divided into twenty colonies or states. Nineteen of them are ruled by Europeans; one, Liberia, is under the protection of the United States, because it was set apart in 1847 as a place to which negro slaves, freed in the United States, might go. The twenty African states of this coast Courtesy “Travel Magazine” Fig. 542. Two African hunters and the spears of the victor. Do the Africans make their own weapons? 358 AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA Courtesy H. L. Bhantz, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 543. Native Grassland huts and garden with tobacco, castor oil, dasheen (elephant’s ears), banana and other food plants, all grown by hand labor. have forty seaports. In the year 1919 their total trade was more than $40,000,000. This is a more valuable trade than the United States had in its early years. The cocoa industry of the little forested colony called the Gold Coast, gives us an idea of what the future trade of the African forest region may become. A few years ago one of the English governors of the Gold Coast planted a few cocoa trees. The trees grew, and before long a hundred pounds of beans were exported. More trees were planted, and to-day the export of cocoa beans amounts to one hun- dred thousand tons a year. The country is especially well suited to the cocoa tree, which needs the windless climate of the Zone of Calms, so that the big fruits will not be blown to the ground before they are ripe. The growing of cocoa is very simple. It suits the native. He merely cuts the bushes away from the young cocoa trees that are already growing there, and keeps the jungle down with the machete. No other work is needed until the fruit is ready to pick. 738. Changes in trade. — Since the white man’s ships have been going to Africa, one new industry after another has come there — ■ come even to the equatorial forest. First, the white men wanted ivory, for which the natives had but little use. Then he wanted rubber. So the black men first hunted elephants, and then they hunted rubber trees. The white man now wants palm oil and palm kernels and cocoa, besides ivory and rubber. 739. The new transportation. — English en- gineers and native workmen have built a railroad inland from Akkra, the port of the Gold Coast. They are also building many wagon roads, over which they ran motor trucks. A truck with a capacity of one ton carries as many cocoa beans as do thirty-six native carriers. The truck makes several trips while the carrier is making one. Thus we see how the white man’s machines can increase African production. The steamboats of the Congo now give a good freight service to the heart of the African forest. In the western part of the forest region, the Niger, the Senegal, and the con- necting railroads are the arteries of trade. 740. Cleaning up in jungle land. — The white man, often assisted by black police- men, helps to keep order. The tribes now rarely kill each other in war, or sell each other as slaves, or eat each other, as they used to do. Swamps are being drained; physi- cians are improving conditions of health. We may, therefore, expect the population of the African forest region to increase per- haps as rapidly as that of Java or of the United States has increased. In the decades to come these people may produce and send to us in trade enormous amounts of cocoa, palm oil, banana meal, peanuts, tapioca, rubber, and other products of their little farms. If the population becomes more dense, and if the people grow accustomed to steady work, they may grow sugar cane and rice, to which the country is well suited. Part II. — East African Lowland Forest 741. A rainy trade wind coast. — Like the Guinea coast and the Congo basin, the east coast of Africa south of the equator is a forest- covered tropic lowland. (A2, Fig. 445.) We saw in the West Indies (Sec. 379) that where the trade wind blows against islands and mountains, it brings rain which supports for- ests. South of the equator, the southeast trade wind, blowing in from the Indian Ocean, makes the coast of East Africa, all the way down to Natal, wet and forest-covered like the Caribbean shore of Central America, and THE TROPIC FOREST REGIONS 359 like the region along the equator (Fig. 540). This forest extends right up to the equator. North of the equator, the summer monsoon of India (Sec. 688) takes the wind toward Asia. Thus the eastern point of Africa is much drier than it would be if Asia were not so placed as to steal these winds. Along most of this coast it is but a short distance across the hot lowlands to the plateau. Only in the valleys of the Limpopo and the Zambezi rivers do the low plain and the forest extend far inland. An officer in the English army says that the East African coast has “a fairly plentiful rainfall, and a temperature which, combined with humidity, contrives to make this area uninhabitable for white folk for long periods at a time, and even people in the best of health should return frequently to a tem- perate climate, to enable them to withstand the rigors of the tropical life.” Part III. — Madagascar and its Neigh- boring Isles 742 . Islands with Tropic Lowland forests. — The eastern and northern coasts of Mada- gascar, and the small islands in the Indian Ocean, including Reunion and Mauritius, have the same rainy climate as other trade wind coasts, and are, therefore, forest- covered. Madagascar is a valuable possession of the French. As it is twice as large as Colo- rado, it offers possibilities of rich production. Its wet low plain (A3) has the same great agricultural possibilities as has the Congo, and, like the Congo and the East Coast Low- land, it is mostly unused. The small island of Mauritius shows what this land might do. Mauritius is ruled by the British, has many Chinese and Hindu people, and exports many shiploads of sugar each year, because the industrious Hindu and Chinese laborers work on the plantations. The islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, which combined have a thousand square miles of territory, give us a further idea of how this region might be developed. These islands have 200 white people, 10,000 Hindus, 10,000 Arabs, and 180,000 negroes. Many of the negroes have small farms; many Arabs have large planta- tions. One-twelfth of all the land is in coconuts, and one-twelfth in cloves. Much copra and nearly all of the cloves used in the world are exported from this little British protectorate of Zanzibar, where a British “resident” rules through an Arab sultan. QUESTIONS 1. Where are Africa’s cocoa beans made into cocoa and chocolate? Have some member of the class write to a chocolate factory and ask where their raw mate- rial comes from. 2. Compare spinning in this region (Fig. 537) with spinning in Bulgaria (Fig. 412); with spinning in England and the United States (Fig. 217). As a worker, which kind of spinning would you prefer to do? Why? 3. Of what use to us are the exports of this tropical forest? How has the automobile ex- tended our trade with the Gold Coast? Where is palm oil made into soap? 4. Why is the banana important in the Congo and also in Jamaica? 5. Make a long list of ways in which the palm trees are useful to natives of the hot forests and useful to us. 6. Name the animals from this region that you have seen in a circus, a zoo, or a picture book. 7. Where is the world market for ivory? (Sec. 446.) Why? 8. Plan the three meals for a day possible in this region, making them as much like typical meals in the United States as you can. 9. Give two climatic reasons why this region has not progressed as much as some. 10. If you had to live in this region, what occupation would you prefer to engage in? 11. What would you do to make this region more useful to man? Would pros- perity be possible in the United States without a school system? 12. Why does the African boy know the life of his neighborhood better than you do? Courtesy H. L. Shantz, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 544. A Greek trader on the shore of Lake Tan- ganyika with three assistants, and natives, at left, who have brought in hides, cassava flour, beans, oil nuts (palm) , and butter wrapped in banana leaves. The woman wears “Americana,” a large sheet of bright calico. 360 AFRICA SOUTH OF THE SAHARA Fig. 545. Curves to represent the surface of the earth between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Three locations of the belt of calms and daily rain are shown. Compare this figure with Figs. 540 and 541. THE TROPIC GRASSLANDS Part I. — The Sudan 743. Appearance. — A traveler going south- ward from the Sahara at the end of the rainy season, will find that the sand dunes and thorn bushes become less and less, and that the grass becomes more and more abundant the farther south he goes. (Sec. 568.) Very grad- ually he has entered a country where there are bunches of grass and scattered mimosa trees. (Fig. 552.) As he rides on, better grass and more trees will appear, and then, after days of journeying by camel and mule, clumps of forest will be seen. Still farther on, he will finally see the solid mass of the equatorial forest. In making the journey, the traveler has crossed the great region of hot grassland that is called the Sudan (Arabic word for black people). It stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Nile and the plateau of Abyssinia. It is as broad as the United States, and two-thirds as large. Most of the Sudan is a low plain (less than 1500 feet), but there are some highlands in it. 744. Belts of climate. — Why is it that belts of forest and of grass stretch east and west across Africa? (Fig. 445, B1,B3.) It is because of the unevenness of rainfall, due to the way the winds blow in that part of the world. They move very much as the air moves in a room which has a stove or a lamp in the middle of it. (Fig. 546.) The heat of the stove or the lamp expands the air near to it. The expanded air is lighter than the rest of the air; it rises as heavier air pushes in from the sides of the room to take its place. The hot land near the equator acts like a stove. The air above it is heated and then slowly rises. The zone at the equator, at which the air is thus rising, has no wind. For this reason it is called the Zone of Calms, or Doldrums. To take the place of the rising air, air comes in from the north and south. (Fig. 545.) This air, blowing toward the equator, makes what is called a trade wind. (Sec. 364.) The one north of the equator is called the Northeast Trade Wind, and the one south of the equator is called the South- east Trade Wind. After the air brought in by the trade winds rises, it goes back northeastward (or south- eastward in the southern hemisphere) as a high, upper current (Fig. 547). The only way to study the high currents is by going up in balloons, or by visiting the tops of high mountains, such as the Peak of Teneriffe in the Canary Islands. 745. The Doldrum climate and the forest belt. — When the moist, heated air along the equator rises and is cooled its moisture forms clouds and falls as rain. Every after- noon, for weeks at a time, rain falls. This Zone of Calms, or Doldrums, is one of the meanest places in the world. It is breeze- 1 e s s, hot, sultry, and very damp. These cli- matic con- d i t i o n s make that part of Cen- tral and West Africa which is near the equator a great, Fig. 546. Try it and see for yourself damn hot that the air circulates this way about „ burning paper, the heated stove or lamp, forest. For or outdoor fire. THE TROPIC GRASSLANDS 361 so3jf'o*H Textiles. MetalGoods^ ^Coooa. Hides. Panama, Fig. 566. _ ™_0?LC.0F cap.ric.orn_ Fig. 566. 378 SOUTH AMERICA © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 567. Cattle of an English beef breed beside the shade trees near a well on an English-owned estate in the pampas. In what American states do we find such land, good for grass, com, and wheat? line between the easternmost and western- most points of South America (Fig. 566), and between the western point of Para- guay and the northern point of Guiana? How many miles between these points? It is said that South America has more unexplored land than Africa. It certainly has more unused land than Africa. Compare the population of the two. (Appendix.) 787. The natives of South America. — Europe, Asia, and North Africa were settled by many different migrating peoples, so that now they have many races. The natives of South America and those of North America were all much alike when Columbus came. They are supposed to have been of stock that, in the days before history began, came from Asia by way of Alaska. When South America was discovered, most of the natives lived in villages and tribes, much as did the Indians of the United States. But in the plateau of the central Andes there was a real empire — the Empire of the Incas. Unluckily for the Incas, they had great stores of gold and silver, and this fact changed the whole history of South America. 788. The coming of the white man. — Soon after the time of Magellan, stories of ii Inca gold and silver at- tracted bands of Spanish and Portuguese adven- turers, — half conquerors, half pirates, — and the struggle to possess the riches began. The Portuguese took Brazil, and the Span- iards took all the rest of the continent except Guiana. Few Spanish women came, and many Spanish men married Indian wives. The Indian mothers raised their children in the Indian way. These people of mixed In- dian and Spanish blood are called “mestizo.” Even to this day most of the people of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia are pure Indians or mestizo. Very different was the settlement of the United States and Canada nearly a hundred years later. The stories that early explorers took back to Europe from North America told of a land good for farmers. Groups of European people, who had learned to govern themselves, came to North America to make new homes in a land where they could raise their children in their own way. We can now understand the differences that we shall find between the people of © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 568. A monument overlooking the harbor of Valparaiso. Eig.569 380 SOUTH AMERICA Fig. 570. Tropic Grasslands. the United States and Canada and those living in South America. 789. Coming of the negro. — After the Portuguese had settled on the east coast, and had found that the natives would not make good slaves to work on their sugar planta- tions, they bought negroes from the slave traders on the coast of Africa. To this day most of the people of eastern Brazil between 20° south latitude and the Amazon River are partly or wholly negroes, with here and there a little Indian blood. Most of those from the east point south to Rio de Janeiro are mulattoes. There is no color line among the common people of Brazil. 790. The climates for the white man. — In one part of South America the races of Europe have taken posses- sion of the country. In Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil up to Rio de Jan- eiro, the people are nearly all white, and here are found the best governments in all South America. This region has railroads, large cities, heavy trade, and the same kind of crops and living that we find in the cooler parts of the United States. ii. Spanish is the official language in all of South America except Guiana and in Brazil, which was settled by the Portuguese. 791. The new immigra- tion. — Since 1890 there has been heavy emigration from Italy to Southern Brazil and Argentina, so that the white population south of the tropic of Capricorn is nearly equally divided among Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians. 792. The population of the continent. — A good census has never been taken over much of South America, but accordingto estimatesthe continent has about half as many people as the United States, and about as many as the United Kingdom. They are estimated to be: 8 to 9 million pure Indians. 13 million mestizos. 15 million whites. 12 million negroes and mulattoes: 10 mil- lion of these in Brazil; the rest in Guiana, Venezuela, and Colombia. The continent therefore has a very mixed population. Whites and mestizos often scorn the other classes. © Publishers' Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 571. A public square and the capitol, Buenos Aires. Compare this building with the capitol at Washington (Fig. 235). Courtesy U. S. Dept. Agr. A “port” on the Upper Parana River as it flows through the Trees line nearly all grassland stream banks. THE TROPIC FOREST REGIONS 381 QUESTIONS 1. What is the area of South America? How many countries with the area of the United States could be placed within the continent? What is the area of your state? 2. Give the population of the United States; of your state; of South America. 3. How many races can we find in South America? Where is each? 4. Determine from your world map the following table of distances: Para, Brazil, to Lon- don; Panama to New York City; Montevideo, Argentina, to Paris, France. 5. What fraction of the continent is within the tropics? 6. Might parts of South America be said to receive much more or much less rain than they need? (Figs. 540, 541.) Give reasons for your answer. 7. What differences do you note between the character of the coast lines of South America and of Europe? 8. How much of the coast is paralleled by high mountains or plateaus? by low, hot tropical forests? 9. Think carefully of your answers to the above questions, and give reasons why the population of South America is but one-half of that of the United States. 10. What is the difference between the average January and July temperatures in the widest part of North America? of South America? Explain the difference. 11. What motives led the English to North America? the Spaniard to South America? Which made the better colonist? Why? 12. Why should we not refer to South America as Spanish America? 13. Study the elevations (Fig. 566), latitude, and rainfall of South America, and tell what kinds of products you think might be grown on this continent. © Publishers* Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 572. An Andean “freight train” going down to La Guaira. Was this picture taken in the rainy season? 14. Make the following comparisons: Extent. Average Height. Chief Peaks. Which the Barrier? Greater Why? Andes. . . Rockies . 15. Show points of difference and similarity between North and South America, using the following outline: Location; Character of coast; Surface; Climate; People; My choice for a home. THE TROPIC FOREST REGIONS Part I. — The Amazon Valley 793. The equatorial river. — Two great equatorial rivers, the Kongo in Africa and the Amazon in South America, reach the Atlantic near the equator. The Amazon has more water than the Kongo; more, indeed, than any other river in the world, because its valley has both the northeast and the southeast trade winds (Figs. 540, 541) to blow moisture from the Atlantic into the heart of South America. What proportion of South America along the equator drains into the Pacific? into the Atlantic? (Fig. 566.) The Kongo has falls near its mouth, but the Amazon valley is so flat that large steamers from New York and Liverpool can go to Manaos, 1000 miles up the river; and smaller ocean steamers go on to Iquitos, 2500 miles from the sea — farther than Denver is from New York. Although the Amazon is navigable 425 miles above Iquitos, the trade of the whole great valley is small. It has very few people. 794. The jungle. — In this river valley the climate is much the same as in the Kongo, (Sec. 727)., and here, even more than in the Kongo, nature has thus far been more powerful than man. Here (Fig. 566, Al) the forest owns the earth. Nature builds up forest faster than man has been able upon the whole to cut it down. This is not a land of fields and farms. There are no roads except the rivers. The canoes of the natives and the gasoline and steam launches of the white man pass up and down streams where they are not choked with fallen trees. This forest, one of the largest in all the world, is of little value for lumber. Most 382 SOUTH AMERICA Courtesy Wm. Farrabee, The University Museum, Phila. Fig. 573. The home of a chief of rubber gatherers on the Amazon bank. How many signs of flood can you see? What disadvantages would the flood bring? of the trees have crooked trunks and worth- less, soft wood. The good trees are scattered far apart and tied to many others with creepers and vines, so that the work of get- ting them costs more than the tree is worth. 795. Floods. — Each day during the rainy season, for weeks at a time, the rain comes dashing on the forest leaves with a roar like that of a railroad train. It beats into every crack and crevice of the houses. The rivers rise and water creeps into the forest. Some- times the hunter may wade all day long in water that covers the level land. Many of the houses in the river towns are built on poles driven into the ground (Fig. 573). Even the chicken houses are put on stilts, and the poor birds must spend the rainy season in the house. From some places it is a hundred miles through the forest to the nearest dry land. In one place an American explorer traveled in his canoe among the tree tops, marking his way with a hatchet. 796. Tribes buried in the forest. — Is it any wonder that this is a land of few people? Some tribes live on the higher land between streams, in places that are harder to reach than oases in the desert of Sahara. These places are cut off from the rest of the world by the thick forests, and also by low- lands flooded several feet deep for months at a time. From time to time some explorer finds people who have never before seen a white man. 797. Pests. — The tropic forests of South America are lands of pests. We might say that this is the land of the insect rather than of man. Mosquitoes are so thick that the trav- eler often wears gloves in hot weather, and has a net around his face and neck. The vampire is one of the many kinds of bats living in these woods. At night one must be careful to cover his head and feet with mosquito netting; otherwise the vam- pire may slip into the tent and bite a hole in one’s nose, or perhaps in a toe, and then suckthe blood. No stock farmer can succeed, because the vampires kill all his unprotected chickens and even his horses and cows. Hungry alligators lie in wait in the rivers. One of the eight hundred kinds of Amazon fish has teeth so sharp that it can bite a piece out of a man, after which other fish, smelling blood, will come racing to eat the man alive. Lovers of the water are care- ful where they swim in this region. The boa Fig. 574. Graph showing world production of rubber. What does the increase of plantation rubber in the Far East tell you about the prosperity of the city of Para, or Belem, as compared with Singapore? (Sec. 706.) Heavy line — Plantation-grown, mostly in the Far East. Fine line — Grown in the Amazon Valley. . Dotted line — All other places. THE TROPIC FOREST REGIONS 383 © H. Wimmer Fig. 576. A cacao bean harvest beside a tropic stream. What are the different men doing? How are these beans made into cocoa and chocolate? constrictor climbs the forest trees, and the jaguar crouches in the branches ready to spring upon its prey. 798. Rubber. — The only important industry of this vast forest region is that of gathering rubber. This is done by native Indians, mestizos, and mulattoes, from the east coast of Bra- zil. In the dry season they work hard cutting paths through the jungle to reach the scattered rubber trees, from which they gather the sap each day. In the rainy season the people have to leave the rubber camps, and they gather in Manaos and smaller river towns. They speak of these towns as “end of troubles,” because they go to them in the season when they do not work. While the flood covers the forest, the people loaf and often listen to phono- graphs, and thus they pass the time pleas- antly. A little of the rubber goes over the Andes to Pacific ports, but most of it goes downstream to Para, or Belem. A small © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 575. The wet cacao beans in Trinidad, British West Indies, are piled in heaps to let the pulp ferment. They are then polished by bare feet. Why does Trini- dad have the tropic forest climate? quantity of rubber is now imported in liquid form, although the major part comes in sheets. Most of the great Amazon forest belongs to Brazil, but other countries own some of it. What countries are they? 799. Cacao and Brazil nuts.— The climate of this forest region is perfectly suited to the cacao tree. (Sec. 800). There are a few cacao plantations near the mouth of the Amazon, and room for thousands more. Afewof the Brazil nuts that grow wild in the forests are gathered for shipment to northern lands. Millions of pounds of them rot. QUESTIONS 1. Make use of the following outline to write a brief review of conditions in the Amazon Valley for your school paper: (a) Surface; ( b ) Temperature; (c) Rainfall; (d) The rivers; (e) Forests; (/) Pests; ( g ) Products; (h) Chief cities. 2. What is the rela- tion of Para to the rubber industry? What name do we give to the rubber of this region? Why? 3. How do you think the development of the rubber planta- tions of the East Indies, and the resulting lower price of rubber, affected the price of a building lot in Para? How did they affect you? 4. Would you prefer to depend upon wild or cultivated rubber for supply? Why? 5. Compare the two great “Fathers of Waters” as follows: Amazon. Mississippi. Length of Navigability. Direction of Flow Trade Flood Problem Commercial Importance 384 SOUTH AMERICA Fig. 577. The shell in which a dozen or more Brazil nuts grow. This is one of the many free foods pro- duced by nature and mostly wasted in the tropic forest. 6. Which is of more commercial importance, the forests of the Amazon or the forests of the Pacific coasts and mountains? Why? 7. Locate the Rio Teodoro. What interesting facts can you find about this river? 8. Someone has said that the Amazon Valley could raise food suffi- cient for the entire United States. What changes must take place before this can be possible? 9. Make a chart for the Amazon and Kongo rivers similar to the one in Question 5. Part II. — The Coast Forest of Ecuador and Western Colombia 800. Jungle and cacao. — From the Gulf of Guayaquil northward to the Isthmus of Panama is another jungle land. The coast plain is damp, rainy, hot, swampy, and forested, like the Amazon Valley. Like the Amazon Valley most of it is unused, but the section near the Gulf of Guayaquil has many cacao plantations, which furnish two-thirds of the exports of all Ecuador. (Fig. 608.) Guayaquil, the seaport, has long been known as unhealthy. Conditions there are better now, because swamps have been drained, and water no longer stands in the city streets. A railroad from Guayaquil goes up to Quito, the capital, on the high plateau, and there the climate is cool and healthful. 801, The Colombian section. — Guayaquil is 835 miles distant from Panama. On the swampy coast between these two places there is but one port, Buenaventura, having a route of any importance to the interior, and that is only a mule road. Professor E. A. Ross, who made a journey inland from this place, said: “ Behind Buenaventura, and reaching to the foothills of the Coast Range, is a malarious jungle, called the Choco, where it rains every day. Here no one lives save the descendants of the negro slaves. . . . “ They live in palm-thatched bamboo huts, raised about a yard above the ground. The bamboos of the frame are tied together with lianas (vines), and the sides are of bamboo split and flattened into a kind of board. The builder needs no hammer, saw, nail, or screw; only the machete. Nor does the jungle black enslave himself to hoe or spade or plow or clothes. He slashes away the jungle, starts a patch of plantains, or cooking bananas, and sows a little corn. His sugar cane he crushes in a hand-mill, and boils the juice down to sugar. He fishes, hunts, converts molasses into rum, and rolls stalwart cigars of his own tobacco leaf. So he eats, drinks, smokes, loafs, and lets time pass, with no vanities, no interests, no ideas, no standards, no outlook, no care for the future " QUESTIONS 1. How is Mother Nature too good to her children who live on this coast? She will make you work much harder than they, but will pay you well. Explain. 2. What is the only product of commercial impor- tance in the coastal strip? (Figs. 575, 576.) What products might energetic people produce in this region? 3. At one time Panama was a pest hole like Guay- aquil. Tell how our army physicians made Panama safe for white men. (Sec. 376.) Might Guayaquil be made as healthful? 4. What connection can you sug- gest between poor government in Ecuador and poor health in the coastal regions? 5. How would good schools help the boys and girls to be healthy, energetic, and eager to make their homeland a pleasant place in which to live? When such boys and girls were grown up, what good things might they do to improve their country? Part III. — The Forests of the North- east Trade Wind Coast 802 . Half-settled lowlands. — The north- east trades, blowing across the Caribbean and the Atlantic, bring much rain to the northern lowlands of Colombia, of Venezuela, THE TROPIC FOREST REGIONS 385 and of the three Guianas. (Figs. 540, 541.) Look at the map and see if you can tell why the Colombian section receives less trade- wind rain than the Guiana section. These hot lowlands are good for sugar, cotton, cacao, rice, and many tropic crops, but the climate is so unpleasant that little of the land is used. There are villages of grass-roofed houses, but in all the wide plain of northern Colombia there is only one large, modern sugar mill. Rice, bananas, and coconuts are the chief food of the people. There are some Indians, and many negroes whose ancestors were brought over as slaves. Only a few of the people are white. Even in the cities of Barranquilla and Cartagena less than one person in ten is white, but some of these are often well-educated and have traveled in foreign lands. Near Santa Marta an American company has large plantations, from which bananas are brought to this country. (Sec. 375.) The natives of Colombia and Ecuador use a leaf fiber and weave by hand most of the Panama hats that we get in the United States. Sometimes a pack mule will come out of a forest path carrying several hundred dollars’ worth of hats in the two bundles balanced across its saddle. In northern Venezuela the Andes reach directly to the shore of the sea, leaving no room for a coastal plain. (Fig. 596.) 803. Unexplored forests. — The coast plain of the Guianas is mostly a great forest which is even less used than the plain of Colombia or western Venezuela. Indeed many parts of it are unexplored, and all of the people except a few forest Indians live along the shore where the trade wind blows. This wind is so constant, so moist, and so warm that plants seem to grow almost everywhere, on the trunks of trees, on rocks, even on the surface of the rivers. The giant water lily, the Victoria regia, has its roots in the mud and spreads upon the surface of the water its leaves as large as umbrellas, and its beau- tiful white flowers as large as dinner plates. British Guiana, the chief crops of which are sugar and rice, has more agriculture than Dutch and French Guiana together. Yet all the sugar fields of British Guiana would cover a space only ten miles by twelve; and all the rice fields, a space ten miles by nine. How long and how wide is this colony? Only xio- part of it is under cultivation, and most of the work is done by people from India. They have been brought by the British government from their own crowded country to work in the empty lands of Guiana. An important export of this district is balata gum, gathered by the natives from the trunks of trees in the forest, and used for making insulation for electric wires. QUESTIONS 1. Show how the climate of this coast is kind to plants but very unkind to white men. 2. What countries are a part of the trade wind coast? Why do the trades bring rain to this region? 3. What is balata? Its use? How is it gathered? (Fig. 578.) 4. Name and locate the important coastal cities. Courtesy The University Museum, Phila. Fig. 578. A native of Guiana with his machete, bleeding a balata tree. How can he make his ladder by using only forest things? 386 SOUTH AMERICA © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 579. The Monument of the Republic in the square at Para, Brazil. Part IV. — The Forests of the South- east Trade Wind Coasts 804. A coast with big cities. — The part of the forested coastal plain over which the South- east Trade Wind blows (Fig. 566, A 4) has many more people than the sections north of the equator. On the lower slopes of the moun- tains, some of the land is well drained, and therefore better for farms than the flatter, wetter land close to the sea. It even has three large cities: Pernambuco (Recife), as large as Atlanta; Bahia, as large as Seattle; and Rio de Janeiro, larger than Cleveland or St. Louis. It was to this coast district that the Portuguese planters first brought negro slaves to grow sugar cane, more than four hundred years ago. Since this climate is very much like that of Africa, it is easy to see why the negroes here have increased in numbers more than have the white people. They are now free and live an easy and care- free life, working as little as they can. They are usually farmers, who often work patches of ground very much as their cousins do in Africa. Their gardens yield bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, and many kinds of beans. For bread a little corn is grown, but the chief material for bread is a kind of meal made of the dried root of the cassava, or manioc as it is called in Brazil. (Sec. 367, Fig. 551.) To pay for cloth, knives, pho- nographs, and other imports, the people ex- port some sugar, tobacco, and a little cot- ton. During our Civil War and the World War, the cotton crop along this coast was greatly increased; and during the food scar- city of 1918 and 1919, manioc flour and beans were exported to Europe to replace wheat and meat. In the Bahia district the chief export is cacao. 805. Rio de Janeiro and the Brazilian gov- ernment. — Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Bra- zil and the trading place for a rich plateau region behind it, is a large and a very beauti- ful city. The hills around its harbor make it one of the wonderful sights of the world. (Fig. 585.) Recent improvements include good water works, a good sewage system, and the draining of the swamps to destroy the breeding places of mosquitoes. Once Rio de Janeiro was a very unhealthful place, but now it has become so healthful that the death rate there is no higher than it is in New York or Chicago. The chief export of Rio and of Santos is the coffee grown in the plateau district near by. (Sec. 818.) Brazil is a republic with states much like our own, and with territories in the interior where there are very few people. Governors for the territories are sent out from Rio de Janeiro just as, in our country, they are sent out from Washington. 806. Conquering diseases. — These damp, tropic forest regions are a part of the world where nature with her heat, moisture, and sunshine makes plants grow most abun- dantly. They are, therefore, lands of great possibility if man can learn to live and work there. Already men have learned much about conquering the diseases that have killed thousands of people, and that have for so long held man terror-stricken. Yel- low fever is a good example. This dreadful disease has been killing people on the coasts of tropic America since the time of Columbus. In 1880 it had much to do with THE TROPIC FOREST REGIONS 387 stopping work on the Panama Canal, which was not built until yellow fever was con- quered. (Sec. 376.) It was so bad at Guaya- quil and Santos that people dreaded to go there. Two things were in the minds of the people of Santos every day ; one was the price of coffee, and the other was yellow fever. In 1899 surgeons in the American army learned that the disease is carried from one person to another by a certain kind of mosquito. Men at once began to fight the fever-bearing mosquito, and in fifteen years after 1905 Santos had no yellow fever at all. An American health board has recently discovered that ninety-five per cent of the workers in the cacao plantations of Ecuador suffer from the hookworm, a disease which is curable, but which makes the people who have it feel so weak and tired that they want to do nothing but rest. We now know that malaria, the greatest scourge of all the tropics and of many tem- perate lowlands, is also caused by a mosquito, and we know how to stop that disease, too. (Sec. 45.) All of these discoveries make it quite possi- ble that soon there will be a great increase in the use of tropic coast lands, and that they may be made to yield great quantities of bananas, banana meal, cacao, Brazil nuts, manioc, rice, rubber, coco- nuts, palm oil, and many other crops. If people there are prosperous, they will help to keep our farms and factories busy making things to trade with them. 807. Nature’s greatest dare to man. — But there stands the vast, flat plain of the Amazon, with rivers thousands of miles long, whose floods creep through the dark, thorny, tangled, buzzing jungle. Man has not yet conquered this great valley. Perhaps it is one of the last places that he can conquer. Certainly it is the greatest dare that nature holds out to him. If the Amazon River and its floods can be controlled and made to irrigate ricefields, cornfields, and banana plantations, the yield will be enormous. Doubtless the rich oil palm of Africa will grow as well in South America as the South American rubber tree grows in other tropic lands. (Sec. 705.) Some day, perhaps, we may be running automobiles with alcohol distilled on the Amazon’s banks, and feeding cows with coco- nut meal from all the rainy coasts of tropic America. But first man must defeat the mighty defenders of the region. It is still the land of the insect. Thus far the insect, the flood, and the fever have cut down man’s army of invasion, and slain the children of the settler, so that his numbers have remained small. QUESTIONS 1. What do the natives produce to sell to the out- side world? 2. How has trade with the interior helped Santos and Rio de Janeiro to become great cities, with good schools and comfortable homes? (Fig. 584.) 3. What lessons might the people of the Tropical Forest Regions learn from the healthy condition of Rio de Janeiro and Santos? 4. Compare the four Tropic Forest Regions as follows: Name of Region. Location. Bounds. Products. Cities. Courtesy Wm. Farrabee, The University Museum, Phila. Fig. 580. Cowboys and their camp by a lone tree on the great expanse of the Brazilian grasslands. 388 SOUTH AMERICA From “Through the Brazilian Wilderness," Courtesy Charles Scribner’s Sons Fig. 581. Theodore Roosevelt saw these Grassland Indians along the upper Paraguay River playing “football” with their heads. He said, “They use a light hollow rubber ball, of their own manufacture. It is about eight inches in diameter. The ball is placed on the ground to be put in play as in football. Then a player runs forward, throws himself flat on his face and butts the ball toward the opposite side. An opposite player, rushing toward it, catches it on his head with such a swing of his brawny neck, and such precision and address that the ball bounds back through the air as a football soars after a drop-kick. “The ball is never touched with the hands or feet, or with anything except the top of the head. It is hard to decide whether to wonder most at the dexterity and strength with which it is hit or butted with the head, as it comes down through the air, or at the reckless speed and skill with which the players throw themselves headlong on the ground to return the ball if it comes low down. Why they do not grind off their noses I cannot imagine.” The team whose ball is not returned wins a point. THE TROPIC GRASSLANDS 808. Resemblances to Africa. ■ — Examine the maps of Africa and South America and compare the grasslands of the two continents in size and location. (Fig. 566, B1,B2, B3, B4.) Like the African grasslands, the South Amer- ican grasslands have two seasons, one of which is hot and dry. During this season the grass dries up and the trees drop their leaves. The other season is a hot, damp, muggy season of rains. Then the grass springs up, the trees come out in leaf, birds build their nests, and streams run swiftly. In some places the water stands about in pools. During the next dry season the pools and the smaller streams dry up. Then rivers, recently flooded, become shallow streams, trickling along their wide and almost empty beds, or dry up completely. (Figs. 540, 541, 557.) Part I. — Grasslands South of the Equator 809. A great, empty district. — The great, empty district of Brazilian-Bolivian grass- lands or savannahs extends all the way from the low plains on the east coast of Brazil to the Andes Moun- tains. What other regions touch it? This is not a place to which people go for pleas- ure tours. There are no steamers except on the upper Parana, and, except for one railroad line, trav- elers have to go on their own horses or in their own canoes, and carry their own supplies over hundreds of thousands of square miles. After crossing this region near the source of the Tapajos River, Theodore Roosevelt said of it: “At intervals along the trail we came on the staring skull and bleached skeleton of a mule or ox. Day after day we rode forward across grass and of low, open, endless flats of scrubby forest, the trees standing far apart and in most places being but little higher than the head of a horseman. Some of them carried blossoms, white, orange, yellow, pink; and there were many flowers, the most beau- tiful being the morning-glories.” The Brazil- ians call this country of grassy plains the campos. In all of this wide savannah, large settlements can be found only in Paraguay and in a few small localities at the foot of the mountains in Bolivia, and near the coast of Brazil. This region is much larger than all that part of the United States east of the Missis- sippi River. Most of it is a vast, waiting land, peopled only by scattered tribes of Indians, and a few settlements of half-breeds and white men. The natives live by hunting, fishing, or keeping cattle, and a little garden- ing. They have simple grass houses, or grass shelters on poles, but without walls. 810. High plains and low plains. — The eastern part of the grassland in Brazil is a THE TROPIC GRASSLANDS 389 plateau. (Fig. 566.) On its eastern edge is the steep slope down to the sea like the one we shall see at Santos. (Sec. 817.) In some places near the sea, the wall rises suddenly three thousand feet and then slopes away gently to the west. This highland has less heat and less moisture than has New Orleans or Florida, and, therefore, it may become a land of white men, although as yet they have not settled it. The western part, drained by the upper branches of the Paraguay, the Madeira, and the Tapajos, is much lower, and in places is so flat that in the rainy season the water stands from three to six feet deep, with never a hill to be seen. Water thus covers twenty, thirty, or even forty thousand square miles, an area several times as big as Massachusetts. At this season people must go about in boats or live in houses on poles. The cattle must be driven to dry land miles away, where they can find something to eat. There are trees and even forests along most of the rivers of the grasslands, because the moisture keeps trees growing in the dry season. There are also patches of forest mixed with the grassland in many parts of the plains. This is the home of the deer, the jaguar, and many other wild animals. One of the most dangerous animals here is a kind of small wild pig called a peccary. These animals go in great droves, and will attack men on horseback. They hamstring the horse and kill the man. Hamstringing is cut- ting the heel ten- don, an act which makes men or quad- rupeds helpless. 811. The begin- nings of settlement. — In 1800, Indians and wild animals roamed over Kan- sas, Iowa, and the plains and moun- tains beyond. There were only a few set- tlements along the Mississippi River. To-day, the interior grassland plain of South America is in almost the same condition. The white man with his railroads, his steamboats, and his trade is at work only on the edges of this district. The solitary rancher is very likely to be half Portuguese and half Indian. He lives in a one-story house with walls of sun- dried brick and roof of grass. As soon as a baby boy can stand up, he wants to ride a Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 583. Cattle in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. Why such great difference in density? Courtesy Armour & Co. Fig. 582. A slaughter house and freezing plant built, owned, and managed by an American company at La Plata, a short distance down the river from Buenos Aires. What signs do you see of good transportation facilities? 11-20 390 SOUTH AMERICA horse, for he sees his father galloping about on horseback after the cattle that pasture on this great, unfenced plain, which has only grass and scattered trees as far as one can see. One of the few built-up places of the grass- lands is at the foot of the mountains in Bolivia, where needed food is grown for the miners at La Paz and other towns on the Andean plateau, and carried up to market on muleback. The Brazilians have built a few railroads to reach the cattle ranches in the southeastern edge of their grasslands, but only in that part of Paraguay between the Parana and the Paraguay rivers may this region be said to be settled. Even then, Paraguay has only fifteen people per square mile. 812. Paraguay. — Because there are steam- boats on the Parana River, the people of Paraguay have a better chance to trade than the people of any other part of this interior region. Most of Paraguay’s million people are Indians, negroes, or of mixed blood, chiefly Indian. There are a few Spaniards, and Spanish is the language of the govern- ment. Most of the people can neither read nor write, and so their republic does not have a very good government. Since Paraguay is about the same distance from the equator as Florida and Cuba, oranges and early vegetables can be grown there. These go in oxcarts to the boat land- ings, for shipment to the cities on the River Plata, just as Florida sends similar products by train to the colder parts of North America. Another Paraguayan export is mate, the dried leaf of a low tree of the holly family. Forests of it grow wild in Paraguay and in the neighboring parts of Brazil, where it may often be seen drying on the grass near a thatched house. The people of this region have long used this leaf for tea, and it is now being shipped from both Paraguay and southern Brazil to Argentina, Uruguay, and even to southern Europe. A little comes to New York. To prepare mate for market is less work than to prepare tea, so mate is not a costly drink. In the cooler parts of South America, groups of people may often be seen gathered comfortably around a gourd of hot or cold mate. Most of the money that the people of Paraguay receive is from hides, meat, mate, and the fruit and vegetables they send to the cities on the lower Plata. The Paraguayan storekeeper gets his drugs, knives, clothes, and other wares from the wholesale stores of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Where does the wholesale merchant get his wares? 813. The new cattle industry. — The price of meat in Europe has been going up steadily since the year 1900, and when the people of Argentina and Uruguay began to ship fresh meat to Europe, the price of cattle rose so high that makers of tasajo, or jerked beef (dried and salted), had to leave Argentina and Uru- guay and move their plants to the tropic grasslands in Paraguay, and to the Brazilian states of Matto Grosso, Goyaz, and Minas Geraes, where cattle are cheap. Jerked beef will keep in all weathers and climates, and has long been shipped from the ports of the River Plata to Cuba and many tropic countries. During the World War, there was a great meat-packing plant built in Paraguay. Sheet tin was sent from Pittsburgh to this packing plant, to be made into cans to carry meat back to France. Americans have built meat-packing plants at Rio de Janeiro and Santos, and Brazil has built a railroad to Goyaz in the savannah country where the herds are increasing. 814. A future meat supply. — This vast land of the savannahs, or tropic grasslands, more than half as large as the United States, is one of the few places where the world’s market may possibly get a new supply of cheap beef and hides. It is unlike the African grasslands in not having a strong native people, but there are some Indians there, and immigrants are going into the Bra- zilian section. Among the immigrants are some Japanese. There is every reason to expect that energetic men from somewhere will push their cattle ranches into these grass- lands during this century, just as ranches were pushed into the grassy plains of the middle of North America in the last century. THE TROPIC Part II. — The Grasslands North of the Equator 815. The South American Sudan. — Within what degrees of latitude does the Sudan lie? (Fig. 445.) the northern grasslands of South America? (Fig. 566, B3, B4). Com- pare the size of the two. What river valley and what uplands comprise most of the north tropic grasslands of South America? Like the savannahs of Africa, Brazil, and Bolivia, the northern grasslands have a season of drenching rains and up-springing grass, followed by a season of sunshine, drought, and dead grass. Then fires often bum the dead grass for hundreds of miles, and great clouds of smoke darken the skies. 816. High grasslands and low grasslands. — We have just seen (Sec. 810) that the southern grasslands are low in the west and high in the east. The same is true in the north, with the Orinoco Valley in the west, and the highlands of Guiana in the east. These highlands are unused by civilized man. They are not even well-explored. They are hard to reach and hard to cross. The hot jungle plain between them and the coast is wider than it is in Brazil. The uplands are not wide-stretching, nearly level plateaus like those of Brazil or Africa. Instead, they are cut into many parts by sharp valleys. You might have to spend a half day crossing a small stream. You would be scrambling one or two thousand feet down steep cliffs, chopping your way through tangled vines and thickets, and then climbing and chopping your way up the other side to a small tract of level, grassy upland with deep, jungle-filled valleys all around it. There are grass and gold in this country, but men have not used the grass or dug the gold. There has been some gold mining on the edges of the region for a long time, but these grass- lands may have to wait a long time for transportation. The low grasslands of the Orinoco, like the savannahs of Bolivia and Brazil, are also almost unused. They might support millions of cattle, but the climate is hot, and the government of Venezuela is very bad indeed. GRASSLANDS 391 No one knows when his property may be seized by some general who is out with an army to live on the country until he can drive out the other generals and become president. These two things, the bad govern- ment and the hot climate, cause this region to be almost unused. There is so little trade that only one or two small steamers come up the great river Orinoco as far as Ciudad Bolivar. Since the World War English companies have begun to buy up cattle ranches on the Venezuelan llanos (plains). QUESTIONS 1. What do your maps (Figs. 540, 541) tell you about the rains in these regions? Does such rainfall make dense forests, or few forests and much grassland? 2. Would you prefer to live in the plateau grasslands or in the lower grasslands? Why? Would you prefer to live on the grasslands north of the equator or on those south of it? 3. These regions include parts of what plateau south of the Amazon? north of the Amazon? What river valleys south of the Amazon? north of the Amazon? 4. Which rivers in this region are navigable? (Fig. 610.) How may the railway around the Falls of Madeira cause changes in the southern grassland region? Would you expect to find falls in the rivers of the Brazilian savannah? Why? What use might be made of these falls? 5. What does the word savannah mean? 6. Sup- pose the Brazilian Government gave you 100 square miles of land at latitude 15° south, and longitude 50° west. If you should live on it, what would you do? 7. What is the price of a pound of beefsteak where you buy food? How much must you pay for a pair of shoes? Would immense herds of cattle on these grasslands have any influence on the prices of things that you use? 8, Why might Paraguay be called the Florida of South America? 9. Brazil plans to locate a new capital just east of Goyaz. Give three reasons for so placing the capital city. 10. Fill out the following chart: The Grasslands of the World Topic. United States. South America. Names Reason for dryness . Rivers Inhabitants: Number Race Customs Homes Products Wild animals Chief products 11. If mate were sold as widely as tea, what would be the effect upon the prosperity of the natives of Para- guay and southern Brazil? 392 SOUTH AMERICA (Sec. 272.) In some places the land is quite level ; else- where it is as beautifully rolling as the Piedmont of Virginia. (Sec. 259.) The train finally brings us to Sao Paulo, a city larger than New Orleans. In the United States no city without water transpor- tation has grown so large. Sao Paulo is the capital of a rich state, and the trade center of a prosperous dis- trict. Sao Paulo also has many people, and much bus- iness that would naturally . Photo- wm. Thompson be in the port of Santos if Fig. 584. The railroad station at Sao Paulo, Brazil. Have you ever seen one nlimnfo oo so handsome? What product has enabled the railroad to build such a station? note were as cool as that of New York or of London. Sao Paulo has fine streets, trolley cars, and many factories making boots and shoes, and weaving cloth from cotton, wool, and jute. Nearly all of the coal used in Brazil must come from Europe and the United States; waterfalls furnish power for the machinery in many Sao Paulo factories, for trolley cars, and for lighting the streets. Sao Paulo is sometimes called an electric city. White people wearing clothes like our own go to and fro as in any American city. We might think we were in the United States if we did not listen to the people’s talk. What is their language? (Sec. 790.) Find the place near the coast of Brazil that is the same distance from the equator as the tip of the Florida peninsula. This Brazilian region is cooler than Cuba and south Florida because it is a plateau two or three thousand feet in height. The summers are rainy and warm like those of Florida, Cuba, and Porto Rico; but the winters are cool, with little rain, and frost sometimes injures the crops, as it does in parts of Florida. 818. Coffee. — You recall (Sec. 384) thatfine coffee grows in the small uplands of Porto Rico. Here in Brazil is a large upland much like that of Porto Rico. The city of Santos is the coffee capital of the world. Just as THE SUB-TROPIC AGRICULTURAL REGION 817. A mountain with only one side. — In southeastern Brazil, on a corner of the low plateau, is the sub-tropic region which has long furnished most of the coffee that is used throughout the world. The people on the deck of a coffee ship steaming from Rio de Janeiro to Santos can often see, near the shore, a high mountain covered with dark green forest. In a long distance this unbroken mountainside has only one place where a railroad climbs it, and that is at Santos, where a double-track railroad connects sea- shore with interior. As we go up this railroad, we are surprised to find that it is almost as steep as a flight of stairs. The cars are pulled up by cables, which are run by gyeat stationary engines. The cables pull the trains from power house to power house. As the car is pulled up and up the mountain, to a height of nearly half a mile above the level of the sea, one may catch wonderful glimpses of the sea through the forests that overhang the track. On reaching the top, we are surprised to find that we have climbed a one-sided moun- tain, for the other side does not decline, but stretches away in a plateau to the westward. THE SUB-TROPIC AGRICULTURAL REGION 393 © E. M. Newman, N. Y. Fig. 585. Looking down from Sugar Loaf, one of the many peaks over- looking the city and harbor of Rio de Janeiro, justly famed as one of the most beautiful of city locations. cotton has long been the chief crop of many parts of our own south, so coffee has long been the chief crop of the region inland from Rio de Janeiro and Santos. Many of the plantations are on hills, so that they have well-drained soil, as well as frost drainage. (Sec. 184.) Most of the coffee crop goes to Sao Paulo, and then down the mountain by the double-track railroad to San- tos, which has better port facilities than many North American ports. How far is it from Santos to New York? to Lisbon? If coffee is high in price, the people of Santos and Sao Paulo are prosperous, and buy many things from Europe and America. If the price of coffee is low, the people are poor, and therefore buy but little. 819. Other crops. — For many years the coffee region, like our own cotton region, sold one product and bought almost every- thing else: coal from England; locomotives from the United States and Belgium ; oil and gasoline from the United States; clothes from Europe; flour and meat from Argentina; iron, automobiles, and sewing machines from the United States; dried codfish from Newfound- land and Norway. During the World War, when trading ships were scarce, the people of this sub-tropic region began to grow large quantities of crops of which they had pre- viously grown but little. In a short time the cotton output of the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo had increased sixfold, and shiploads of corn, rice, and dried beans were being exported. Then, also, this part of South America began to send canned beef to France from the new modern packing houses built in Sao Paulo and in Rio de Janeiro by men from Chicago. The cattle owners are improving their stock by bringing better breeds from Europe. This sub-tropic plateau has many undeveloped resources. 820. Iron ore. — In a short time this region may be exporting more iron ore than any country in the world. Special ore docks have been built near the city of Victoria, and a railroad four hundred miles long has been built westward into the interior of the Bra- zilian state of Minas Geraes, to reach moun- tains that have nearly twice as much iron ore as those near Lake Superior. (Sec. 334.) Some of this iron will be smelted for use in Brazil, but it is expected that the ore will be shipped more and more to the furnaces of North America and Europe, because it is the richest iron ore so far discovered. 821. Lumber. — On the southern part of this plateau is a large pine forest, much like the pine forests of Florida. Trees taller than a three-story house cover an area several times as large as Massachusetts, and because railroads have been built only to the edge .of this forest, most of it is yet almost un- touched. However, the export of lumber from the port of Curitiba has already begun and may become very large. 822. A land for immigrants. — This is a region of great promise for growth in trade and industry. Most of the people are white. It is the first part of South America where large numbers of immigrants are seeking homes. Already hundreds of thousands of 394 SOUTH AMERICA Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 586. Cattle of British breed feed on the Argentine Pampas. Compare these cattle with those in Figs. 107 and 629. Each year there is a wonderful show of pure-bred cattle in Buenos Aires, as there is at Chicago. Italians have gone there. Immigrants keep arriving and we may expect this region to build up as our own southern states are building up. This is by far the most pleasant and wholesome part of South America that we have yet studied. The corresponding part of Africa, on the slopes of the Drakensberg Mountains, is very small. (Sec. 769.) 823. Many resources. — This region prom- ises to have a more varied industry than any other part of South America. No other part has so many different natural resources. It can have within its own bounds coffee, cotton, corn, beans, and many other agri- cultural crops. The meat industry is increas- ing. The region also has minerals, lumber, and water power, and a plateau high enough to be as healthful in climate as the south- eastern part of our own United States. Already in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo there are many factories where English machines, driven by water power, make cloth from Brazil- ian cotton; and in the near future great smelt- ing plants may arise. Fig. 587. Wheat production (1919-20): (bushels) A. United States, 860,690,000 B. Argentina and Uruguay 203,940,000 QUESTIONS 1. Where did your grocer’s coffee probably come from? 2. Why should Brazil wish to keep on friendly terms with the United States? With what countries must the United States compete for trade with this region? 4. What training should our salesmen have to be successful? 5. Locate Sao Paulo. How large a city is it? Why do its people have so many con- veniences, while the Toba Indians live so poorly? (Fig. 591.) 6. What part of Africa does this region resemble? Why? 7. Should Brazil export her iron ore or try to use it at home? 8. What should happen in the Brazilian highland when railroads are built through it? 9. Santos and Rio de Janeiro are the gateways to this good land. How are they connected with the plateau? How do they helpj the inhabitants of the plateau? Trace the steamship lines leading out from these cities. 10. Why do great numbers of Europeans migrate into this region? 11. Is there room for more immi- grants? 12. How many people should a country have? EAST TEMPERATE AGRICULTURAL REGION 824. Another southern United States. — Find the latitude of Norfolk, Virginia, and that of Buenos Aires. Each city is on the east side of a continent. Can you see why they should have similar climates? Do the Fig. 588. Wheat export (bushels) : A. United States 150,500,000 B. Argentina and Uru- guay . .110,098,000 Why does the River Plata Region export a greater part of her wheat crop than the United States does? (See Fig. 587.) THE EAST TEMPERATE AGRICULTURAL REGION 395 -j B □in Fig. 589. Wool export of four important na- tions (1909-13average) Million pounds A. Australia .... 676 B. Argentina . . .328 C. New Zealand 194 D. Br. So. Africa 164 maps also tell you why southern Brazil and Georgia should have similar climates? The East Temperate Agricultural Region of South America (Fig. 566 D) resembles in climate the region between the South Atlan- tic Coast of the United States and the Great Plains in Oklahoma. The South American region is smaller, but it has the same lessen- ing of rainfall as the distance from the ocean increases, a climate feature which makes similar vegetation belts in the two regions. First comes forest, then grassland good for corn, then grassland good for wheat. The South American forest covers most of the Brazilian part of this district and the neigh- boring lands in northeastern Argentina. West of the lower Parana is a splendid plain called the pampas. It is treeless, rich, nearly level (Fig. 586), and good for corn in the east, then, farther west, good for wheat. The western boundary of the grain land is a climate line like that at the western end of our own grainregion (Sec. 57) in Kansasand Oklahoma. The plain, now too dry for much farming, stretches on to the Andes, as our own plain goes on to the Rockies. 825. The early days — ranching. — Let us see why the Spanish settlers on the banks of the Plata found it easier to make a home there than the English did on the banks of the James, or along the shores of Mas- sachusetts. The pampas of eastern Argentina are tree- less and covered with rich grass. These plains, spread- ing away to the west and northwest for hundreds of miles, are one of the greatest natural pastures in the world. The settler did not have to cut down trees, dig up stumps, pry out stones, or fight with bushes and briers. The winter is frosty, but usually mild. There is no snow cover; animals can pasture all the year. The early settlers brought horses, sheep, and cattle from Spain. The animals ran almost wild on the grassy plains, and increased like mice in a pantry. In those days American meat could not be sold in Europe, so for two hundred years the Spanish ranch owners killed their cattle and sheep, and sold only the skins, the wool, and the tallow. Horses were kept because the hair from their tails and manes was sold to make haircloth. In the middle of the nineteenth century an Argentine horse brought a fixed price, just as a glass of soda water does with us. An unbroken horse was worth $2.50. If he was trained, ready to use, he was worth $5.00. An espe- cially good riding horse was worth $10.00 to the Argentine gaucho, or cowboy, a rough fellow, half Indian, half Spaniard, who spent most of his time on horseback. After a time the people began to make tasajo, which is beef so salty and dry that, like dried codfish, it will keep in hot climates. Tasajo has been much used in tropic America. (Sec. 813.) 826. The rise of agriculture. — During all this time the people of Buenos Aires imported flour, just as the people of Cuba do to-day. Courtesy International Harvester Co. of America Fig. 590. Hauling wheat to an Argentine railway. Can the wagons you know get through deep mud as well as these can? There are hooks on the ends of the axles and elsewhere, so that the cowboys can tie their lassos to the wagon, and help pull at a pinch. See the rope from the hub. 396 SOUTH AMERICA Photo. Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 591. A family of Toba Indians and their home in the scrubby forest of the Gran Chaco. What signs of trade with the white man do you see? About 1870, people in the Argentine found that they could raise wheat. There was a market for wheat in Europe, so Argentina started on an agricultural career, just as did regions in the central part of North America. Rail- roads were built across the plain from Buenos Aires and Rosario, just as they were from Kansas City, Omaha, and Minneapolis. Im- migrants from: Spain and Italy came by thou- sands to cultivate the new fields. (Fig. 610.) The land in Argentina is splendid for farming; it is rich, level, and so free from stones that you cannot in miles find one as big as an egg. Plows, reapers, and threshers were sent out from the United States, and the fields of wheat, corn, and flax increased. Sometimes there are droughts, sometimes too much rain. Sometimes the locusts (grasshoppers) fly down in millions from the forests to the northward and eat up the crops. Nevertheless this has become one of the great agricultural regions of the world. Argentina grows more flax for seed than any other country. Fleets of steamers sail from Europe to the river Plata, and return laden with wheat, corn, meat, and flax seed. Only a fraction of the Argentine land in this region is now under cultivation. The re- mainder is still in pasture, just as a smaller part of our own Com Belt is in pasture. 827. The gentleman and the job. — What is it that makes a man a gentleman? The Spanish settlers brought a wrong idea about that across the ocean with them, and Argentina, like the other countries settled by the Spaniards, suffers because of it. In the United States and Canada the people themselves built the rail- roads, managed the compa- nies, and ran the industries. Because the Argentinians think that a gentleman ought not to work, the rail- roads and the trolley lines, the gas works and the elec- tric light plants, and the biggest business enterprises are owned by the British, French, German, Dutch, and American companies that built them. Most of the skilled men, managers, and workmen, are northern Euro- peans, or Americans. But Argentina is be- ginning to get over her foolish idea about what makes a gentleman. She is beginning to be proud of being a modern nation. 828. The estate and the family. — In Kan- sas, Oklahoma, and other parts of the United States, and also in Canada, the land was given away to the early settlers in farms of 160 acres each, which the government wisely thought was enough to make a good home for a family. Our government wants every man to own the farm he cultivates and the house in which he lives, because it makes him a better citizen. The kings of Spain liked to favor their friends by giving them land in the colonies. Sometimes a friend of the king would receive a grant of thousands and thousands of acres, as much as a whole county in the United States. The Argentine politicians have also- given land away to their friends in much the same way as the kings did. The man who owns one of these huge estates (estancias) does not want to live on it nor does he work for the good of the neighborhood. He wants to live in some big city, and visit THE EAST TEMPERATE AGRICULTURAL REGION 397 Madrid and Paris. In every Spanish- speaking country there are big estates of this kind. Even California, New Mexico, and Texas have them. Why? In the splendid grain and grass lands of Argentina and Uru- guay, many of these vast estates are owned by people who live in Buenos Aires or Monte- video, and who may not see their lands from one year’s end to the next. Sometimes it takes the agent two or three days to drive over the estate and visit the various work- men's camps. Some of the agents are now planning to travel about over their ranches in airplanes. In the grain districts, the land is rented to tenants, most of whom are Italians, who live in shacks, and who rent the land for a year or two and then move on to some other place. This custom is very bad for the country, because no settler stays long enough to help make a good neighborhood, and no one keeps up the schools or the roads. The roads are so bad that wagons often have wheels ten or twelve feet high in order that they may not stick in the mud. (Fig. 590.) Fifteen or twenty horses may have to be hitched to one wagon to haul the grain to market. 829. The meat industry. — Since meat has gone up in price, the people of the Argentine no longer waste their good grass in raising bony cattle, from which they sell only hides and tallow. Instead, they raise fine herds of the best Eng- lish breeds of big, fat sheep and cattle. (Figs. 594, 586.) Alfalfa, the best of all forage plants, grows in Ar- gentina as well as it does in any part of the world; so northeastern Argentina and Uruguay have now be- come one of the great meat- producing regions of the world. Instead of being boiled down for tallow, the cattle are sent to modern meat-packing houses built and operated by men from Chicago, and owned by European and North American capitalists. (Figs. 582, 583.) Most of the meat animals go to the pack- ing houses and freezing plants of Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Santa Fe, Argentina; to Paysandu, Uruguay; and even to Pelotas and other places in southern Brazil, for the meat industry has recently sprung up in this part of the temperate agricultural region also. Argentine meat had begun to come to New Y ork before the World War ; but during the war all of the meat was sent to Europe. Since the war we have been importing mil- lions of pounds a year. A Spanish company recently built meat- freezing plants in Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, cold-storage warehouses in Bilbao and other towns in Spain, and refrigerator ships to cany frozen meat to Europe. There are many such steamship lines from Plata ports to the ports of northwest Europe. 830. Forests. — As in our own country we have a great natural forest from Oklahoma to the Atlantic, except where man has cut it © E. M. Newman, N. Y. Fig. 592. A part of the Plaza or public square of Montevideo, 398 SOUTH AMERICA down, so in South America a great forest stretches from the coast of southern Brazil to the river Parana, and beyond. Near the Parana River are many factories making tanning ex- tract from the hard wood of the que- bracho tree. Per- haps the leather of your shoes was tan- ned with this ma- terial, which is used by American tan- ners. Most of this forest region is still unsettled, and in southern Brazil are many thousand square miles of splendid pines, much like those of our own southern states. These forests are a continuation of the forest mentioned in Section 821, and are the only important pine forests of the southern hemisphere. Some day, when railroads and sawmills have been built, these forests will give rise to a great industry. Lumber export to other parts of South America has already begun. 831. The Gran Chaco. — A large area in northern Argentina, west of the Parana, is called the Gran Chaco (Great Forest), although most of the high forest is only along the streams. There is so much good, open grassland farther south, in a cooler climate, that this section has been little used. Parts of it' have scarcely been explored. In 1920 an American party went through some of it. They said it was like trying to go through a hedge endwise. The land was covered with a dense mass of thorny bushes about six feet high. You could only pass here and there by following paths made by deer and other animals. This land might be made to raise animals for meat, and to grow many of the crops of our southern states, such as corn, beans, peanuts, and cotton. 832. The cities of the coast. — Why might we say that Buenos Aires is both the Chicago and the New York of Argentina? (Secs. 321, 340.) Buenos Aires is still growing rapidly and is already a great city, almost as large as Philadelphia. It has splendid streets, beautiful houses, and great news- papers. The styles of Paris are copied by its people more quickly than they are copied in New York. Buenos Aires has many places of amusement, and is one of the gayest cities in the world. In its harbor, Buenos Aires has better machinery for handling freight than has New York. Across the wide river is Monte- video, the capital of Uruguay, a finely-built city with three-fourths as many people as Washington, D. C. Southward from Buenos Aires is Bahia Blanca, a grain exporting port, the Galveston of the Argentine. Rosario, two hundred miles up the river Parana from Buenos Aires, is visited by ocean steamers, and has a population larger than Omaha. This city is much like Omaha in its business, except that ocean steamers can reach it. 833. A place for the immigrant. — The un- used, or little used, lands of southern Brazil, Uruguay, and eastern Argentina comprise one of the four good, large regions waiting for the immigrant who wants to farm in the land of frost. Where are the other three? (Secs. 92, 630, 686.) In the Argentine part of this great region is much land that is not yet cultivated, and some day the big estates will have to be turned into one-family farms. Farming has scarcely begun in Uruguay, a country that is still a great sheep pasture of rolling grass- land. Most of southern Brazil and northern Argentina is still a great forest waiting to be cleared and put to work producing corn, legumes, meat, and cotton. But settlers are now going to these empty lands. In this part of Brazil several colonies of German farmers settled years ago. The climate is so mild that the farmer does not need an expensive house or barn. He can live in a tent for months, and in five or six weeks after he reaches his land he can be Finch & Baker, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 593. Grape acreage in southern South America. Why are they not grown more largely near the markets along the River Plata? THE EAST TEMPERATE eating beans and other vegetables from his new garden. The Brazilian government wants immigrants, and will pay the carfare from the Brazilian port to a farm colony for any immigrant with a family. The govern- ment will also sell him sixty-two acres of land, and seeds and tools, and will give him eight years in which to pay for all this. As many as ten thousand immigrants a week landed at Buenos Aires during a part of 1920. Already many hundred thousands of Italians and Spaniards have moved to Argentina, and more are going there. Of late the East Temperate Agricultural Region has been second only to the United States as a place to attract home-seekers. We may therefore expect this region to have more and more wheat, corn, and meat for the markets of Europe and the United States. QUESTIONS 1. From what country might the vessel in the har- bor at Rosario (Fig. 609) come? With what is it being loaded? For what port will it probably sail? What products may it bring on the return voyage? 2. Why are Uruguay and Argentina great sheep-raising coun- tries? 3. Why are the boys pushing the sheeps’ heads under the liquid? (Fig. 594) 4. How far might you see across the pampas? (Fig. 586.) Why is it a good cattle country? 5. What industry is taking the place Fig. 594. Sheep-dipping on an Argentine ranch. This and to us. (Sec. 44.) Explain how the dipping of sheep AGRICULTURAL REGION 399 of cattle-raising? Why? 6. Make the following com- parison of regions: Topic. Mississippi Valley. Plata Valley. New England Coast. Location . Surface Soil Climate Navigable Rivers Crops Ease of Colonizing 7. Where do you find the most railroad lines in South America? (Fig. 610.) Why? 8. For what port may the steamship shown in Fig. 582 be bound? W 7 hat products does she carry? How are these products pre- pared so as to keep through the hot voyage? Where is the main office of this company? Why are not the cattle taken to America or Europe to be killed and prepared? 9. Would you like to live in Montevideo? (Fig. 592.) Why? 10. Can you give two reasons which have helped the growth of this city and Buenos Aires? 11. Compare a farm in this region with one in the Northern Piedmont Region. (Fig. 228.) 12. Show by use of following chart how this region is a good land for farms: Natural Factors. How They Affect the Farmer. Soil Surface Rainfall Temperature Pests Navigable rivers. . Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. is very unpleasant, but tell how it is helpful to the sheep is like the spraying of trees, or the fumigating of a room. 400 SOUTH AMERICA THE ARGENTINE SEMI-ARID REGION 834. A South American New Mexico and Arizona. — You remember (Sec. 102) that in the United States, to the west of the land of cotton, coni, and wheat, are the Great Plains, a land of little rain, few people, and large sheep and cattle ranches. South America also has such a region in Argentina, between the farming lands and the western mountains (the Andes), which wall it off from the Pacific. Much of this country is so much like our own western lands, shut off from the Pacific by the Rockies, that if a man from Arizona or New Mexico were dropped from a balloon, he might easily say he was at home; for he would see exactly the same varieties of cactus, the same bunch grass, the same wide-stretching, treeless plains, the same flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, the same simple house of the ranch- man. The ranchman, however, would speak Spanish, and most of his workers would be Indians or half-breeds called gauchos, the Argentine word for cowboys. 835. Fruit-growing oases. — Near the foot of the Andes, snow-fed streams are used to irrigate large orchards in which peaches, pears, plums, grapes, and other fruits are grown and shipped from Mendoza and San Juan to eastern markets. (Fig. 598.) Tell of something like this in Arizona. 836. Railroads. — Two or three railroads cross this plain to cany cattle, sheep, wool, and fruits to the markets of Buenos Aires and other eastern cities. (Fig. 610.) One railroad connects Buenos Aires with San- tiago, the capital of Chile, and Valparaiso, its chief port. It was very difficult and expensive work to build this road, with its many tunnels, across the high Andes. 837. A South American Alberta. — The southern part of this semi-arid region is called Patagonia. Name a place in North Amer- ica, the same distance from the equator and at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains. (Fig. 94.) Only recently have white men had ranches in Patagonia. Many of the settlers in this new district are Englishmen and Scotch- men, who came over from the Falkland Islands to the east of Patagonia. Find places on the coast of Britain and of western North America that are the same distance as the Falkland Islands from the equator. Falk- land, a British colony, has plenty of rain, and, like the highlands of Scotland and Wales, is cov- ered with grass. The one great business is sheep and wool, so that the young men of the Falkland Islands know the sheep business well, before they go over to settle the new ranch coun- try at the foot of the Andes. The best known trade cen- ter for this district is Punta Arenas. Can you find another city as far south? 838. Future. — American oil searchers have found some oil fields in Patagonia. If the deposits are rich, tell what may happen. Will the future of this semi-arid region be like that of our own Great Plains? (Sec. 113.) v3 © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 595. Caracas. Why do you think it is called “Pearl of the Andes”? THE ANDEAN REGIONS 401 QUESTIONS 1. Why are strong gales in the Falkland Islands common? 2. How would you like to have a job with an oil company digging wells in latitude 50° S. and longitude 70° W.? 3. How far is the region from New York? from Liverpool? 4. Why is it so sparsely settled? 5. Suppose you were to go by balloon into this region. What would you see? What things would you take with you? What would you do? 6. Compare the following transcontinental railway lines: Topic. Trans- Andean. Canadian Pacific. Trans- SlBERIAN. Products carried: T<]astward Westward TiPingth 7. Compare a part of Alberta and Montana with the Argentine Semi-arid Region. Region. Location. Rainfall. Surface. Products. Alberta Argentine Semi- arid Region . . . THE ANDEAN REGIONS 839. A mountain world in three parts. — The extreme northern end of South America is farther from the extreme southern end than Panama is from Greenland. At the southern tip is a high rocky cape; at the northern tip the mountains reach the sea; and between them is the great Andean mountain system which is a world by itself. This mountain world is high and cool, even where the hot tropic lowlands lie at its feet. Some of the world’s highest vol- canoes are Andean peaks, the smoking tops of which are covered with perpetual snow. Dust blown out from these volcanoes has made much rich valley land between the ranges. In 1921 volcanic dust fell so thickly that it buried a sawmill near Valdivia, Chile. To understand the Andes at all, we must think of our own Rocky Mountains as having been raised to almost double their height, and as being without passes. From central Colombia to a point south of San- tiago in Chile, not a single pass is less than 10,000 feet in height; that is nearly twice © Publishers' Photo Service. N. Y. Fig. 596. La Guaira, Venezuela, as the incoming traveler sees it. How wide is the coastal plain here? the height of any mountain east of the Mis- sissippi River. Between latitudes 5° and 30° south, no pass is less than 15,000 feet in height. This means that for a distance greater than the extent north and south of the United States, there is a continuous mountain wall, higher than any peak in the Rockies. This mountain world of South America has three different parts, each unlike the others. From Cape Horn to 30° south it is composed of mountain ranges, high and sharp like our own Rocky Mountains, but more lofty. Then comes the highest part of all, the wide, cold Andean plateau with snowpeaks above it. This division reaches from 30° south to a place a short distance north of Cuzco in Peru. Next to the cold Andean plateau come the mountains and plateaus of the northern Andes. These are not so high, so wide, or so cold as those of the central Andes. Part I. — The Northern Andes 840. Caracas — Pearl of the Andes. — The traveler going from New York to La Guaira sees the green forest-covered northern edge of the Andes towering in the air, long before he can make out the palm trees along the shore, or see the white houses of the little port that lies snuggled at the foot of the steep highland. The railroad from La Guaira, or 402 SOUTH AMERICA © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. Fig. 597. A steamer from the United States unloading goods from America on the quay at La Guaira. from Puerto Cabello to Caracas, must wind around many more miles than do the wagon roads that go up to the plateau. (Fig. 572.) Caracas was the capital of a Spanish prov- ince and the trade center for a wide region, long before it was the capital of Venezuela. When the traveler reaches Caracas and feels the refreshing coolness of the evening, he understands why the Span- iardsclimbed the high moun- tains and made their capital on this lofty plateau rather than on the hot coast plain. From a neighboring moun- tain, one can look down on the white walls, red roofs, and church steeples of the beautiful city that is spread out on a plateau. On all sides picturesque mountains surround it, and one under- stands why the Spanish called their capital the “Pearl of the Andes”. The Spanish-speaking people are well-dressed and polite, although many of them show that they are part Indian. Only a few of them can read. On market days the streets and the squares are filled with barefooted Indians wearing cheap cotton store clothes from the United States and Europe, and wide straw hats which they have plaited by hand. Hundreds of pack mules come over the trails from the little farms in the valleys and on the moun- tains, bringing produce to city markets to be exchanged for store goods. These Indians and half-breeds cultivate patches of com, beans, cassava, coffee, fruits, and vegetables. 841. Home industries in the Andes. — The daily life and the food of the dwellers of the northern Andes are much like th se of the peo- ple of the plateau of Mexico and the Central American Uplands (Secs. 147, 369), and even the people themselves are quite similar. Mexico sells minerals from her mountain rocks, coffee from her mountainside farms, and the hides of cattle and goatskins. The people of the northern Andes have similar things to sell. Since it is hard to reach, the region can have but little trade. Only such valuable things as hides, wool, coffee, and precious metals can be carried on muleback down the long mountain trails. As in other regions where machines are very few, most of the needful things must be made at home. © E. M. Newman, N. Y. Fig. 598. Market day at a town near La Paz, Bolivia. The poncho, a blanket with a hole for the head, is an almost universal Andean garment, serving for coat, overcoat, raincoat, shirt, bedclothes, and other uses. THE ANDEAN REGIONS 403 From the wool of their own sheep, many of the natives spin and weave the blankets that serve as coats by day and as bedding by night. The houses, which are built of stones and mud, have grass roofs and earthen floors. Often there is not a single nail used in mak- ing the house. The people produce their food, which is chiefly corn, beans, vegetables, and meat. Their plow is still a crude wooden pole, drawn by oxen to whose horns the pole is tied with rawhide thongs. The mountains make this region so hard to reach that in all its great length there are but few routes to the outside world. 842. Venezuelan routes to the plateau. — The Venezuelan part of the plateau, which was described in the last section, has the best chance for trade because the plateau is lowest there, and because this section reaches the coast. The produce of western Venezuela in the region of Merida goes down by mule and rail to the shore of Lake Maracaibo. The lake is really an arm of the sea, whence coasting steamers take freight around to La Guaira, and to Curasao, a little island owned by the Dutch and visited by many steamers. 843. Colombian routes into the northern Andes. — As in Venezuela, most of the people in Colombia live on the highlands. It is © E. M. Newman N. Y. Fig. 599. This copper smelter at Cerro de Pasco, Peru, shows what great works it takes to get the metal from the rock. How does one reach Cerro de Pasco? What people own this smelter? (Sec. 846.) © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 600. An Ecuadorian half-breed weaving a ham- mock in front of his hut. The boy is making a rope. Make a list of the things you can see in this picture. much harder to reach these highlands than those of Venezuela. If a traveler wants to go to Bogota, the capital of Colombia, he must go by steamer to Cartagena or Puerto Colombia; then go by railroad across to the Magdalena River; then by river steamer to La Dorada, bl7 miles from Puerto Colombia; then seventy-two miles by railroad around a series of rapids; then fifty-eight miles more by another steamboat to Girardot. The journey thus far takes about a week. From Girardot a railroad, with rails only three feet apart, climbs up to Factativa, which is on the edge of the plateau, 9990 feet in altitude. It takes eight hours to travel over the twenty-five miles between these cities. At Factativa one must change to another rail- road whose rails are only thirty-nine inches apart. Soon the train reaches Bogota, 8600 feet above the sea, and with snow peaks in sight. After traveling for days in the wilder- ness, a fine city like Bogota surprises one greatly. It is as large as Des Moines, Iowa, with a cool, bracing climate. It has Paris styles, electric lights, trolleys, and beautiful parks, and claims to be the literary center of South America. The national library here has over one hundred thousand volumes. 404 SOUTH AMERICA Photo. Win. Thompson Fig. 601. Indians of the Peruvian Andes standing before their home with its sun-dried-brick wall, grass roof and dirt floor. Where do you think the striped blanket shawl was made? On the plateau west of the Magdalena valley is Medellin. This old city is nearly a mile above the sea, but for three hundred years people and freight have taken a two days’ trip by mule up and down the moun- tains to the boat landings on the Magdalena. 844. Freight and gold. — How costly it is to send freight by such routes! Clearly the things sent out must be of great value. Gold, in which the Medellin district is rich, is its chief export. The thousands of gold diggers can get no machinery except that which they themselves make, or bring in in pieces on the backs of mules. 845. Up to Quito. — Quito used to be as hard to reach as Bogota, but the trip by the new railroad from Guayaquil now takes only two days. Quito boasts a climate of eternal spring. The city is only fourteen miles from the equator; but as it is nearly ten thousand feet above the sea, the thermometer goes down to 50° every night. By day the sun shines bright and warm. One month is no warmer or cooler than another; so the farmer plants his crop whenever he wishes. 846. The Cerro de Pasco route. — The fourth important railroad into the northern Andes starts from Callao and goes through Lima, the capital of Pern, a city perched upon the dry foothills. Up, up, up, higher than the top of any mountain in the United States, goes the railroad. It then goes along the plateau to the famous mining town of Cerro de Pasco, 14,280 feet above the sea. It was at this place that, in 1630, an Indian shepherd happened to spy a lump of silver in the ashes of his campfire. He began to dig the precious metal. Other Indians came and a city grew. Engineers now know that there are two thousand veins of ore contain- ing copper, gold, and silver. Men have dug here for nearly three centuries, but there is still an immense amount of ore in the ground. An American company has great smelters and employs thousands of Indian workmen. (Fig. 599.) ' The best machinery is used, because the railroad can bring it in. 847. The Indian’s pack train. — In Cerro de Pasco, as at Quito, Bogota, Caracas, and many smaller places, one sees the plateau Indian with his llamas or his pack mules. The animals are burdened with wool, sheep- skins, cowhides, valuable ores, and even with rubber, secured in trade from some lowland tribe to the eastward. This Indian may have come two hundred miles, sleeping at night by the campfire. The Indians hobble their beasts, by tying their feet with a soft rope of llama wool so they can only walk a little. The animals then pick their living by brows- ing wayside herbage. After an absence of weeks or even of months, the Indian gets back to his distant village with a year’s supply of white men’s factory-made goods. QUESTIONS 1 . In what countries is theN orthern Andean Region? If we could place the southern end of this section at southern Florida, where would the northern end be? 2. How would you travel from your home to Caracas? Bogota? Quito? Cerro de Pasco? 3. Why are these cities of the northern Andean countries located in the mountains? 4. Name the products of this moun- tain area. Name the chief exports. 5. Name two ports of each country in this region. 6. What is the population of each country? 7. Why is there more difference in temperature at Quito between noon and midnight than between January and July? 8. What determines the temperature of a city like Quito? 9. Colombia has some coal. It has oil, and Ven- ezuela has iron. Does the presence of these two re- sources mean that these countries will have more population than Argentina, which is without coal or iron? 10. Which of these three countries is best fitted by nature to become a leader? THE ANDEAN REGIONS 405 Part II. — The Plateau of the Central Andes 848. A land of ancient empire. — When the conquering Spaniards climbed the Andes, they found the city of Cuzco, the ancient capital of a populous Indian empire that had long been ruled by the Inca kings. In the Inca empire there were splendid roads, running for hundreds of miles across the plateaus and along the sides of the mountains. The industrious people had built large build- ings with stone walls of astonishing workman- ship. (Fig. 602.) As there were many people to feed, terraced and irrigated farms stretched one above the other to dizzy heights on moun- tainsides, and every possible patch of land was cultivated. The empire reached down to the seashore, and the laws protected the guano- producing waterfowl that had their colonies on the desert islands near the Pacific coast. (Fig. 560.) The laws of the Incas, if gathered together, would fill many books, for the ruling race was a highly civilized people. The Spaniards conquered the Incas and robbed them of their wealth. The conquerors carried off bars of gold and silver that were worth seventeen millions of dollars. That was the largest amount of money ever seen in the world up to that time. More adventurers came from Spain, enslaved the plateau peoples, and made them dig the gold and silver out of their own mines. It was the cruel treatment of the Spanish taskmaster that so reduced the people that there were but five millions in 1920, where there had been fifteen millions in 1530. 849. A wide plateau and four-step farms. — Flow wide is the plateau between the high ranges of the eastern and western Andes in Peru? On the edges of this plateau the rivers have cut deep valleys, some of which have wide, flat bottoms with alluvial fans (Fig. 183) reaching out into them. Some farmers have developed three-step, or even four-step farms in this land of plateau, high mountain, and deep valley. “ On an alluvial fan in the main valley they raise sugar cane and tropi- cal and sub-tropical fruits; on the flat upper slopes they produce corn; in the moister soil near the edge of the woodland are fields of mountain potatoes; and the upper plateau pastures maintain flocks of sheep. In one district this change takes place in a distance that may be covered in five hours. Gener- ally it is at least a full and hard day’s journey from one end of the series to the other.”* 850. High plateau climate and life on the high plateau. — This plateau is not a pleasant place in which to live, because it has such a very high elevation. La Paz is 12,000 feet above the sea, and Potosi is 13,000 feet. There is less air on this plateau than in our country, for one-third of the earth’s air lies below 10,000 feet, and the air above that level is so thin that it is hard to breathe it. The traveler from Europe or America, who I, Bowman in J. Brunhes’ Human Geography. © E. M. Newman, N. Y. Fig. 602. Some of the remarkable masonry built by the Incas in the Peruvian Andes before the coming of Columbus. II-21 406 SOUTH AMERICA goes to these mountain places, nearly always has soroche, or mountain sickness. His head thumps, he becomes dizzy, and he suffers in many ways. Potosi is so high that two- thirds of all the white children born there die within a few hours. The plateau is very dry, because so little rain falls inside the high walls of the Andes. The air cools off very quickly, because it is dry as well as thin. As on the tops of high mountains, the sun on this plateau burns you by day like tropic heat; by night the high, thin air cools off so quickly that you think you are in the Arctic. 851. The plateau farmers and shepherds. — Most of the plateau is so dry that it pro- duces little but scanty pasture; it is so cold that the wind bites you almost to the bone. It is scantily peopled by shepherds, except near mines and irrigated spots. The Indian shepherd lets no grass escape him. An American geographer, Dr. Bowman, says: “ It is a constant marvel to one in the moun- tains to see to what altitudes the shepherd climbs and what out-of-the-way places he reaches. He is the characteristic element in the Andean scene — bleak slopes in some high valley, a widely scattered flock of llamas, a solitary shepherd whistling and clucking to his vagrant flock, turning them to right or left by throwing stones, and industriously spinning the llama wool into yarn as he trots along, often without food save the leaves of the coca, and without water for a day or more at a time, far from any shelter, alone. He is an excellent guide, fearless and confi- dent, with knowledge of every spring and trail and no special concern for ordinary alti- tudes below the snow line.” 852. Crop zones on mountain slopes. — The central Andes show us how elevation decides the use that man can make of land. Most of the area is so dry that crops can be grown only where some stream, flowing down from a snowfield, supplies water for irrigation. In most places water is to be had only on alluvial fans. Below 6000 feet elevation, cassava is the chief crop. From 6000 to 10,000 feet is the zone of corn. Wheat is grown from 10,000 to 12,000 feet. The potato begins at 11,000 feet in the moister spots, and barley begins at the same elevation in the drier spots. Beyond these come the sheep and llama pastures, which extend right up to the snow line. Near Antabamba, Peru, at the elevation of 17,100 feet, higher than any summit in the Rockies, is a stone hut with a grass roof, the highest known human habitation in the new world. Wherever in the plateau there is a warm valley, there the people have their villages. On the bleak plateau itself there is not a house for miles and miles around. In the villages the rich people live in the lower and warmer parts of the valley. The houses of the poorer people are higher up in the greater cold. 853. The railroads and the mines. — The western front of the Central Andes does not seem like a mountain. Steep, treeless, and bare, it seems more like a great wall of ma- sonry than like a mountain. (Fig. 599.) But the white man, to get the precious gold, sil- ver, copper, and tin, has built three railroads up this wall to the mines on the high pla- teau. From what ports do the railroads go? On top of this plateau, at an elevation higher than that of any town of the United States, is Lake Titicaca, on which are steamboats that were brought there in pieces and put together at the little town of Puno on the western shore of the lake. 854. Precious metals have been the chief export of this region for the last four hundred years. The great mountain of Potosi alone has produced, in that time, $1,500,000,000 worth of silver. In the mine there are five thousand tunnels. Since railroads have been built to the plateau, European and American companies are working the old mines with modem machinery. Tin from near Lake Titicaca is the chief export of Bolivia. At present, Europeans and Americans plan and manage the mines, but most of the work is done by the natives. La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, is a mining center in a place where food is scarce. Every day hundreds of mule trains toil over the THE PACIFIC COAST DISTRICTS 407 bare plateau, bringing potatoes and bar- ley. Other pack trains bring bananas and fresh vegetables up the long stony trails, from the warmer valleys and from the edge of the grasslands to the eastward. (Sec. 811.) All of this transport by mule train is necessary, because a hundred thousand people live in La Paz, and it is a very long way to any good food supply by way of the railroads to the Pacific Coast. (Sec. 846.) QUESTIONS 1. What countries are within the region? 2. The plateau of Bolivia best illustrates this region. Bolivia is the most backward country in South America. Let us see why: (a) What is the elevation of the plateau? ( b ) What kind of weather will you find at such alti- tudes? Wliy? (c) How much rainfall is there? What crops are raised? (d) Trace the railroad from the coast to La Paz. Would freight rates on such a road be very high? What kind of products only could be carried? What other method is there of reaching the coast from La Paz? Does the region mine coal? Why is mining difficult in Bolivia? 3. What interesting facts can you tell about Lake Titicaca? 4. Why is Bolivia’s tin important? What other countries that you have studied export it? What countries do not use it? 5. Do the natives in Figs. 598 and 601 look prosperous? Why were the Indians so prosperous five hundred years ago, but so miserable to-day? The Incas were not prepared for warfare when the Spanish conquerors came. Why? 6. Give several reasons why you would like to visit La Paz. 7. Under the following heads compare life here with life in the Alps: Elevation; Occupations of people; Travel facilities. more machinery, and more American mining engineers to help the Indians and Spaniards dig the valuable minerals out of the moun- tains. Perhaps the greatest difficulty is the poor government, which results from attempts to have a republic in a land where most of the people are illiterate Indians. QUESTIONS 1. What countries are partly included in this region? 2. What do you think of the possibility of developing power by the use of windmills in this area? For what could the power be used? THE PACIFIC COAST DISTRICTS 857. A place of sharp contrasts. — South of the Gulf of Guayaquil, the long strip of land between the Pacific and the Andes has three very different climates. One might almost say it is composed of three different little worlds. Down to about 30° south, the southeast trade wind blows from the coast, when it blows at all. The high Andes keep the trade-wind moisture on their eastern slopes. The Pacific shore is there- fore a trade-wind desert two thousand miles long. South of latitude 30°, the wind blows from the west, and the rainfall increases as one goes southward, entering first a sub- tropic region, like California and Spain, and then a cool, temperate region, like Washing- ton, British Columbia, and England. Part III. — The Southern Andes 855. A very long, narrow region. — Look at your map of North America and locate a western coast lying between 30° and 55° from the equator. In the corresponding part of South America the Andes (Fig. 566, F 3) are steep, high mountains with no plateaus, and the few valleys are only narrow canyons. What is the highest peak? Only in the south, beyond latitude 40°, do we find valleys wide enough to hold forests, or a region that can be of any important use to man, save as a source of snow water. This section has almost no people, as we have seen (Sec. 837). 856. Future of Andean regions; — Some day there should be more railroads to the Andean plateaus and mountains. There may then be better animals eating the grass, and Part I.— Pacific Coast Desert 858. A bare brown iand with irrigated oases. — In the Peruvian part of the coast desert the Andes have more snow than farther south. In summer the snow melts and makes the short rivers rush in roaring torrents down to the Pacific. Therefore there are oases in this coast desert. Lima, the capital of Peru, with almost no rain at all, Fig. 603. Five leading im- porters of nitrate of soda (1913) : Thousand tons A. Germany 680 B. United States 589 C. Belg ium. 130 B. France . 125 E. Holland 105 Why is the United Kingdom not in this? (Secs. 418, 425, 439.) 408 SOUTH AMERICA has a fine supply of snow water, and also a good food supply. The food comes up from farms that are irrigated by the little snow-fed river that rushes through the city. The traveler going along a thousand miles of this coast sees the bare, brown desert, then green fields along some stream, then more desert, and then more green fields. The irrigated oases support one-third of the native people of Peru and nearly all of the white inhabitants. The farms grow bananas, vegetables, com, and alfalfa for home use. They export cane sugar and Peruvian cotton, a kind having a long, brown fiber, which is excellent for mixing with wool. 859. The richest of deserts. — Back of the Chilean desert, the Andean wall is less broken than elsewhere, and the plateau is wider. There is so little snow upon the high moun- tains that the streams coming down the west side are too small to reach the ocean between Arica and Caldera. How far is it? At best they can only feed little oases at the foot of the mountain wall, fifty or a hundred miles from the dry, desolate coast. In this desert, years sometimes pass with- out the appearance of a cloud in the sky. © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 604. A fruit vendor in a nitrate town. Why is there no grass in the square? Where did the fruit grow? (Sec. 859.) In what month was the picture taken? (Sec. 863.) Some of the people who live there have never seen rain. Yet these deserts, that lie from three thousand to five thousand feet above the sea, give Chile a rich, foreign trade, because a long sheet of salt and nitrate of soda several inches thick covers the ground. There fifty thousand men, living in shacks of corrugated metal, dig up nitrate and work in the refineries. Almost every fertilizer fac- tory, every powder factory, and most of the chemical plants of Europe and America use this nitrate of soda. Hundreds of ships go for nitrate to Iquique, to Antofagasta, and to the smaller ports. These desolate, tree- less cities on the desert obtain water by pipe lines from the foot of the Andes. Every bite of food the people and their animals eat comes from the farms in the rainy lands to the southward, and is carried to them in ships. Nitrate, like salt, would dissolve in rain. Near the nitrate works are many copper mines and rich deposits of iron ore. One of the iron mines belongs to an American com- pany, which has built a railroad, a dock, and a steamship line to carry ore to Baltimore and Philadelphia. Some of the iron mines are owned by Japanese business men. The copper, the iron, and the nitrate of the desert comprise nearly all of the Chilean exports (Fig. 603), and pay most of the taxes as well, for everybody who buys nitrate must pay an export tax to the Chilean gov- ernment. Part II.— The Californian-Mediter- ranean Region of Chile 860. A good rich land.— This region lies between 30° and 42° south. Where, on the coast of North America, would be a region equally far from the equator? Like California (Sec. 182), this part of Chile has winter rain and summer drought. So have Spain and Italy. All the tropical and sub-tropical products that grow in Spain and California can also be grown in this South American California. Also, Chile is like California in having a great interior valley that lies be- tween low coast ranges and a higher inland mountain mass. Most of the people of Chile THE PACIFIC COAST DISTRICTS 409 live there, because the climate is delightful and the people can raise many good food crops. A railroad extends the entire length of this valley. It has several branches to the small ports, and from these places ships carry food to the desert ports on the nitrate coast. This part of Chile has about as many people as California. As in California, you can look out across the fertile valley and see to the eastward the snowcapped mountains, from which comes water for irrigation and for water power. Now that coal is so high in price, the Chileans are doing as the people of California have done — they are using mountain waterfalls to produce electricity with which to run their factories, street cars, and electric lights. In Chile, as in California, the climate is healthful. The people are energetic. They, © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 605. Wharves are scarce on the almost harbor- less west coast of South America. Can freight be unloaded when the water is rough and the boat rocking? Fig. 606 . Map showing where Chile would be if each part of it had the same latitude in North America that it has in South America. Can you point out the part of Chile having most of the fanning? and the Argentinians, are the most progres- sive people of South America. The Chileans have one of the best governments on that con- tinent. They call themselves the “Yankees of South America,” and pride themselves on having good schools. The chief center of population is near Santiago, the capital, and Valparaiso, the chief port. Farther south, near Valdivia, there are large settle- ments of Germans, and many Indians of a strong, proud race, who are called Arauca- nians. Part III.— British Columbia-Norway Section of Chile 861. A windy coast with much rain.— South of 42°, the Chilean coast is steep like the coasts of British Columbia, Alaska, and Norway. It is in the part of the south- ern world where the wind blows almost always from the west. For a long time the area in the southern seas where the prevailing west winds blow has been called the “ roaring forties”. Because the wind blows so hard, trees cannot grow on the Falkland Islands (Sec. 837). The experience of a sailing vessel in the year 1919 shows the great force and regularity of these winds. The boat was bound from Melbourne, Australia, to Bun- bury, West Australia, but the westerly wind blew so strongly that to save time the captain turned his ship eastward and went almost around the world (14,500 miles in this lati- tude) in seventy-six days, averaging 292 410 SOUTH AMERICA miles a day, when really he wanted to go only about 1000 miles to the westward from the starting point. On this southern coast of Chile we have the record of a 'terrible rain, lasting for 131 days, while the wet west wind blew out of the Pacific against the steep shores without ceasing. It is not surprising that few people live in such a place, where the land is covered with dripping evergreen forests. Within the mountains are drier valleys, but thus far this Chilean region has been but little used. To see how completely climates can differ m places a short distance apart, look at the two ends of the Straits of Magellan. The west end is gloomy with fog and cloud, rain, snow squalls, and a wet forest. The east end is a flat, sunny, grass-covered plain. Why the difference? (Fig. 157.) 862. Future of the three Pacific Coast Districts. — If reservoirs are built in the mountains, as we have built them in our own Southwest, the coast section of Peru may have a little more of its land irrigated. Aside from the possibility of sun power (Sec. 142), the Chilean part of the desert has no future except to work out the mines, after which the people will move away. The forests in the south may some day furnish a lumber industry, but at the present time the people of all this Pacific coast are irrigated sections of Peru. Fig. 608. Five leading Cocoa producing nations. (1917) Pounds A. British colonies 320,020,000 B. Brazil 121,253,000 C. Ecuador 88,184,000 D. St. Thomas . . 67,999,000 E. San Domingo 54,674,000 A short time ago Ecuador led in cocoa. Why has the Gold Coast yield increased? (Sec. 737.) bringing much of their lumber from the mountains of California, Oregon, and Wash- ington. 863. A spring fruit supply for us. — It is the Californian-Mediterranean part of this coast region that has the enduring future, because it has resources similar to those of California. Much of the land is still uncul- tivated, and when it is all in use it may support several times as many people as it now does. This region has the chance to build up a great trade by sending us fresh fruits in the springtime. (Sec. 768.) How far is it by boat to New York from Valparaiso? from Los Angeles? In late April, 1921, the Chilean Commissioner of Agriculture came to New York with the first trial shipment. His peaches, melons, apples, and grapes were of excellent quality and in good condition. The freight was less than railroad freight from California, and the Commissioner says the fruit can be grown more cheaply in Chile than in California. 864. A manufacturing region may arise here, because the climate is good for men, and the waterfalls of the Andes can be made to furnish power. Foreign capitalists have al- ready built large factories near Santiago. QUESTIONS 1. Locate Lima. What is its population? How much rain has it? 2. How does such a barren coast raise food for so large a city? (Fig. 607.) 3. If the north Chilean coast became rainy would you find nitrate deposits? Explain. 4. The Californian-Mediter- ranean Region of South America is one of the world’s rich spots. Let us see why: (a) What have you learned about its climate? (6) Is the soil rich? Why? (c) Is the surface of the valley portion good for farms? (d) Where do you find forests? (e) How might the people develop water power to run their factories? (/) What energetic people have migrated into this country? 5. An island near the west end of the THE TRADE OF SOUTH AMERICA 411 Straits of Magellan is called Desolation Island. Why might this be a very appropriate name? 6. Why is part of this coast a desert? 7. In damp sand, model central Chile. Show the Andes, the Great Central Valley, and the Coast Range. In some suggestive way indicate the products, important cities and railroads. 8. Compare southern Chile with British Columbia: Region. Loca- tion. Wind Direc- tion. Rain- fall. Temp. Prod- ucts. Cities. Southern Chile British Columbia 9. How would you infer from Figs. 605 and 612 that Chile had poor harbors? 10. Write a brief com- parison between Chile and the Pacific Coast Districts of the United States. Use Fig. 606 for a guide. 11. Complete the following chart. Call it “How I Remem- ber the Pacific Coast Districts of South America.” Name. Extent: From To Climate. Prod- ucts. Chief Cities. Where I Would Rather Live. 12. Name products each of the Pacific Coast districts must import. What things do they have to sell to you and to me? THE TRADE OF SOUTH AMERICA 865. Trade in spots. — The railroad map of South America (Fig. 610) shows that only a small part of South America can have Photo. Brown Bros., N. Y Fig. 609. Sacks of wheat sliding down a board from a warehouse to a ship at Rosario, South America has trade in spots? much foreign trade. Argentina, with its flat pampas, is able to build railroads cheaply, and a net of steel tracks spreads out from Buenos Aires. Rio de Janeiro and Santos are the points of departure for another web of railways, but elsewhere railroads are few. This map shows us tbat this continent, with its land little used, waits for settlement. Indeed it might still be called the continent of the pack mule, because so little of the surface is reached by any other means of transportation. The old city of Cartagena, Colombia, a great fortress before Virginia and Massachusetts were settled, has to this day but one automobile road to the interior, and that is only sixteen miles long. Nearly all the South American countries border upon the sea, and many of the im- portant cities of the continent are seaports. These ports are gateways through which the traveler can start for the vast interior, and through which the products of interior re- gions are sent to the outer world. 412 SOUTH AMERICA © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 611 . Boats and stern-wheel steamer on the lower Magdalena River 866. Four sets of steamer routes. — The ocean is the great South American highway, both for the foreign trade and for the trade of the South American countries with one another. Four different sets of steamers, sail- ing over four different sets of routes, carry the trade of South America. To the north coast, one set of steamers goes from Eng- land, France, Holland, and the United States. From New York to Colombia and Venezuela is only a week’s sail. A second set of routes leads from New York and Liverpool to the mouth of the Amazon, from which point steamers ascend to Manaos, a thousand miles upstream, and some even to Iquitos near the foot of the Andes. The third set of steamer routes from America and Europe goes to the east coast, calling at Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, and Santos, and at Buenos Aires, the greatest port of them all. At these great ports the ocean steamers take on the produce which small coasting steamers have brought from many little ports. The heaviest freight to these coast ports is coal, of which these countries, unfortunately, have almost none. The fourth set of routes leads from the North Atlantic to the west coast of South America. The steamers on these routes formerly had to thread their way for 300 miles through the crooked, rocky, foggy, snowy Straits of Magellan. It was a terrible journey to go through these straits, which are called “The Ships’ Graveyard”. It has been estimated that one vessel out of every ten which regularly pass through the Straits of Magellan becomes lost or disabled. The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 was a wonderful help to trade. By this route New York and Valparaiso, Chile, are only 4625 miles apart. By way of the straits, they were 8380 miles apart. The west coast is for the most part high and rocky, with few harbors. Even at Mollendo and at Valparaiso, passengers are let over the sides of ships in baskets, and like the freight are lowered into small boats. If a stiff wind blows, the vessels cannot unload. This use of small boats, or of barges called lighters, is a very poor and vexatious manner of handling passengers and goods. Few of the ports of South America have really good harbors. Many ports have only a “roadstead,” that is, a shallow open bay where ships may anchor, sometimes a mile from shore. Goods must be packed very securely to endure the battering which they receive. 867. Development of resources by foreign capital. — The next industries to grow in this almost empty continent of South America will be more farms, more plantations, and more mines. Many of these things will be owned by people in the United States and Europe, as many of the Argentine railroads are now owned by English people, and as some of the Chilean iron mines and nitrate works are owned by Americans. When THE TRADE OF SOUTH AMERICA 413 © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 612. Bales of wool going out to the steamer at Arica. (Sec. 866.) Where did that wool grow? Does the picture tell anything of the climate? English people own rail- roads or ranches and Amer- icans own mines or other property in South America, the profits of the enterprise go to the owners in England or America. That is one of the reasons why old England and New England can support so many people. Americans are helping to develop South America by engineering. Our civil en- gineers have constructed many docks, warehouses, and railroads for the conti- nent. The most wonderful mountain railroads in South America were built by Americans. One of these roads, from Lima, crosses the Andes at 15,665 ft., a greater elevation than the top of any mountain in the Alps or in the United States. The road climbs to the top of cliffs by corkscrew tunnels which wind around and around in the mountains. Scores of Americans are hunting for oil every day in many parts of South America. If they find it, wells will be sunk and the oil will be shipped by companies formed with English and American capital. Some people think that the plains at the eastern base of the Andes, almost anywhere between Colom- bia and Patagonia, may some day prove to be great oil fields. 868. A continent with raw materials. — While there is some manufacturing of cloth, clothes, and many simple products at Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and other cities, South America manufactures but few of the things she uses. The South Ameri- can stores sell hundreds and thousands of manufactured things that are not made in that continent. The people of South Amer- ica would suffer greatly if they had no trade with any other continent, and the United States and Europe would also suffer if trade with South America were cut off. In the latter case, if South American trade with other continents should be cut off, the differ- ent countries of South America could not help one another much, because no one of them has much to sell except raw materials. The most important trade between the countries of South America is that of the wheat and flour that are shipped from the cool countries to the tropical countries which do not grow wheat. QUESTIONS 1. Name all the countries of both Americas. 2. Name the six Pacific ports from which railroads go up the Andes. 3. Show the value of the Panama Canal to western South America, by tracing the old and new routes between the places in the chart. TO TO TO Port. New York New Orleans Liverpool VIA VIA via Guayaquil. . Iquique .... 4. You are an automobile salesman from Detroit. To what parts of South America would you go to sell cars? Why? 5. Tell all the different ways in which people in the United States and Europe might suffer if South American trade were suddenly stopped. What must happen in South America before she can buy large quantities of goods from the United States? Can she buy without selling? 6. Model in damp sand the continent of South America. Think of ingenious ways to show the important features. 7. Fill out the following chart for South America: Regions. Chief Port City. Exports. Destina- tion. Imports. Source. 8. Arrange a tableau with characters to represent some of the regions of South America. AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES INTRODUCTION 869. The water hemisphere and the land hemisphere. — Imagine that man could dig a tunnel straight through the earth, and that he started digging at London. Find on the world map the place where the other end of the tunnel would be. It is at 180° east longitude and 51|° south latitude (Fig. 10). Find the place that is on the other side of the earth from Pittsburgh (longitude 100° east and latitude 41° south); the place that is opposite Cape Town (34° north and 162° west). Notice that these three places are in the sea where the ocean is very wide and where there is but little land. Look at the map of the Pacific Ocean (Fig. 10) and see how many Australias you think it would hold. If you will remember that Australia is about the size of the LTnited States, you will then begin to see that the Pacific is indeed a very large ocean — almost a world of waters. If you should go as far south of the equator as Paris is north of the equator, you would be at a point from which a ship could sail east or west in a straight line entirely around the world except for one bit of land. What land is it? In degrees of longitude? What part of the distance around the world is this? If the ship should go as far south of the equator as northern Scotland (Fig. 323) is north of the equator, what land would it touch in sailing around the world? Compare the amount of land in the southern hemisphere with that in the northern hemi- sphere. New Zealand is an island not unlike Great Britain. Compare the chances of the two islands for becoming great trade centers. 870. Scattered isles and a lonely conti- nent. — The great Pacific makes up the larger part of the water hemisphere. Its surface is greater than that of all the land in the world. In all this wide sea there are only a few thousand square miles of land, made up of many small scattered islands. We shall study these islands, beginning with Sec. 902. 871. Australia. — Between the Pacific and Indian oceans is Australia, an island so large that it is often called a continent. Australia, INTRODUCTION 415 New Zealand, and the islands near them are often called Australasia. Australia was once connected with Asia, but the sea separated her from other lands so long ago, and she was so far away from them that her animals and plants differ greatly from those of other continents. The large animals of Europe, Asia, and Africa had no chance to reach her shores. Thus the wild animals of Australia are most of them curious creatures of types not found in other lands. The commonest large animal is the kangaroo, whose babies are so small and helpless when born that the mother has a pouch in which she carries them. Perhaps the queerest animal of all in this region is one called the platypus, or duckbill. This strange creature is about the size of a large cat. It is covered with fur; yet it has a duck’s bill and webbed feet. It burrows in the ground, lays eggs, and hatches them as the hen does. Many Australian plants are of varieties not found in other places. Even man, the greatest of travelers, seems almost to have missed Australia. When the white man went there a few generations ago he found a scanty, scattered population of chocolate brown, almost black, people, whose hair was wavy. Separated from the rest of the race by thousands of miles of space, they are often spoken of as a living fragment of the childhood of the human race. They are the Photo. Brown Bros., N. Y . Fig. 615. Solomon Islanders (black men) in their outrigger canoe, a boat that does not upset, and which is much used in Polynesia. Perhaps you can make a model of an outrigger canoe. most ignorant, least civilized people anywhere on the globe. Many of them cannot be taught to count beyond eight. When discovered by the white man they had no roads, no farms, no good houses. They moved about from place to place, eating wild fruits, catching wild animals, and digging for grubs. Strange to say, the people did not live, as most primitive people do, in tribes, but each family lived by itself most of the time. When the children and grandchildren became too numerous for the food supply, the family would split up into smaller groups. 872. Australia, a new Britain. — To the European peoples Australia is the newest of continents. Long after North America was settled, an English sailor, Captain Cook, took possession of Australia, and in 1788, about the time George Washington became our president, the English made a settlement near Sydney. It was called Botany Bay, and was a settlement composed of convicts. This place was picked out because it was thought to be almost like burying a man to take him there. To this day it is not polite in Australia to ask a person anything about his ancestors, because perhaps they may have been settlers at Botany Bay. When free settlers began going to Australia and New Zealand, nearly all of them were English, Scotch, and Irish. These English- Photo Brown Bros., N. Y. Fig. 614. The family of a Samoan chief (brown people), their grass house and native costume. 416 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES Photo. Wm. Thompson Fig. 616. A native Maori with a robe of grass-cloth, sitting in a doorway carved by a native. (Sec. 896.) speaking people have mingled there into one race which is neither English, Scotch, nor Irish, but boasts that it is more British than any other people in the world. The Austra- lians and New Zealanders are proud to call the United Kingdom their mother country, and most of their trade is with her. The armies of Australia and New Zealand went to France during the World War, and, in propor- tion to their numbers, they bore almost as much of the burden as the British armies bore. In Australia the white man pushed the ignorant black man back to the interior, just as the Indians were pushed back in America. The Australians never brought slaves to their continent, as white men did in the United States and in South America. They are very anxious to keep their land a British land; so they allow none but white immi- grants to come. Before 1901, the government at London sent governors to New Zealand, Tasmania, and each of the five Australian colonies, as the governors were sent to our own thirteen colonies before the Revolutionary War. In 1901 Tasmania and the Australian colonies united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. They now have a national parliament and a British governor-general at Melbourne, the temporary capital. At Canberra, in the highland of New South Wales, the people have set apart a district like our District of Columbia, to which the capital will sometime be moved. But time is required in which to build a city, and Canberra is now little more than a camp. 873. Australia, a partly settled continent. — Look at the population map, Fig. 624, and you will see that most of Australia is almost unsettled. Why have the energetic white men done so little in Australia? In North America they have settled the entire central part of the continent since 1788. Look at the rainfall map, Fig. 626, and you will find the answer to this question. Much of Australia is empty desert, and much of that part where men do live has terrible droughts, when crops fail and animals die of thirst. This is one of the reasons, perhaps the greatest reason, why the continent of Australia has no more people than Illinois — 5,300,000 people in 2,974,000 square miles. Australia is as large as the United States, but it is so dry that it never can be made to produce more than a fraction of the amount of food that the United States can produce. In what continents would you expect to find climates and, therefore, regions like those of Australia? (Figs. 10, 328, 329.) QUESTIONS 1. On the Australian coat of arms are emblazoned a kangaroo and an emu. Why? Could you suggest an emblem more typical of the continent? 2. Fill in the blanks: Australia is the size of France; Australia is the size of Argentina; Australia is the size of the continent of North America; Aus- tralia is the size of my own state. 3. How far is Australia from Hongkong? from San Francisco? from New York? from London? Antipodes means the other side of the world. Why do you think islands near New Zealand got that name? 4. If you have a globe or a good picture of one, draw a 4000-mile circle around northern New Zealand, and tell what proper- Fig. 617. 418 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES tion of the area is land. 5. Fill in the following blanks: Australia’s surface for the most part is Temperature for the most part is Rain- fall for the most part is Coast line for the most part is Rivers for the most part are Mountains for the most part are Frost over most of the area is 6. Why was Australia the last important land mass to be discovered? 7. Make the following chart for Australia: (Fig. 620.) Regions. States. Cities. 8. What modern inventions can you name that have made possible the great British Empire? How do those inventions help Australia? help you? 9. What river might be called the Mississippi- Missouri of Australia? Why? 10. A patriotic Australian once said that his country could support two hundred million people. Keep that statement in mind as you study the continent of Australia and see what you think of it. 11. What can you find of interest about the kangaroo, the Tasmanian devil, the laughing jackass, the lyre bird, the bower bird? THE CALIFORNIAN-MEDITERRANEAN REGION 874. The fifth California. — We have already studied four regions that have the climate of southern and central California, which we have called Californian -Mediterranean cli- mate. Where are they? (Secs. 193, 547, 768, 860.) Such a region is always to be found on the west coast of a continent, and all are about the same dis- tance from the equator. A ncfrn 1 i n Flg ' 619 ' The grape aCrea S e of Aus ' Au&iicuid tralia. Compare this with the grape | has two COr- map of the United States (Fig. 30) and i • see what similarity you notice. ners having J this Californian climate; one on the south- western part of West Australia, and the other where South Australia projects southward. There the west winds blow the winter rains upon her shores. (Fig. 626.) 875. Industries like those of California. — We have seen (Sec. 196) that the United States for a long time imported Mediterranean crops from the countries near the Mediter- ranean. Then, after the railroads were built to the Pacific coast, we began to bring the Mediterranean crops from that part of our own country which had the Mediterranean climate. Australia has done the same things for the very same reason. In South Australia and in West Australia, as in California, the few white settlers at first followed their flocks of sheep over the wide pas- tures. By this means one family could use a great deal of land. Then, as more men came, wheat was grown. (Sec. 195.) Wheat is now the great export of Adelaide, the metropolis of this region, a thoroughly modern city about half as large as San Francisco. The map (Fig. 88) shows that wheat is grown on those coasts of South Australia and Vic- toria that face the west wind. Also on the slopes of the Flinders Mountains, near Spencer Gulf, where the higher elevation makes more rain, a great deal of Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 618. The pipe line (immediately in front) and pumping station for irri- gating South Australian orange orchards. Where else are oranges irrigated? N CO 419 a CL o z £ Fig. 620. 420 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 621. One of the fine wide streets of Adelaide. The Australian cities are well-planned. Why are the largest of them near the ocean? How many Australian capitals are in the northern half of the continent? wheat is planted. For the same reason wheat is grown on the highlands in the coolest corner of West Australia. 876. Fruit industry and irrigation. — The third industry to grow up in this region, as in California, was the fruit industry. This requires little land, but much labor. As there is so little rain here, most fruits need irriga- tion. What have the mountains to do with California irrigation? (Sec. 158.) (Fig. 157.) The Australian mountains are not high enough for summer snowfields, and Australia has a very poor water supply for irrigation. The best water supply is that from the Murray River and its branches. (Fig. 620.) The largest fruit industry in Australia is in the lower part of this valley. This district sends to the other states and even to New Zealand oranges, pears, cherries, dried peaches, dried apricots, dried prunes, raisins, almonds, olives, and wine. So much wine is produced that much of it is exported to England and to British colonies. Preserved and canned fruit are also important exports. The fruit industry is growing, and the necessary water is being stored, as in our own country. In order to irrigate orchards of oranges and other fruits, the Australians, a in 1920, began building on the Murray River a dam which would make a lake having a surface of about fifty square miles. 877. Bigtreesandlumber. - — This Australian climate, with its mild temperature and gentle winds, seems to be one that suits big trees where enough rain falls. A similar climate, on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California, has given us the sequoia, the tree having the largest trunk found in the world. (Sec. 160.) In Aus- tralia are forests of giant eucalyptus, the tallest tree in the world. The eucalyptus is a very valuable tree indeed, because it yields a useful oil and grows faster than any other tree suited to the Californian-Mediterranean climate. In West Australia there are large forests of certain kinds of eucalyptus which make very tough and durable timber. Many streets in London are paved with these woods, called jarrah and karri. 878. Future. — This region, like . all the other Californian-Mediterranean regions, could profitably produce several times as much fruit as it now produces, if a market for it could be found. QUESTIONS 1. Divide the products of this region into groups according to ease of exportation. 2. For what use is the eucalyptus especially suited? Why? 3. Where are the most grapes grown in Australia? (Fig. 619.) Why? When do Australian fruits get ripe? 4. Can you tell why the fruits from Australia bring a good price in the London markets? 5 Name everything which you see in the picture (Fig. 621) that you might also see in the town which you know best. 6. What city might be called the “Odessa of Australia”? From which of those two cities could flour sell at the lower price in London? Why? Take the journey, on the map, from each city to London. 7. Compare this region with all the other Califor- nian-Mediterranean regions you have studied, as to size, products, importance, and prospects. THE EAST TEMPERATE AGRICULTURAL REGION 421 THE EAST TEMPERATE AGRICUL- TURAL REGION 879. A small southeastern United States with cyclonic storm weather. — You will re- member that the eastern sides of continents in the latitude of Australia have a region of moist summers that are good for com. Such regions are found in southeastern United States, in southern Brazil and Uruguay, in Natal, and in China. (Sec. 769.) Australia also has one of those eastern temperate agricultural districts. To understand this Australian region, we should think of it as we did of the East Temperate Agricultural Region of South America — as another region much like that part of the United States between the South Atlantic Coast and the Great Plains of Okla- homa and Kansas. Find the parts of the eastern coast of the United States that are the same distance from the equator as is the southeast coast of Australia from Bass Strait to Brisbane. What Australian states are between these places? Cyclonic storms travel from west to east across Australia and the seas to the east of Australia, very much as they do across the United States and the Atlantic Ocean. (Secs. 61 to 66.) This means, of course, that dur- ing the passing of one of these storms, the wind at a given place blows from more than one direction. Notice that on our southern Atlantic coast the cold wind comes over the land. (Fig. 64.) What about the cold wind for the southern Australian coast? Which of these coasts do you think has the warmer winter? Why? (Sec. 409.) (Figs. 328, 329). Having rain all the year, this East Tem- perate Agricultural Region is a land for forests, pastures, dairy farms, cattle, and corn. Great quantities of butter and meat go from this region to England in refrigerator ships. The Australian east coast plain is narrower than our own, because the Aus- tralian mountains are closer to the sea than the Appalachians are. Like our own coast plain, it is by no means all used; much of it is still in forests, and the farms of New South Wales and Victoria together do not grow as much corn as do the farms of New Jersey, a state not important as a corn producer. 880. Another central Kansas. — After cross- ing the southeastern mountains of Australia, which are much like our own Appalachians, but not so wide, we soon come into land like central Kansas, or central Argentina. The rainfall is scanty. The plains are treeless. No longer are we in the land of corn. Much winter wheat is grown, as in central Kansas west of the Corn Belt, and in Argentina west of its corn belt. The wheat map (Fig. 88) shows a long belt of wheat just inside the southeastern Australian mountains. This belt is not very wide; so that in all her three wheat regions (Sec. 875, Fig. 88) Australia grows only about as much wheat as our own state of Kansas. The amount, however, is irregular because of droughts. Bushels of Wheat Year. Harvested in Australia. 1915- 16 179,000,000 1916- 17 157,000,000 1917- 18 121,000,000 1918- 19 81,000,000 1919- 20 45,000,000 Australian wheat is grown very much as the Kansas wheat is grown. Many of the reapers and plows are made in the United States, and some of the wheat, like that from Kansas and Manitoba, is eaten in England, almost at the other side of the world from the place where it is grown. In this section, west of the mountains, that part of the land not in wheat is used for great sheep farms (Fig. 630). 881. Cities. — The southeastern farming region is the most populous part of Australia, and has the two greatest cities: Sydney, about the size of St. Louis; and Melbourne, as large as Baltimore. The Australians are proud of their cities, which are as modern, well-built, and up-to-date as j j any cities in the world. Sydney and Melbourne are Fig. 622. Bushels of grain per person (1911-13): A. Australia 43.0 B. United Kingdom 6.7 What facts does this explain? 422 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES capitals of states as well as great centers of foreign trade. Each has a university. Nearly all the manufacturers who are in this part of Australia, as well as most of the traders, do business in these cities. Sydney has grown larger than Melbourne, partly because of a coal field, which gives her not only power to run her factories, but also supplies an export cargo for ships to carry across the Pacific to New Zealand and to the nitrate ports on the coast of Chile. QUESTIONS 1. Fill out the following chart with brief answers: What It Tells Me About the East Temperate Agricultural Region. Fig. 620 Fig. 624 Fig. 625 Fig. 626 Fig. 634 Fig. 88. 2. What important products does this region produce? 3. Name two cities in the southern hemisphere larger than Sydney. Where are these cities? Why are they larger? 4. What is the largest city of Australia? Ships from all nations can anchor in its excellent harbor. What imports do they bring? Take a journey out to San Francisco; to Liverpool; to New York. What exports are sent on each journey? 5. Is the wheat Fig. 624. The density of population in Australia. How much of Australia is rather well-inhabited? grown in Australia winter or spring wheat? (Secs. 875 and 880.) 6. What effect would an increase of the wheat crop in Australia have upon the price of wheat in the United States? in Central Persia? in Switzerland? in Hwang Valley? 7. What effect would a very poor wheat crop in Australia have on our exports of manufactures to Australia? THE TROPIC AND SUB-TROPIC AGRI- CULTURAL REGION 882 . What is the region like? — Suppose the coast of Florida (Fig. 10) extended as far toward the equator as the coast of Queensland does. Where would Florida end? Point out the place on the east coast of Fig. 623, Looking across a sugar cane field near the Queensland coast. Where is the market for the sugar? THE TROPIC AND SUB-TROPIC AGRICULTURAL REGION 423 South America which has the same latitude as Queensland. Now you should be able to tell why the climate of the coast of Queens- land is like the climate of the West Indies and also of east Brazil. What winds blow there and what do the coasts look like to the man who sails along them? (Secs. 364, 803.) You doubtless can tell the kinds of products that grow there, and the kinds of people who can most easily live there. 883. The white Australia question. — The white men who settled along this coast had the same trouble that white settlers had in the West Indies and Brazil ; the climate was too hot to permit them to work in the fields. However, as they wanted to run plantations, they had to import men who were used to that kind of climate, and who would work for them. For a time the white men brought in shiploads of people from the South Sea Islands, from India, and from China. These men labored in the fields of sugar, bananas, pineapples, coffee, and cotton. The presence of so many dark-skinned people alarmed the people of the other states of Australia. They feared that this warm part of Australia might cease to be a white man’s land and would become a land of brown, yellow, and black men. So the Commonwealth government passed laws making it very difficult for men of any but the white race to come to Australia. There- fore in jnost of the Tropic Agricultural Region you may travel for miles with- out meet- ing any- one at all. 884.Trop- i c agri- culture. — Only in some lo- Fig. 625. Cattle in Australia and Tas- c a 1 i t i e S mania. Compare with the sheep map and the regional map, and see if it shows how along the hot moist climate separates these two coast are kinds of animals. What does the rain- fall map (Fig. 626) tell you about this? there Fig. 626. Compare this map of Australia with the population map. What does the comparison tell you? many plantations. There nearly enough sugar cane is grown to supply all Australia, which uses about as much as is grown in Louisiana. Other plantations on the Queensland coast grow bananas, pineapples, and early vegetables for the cities in the cooler land to the southward. Queensland’s crops are sometimes injured by drought. The rainfall is light except along the coast and there nearly all the rain falls in summer, leaving the other seasons with little rainfall. Australia, like the United States, has three orange districts, two in her Mediter- ranean sections (one in West Australia, and one near Adelaide), and one, like our Florida orange district, on the sub-tropic east coast. It is near the boundary between New South Wales and Queensland. 885. Coast towns. — The small cities along the Queensland coast have stores, meat-pack- ing plants, and wool warehouses, because railroads connect them with the cattle and sheep ranches of the interior (Sec. 888). 886. Future. — This region, like much other undeveloped land in the hot regions, might produce great quantities of agricultural crops if it could have settlers. QUESTIONS 1. Tell how the presence of people in cool Australia has helped the industries in warm Australia. Also tell how cool Australia has kept back the industries of warm Australia. 424 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES 2. How I distinguish between the — Region. Loca- tion. Cli- mate. Produc- tions. Popula- tion. Cities. East Temperate Agricultural . Tropic Agricultural . 3. Do you think it wise for Australia to exclude all immigrants but white men? How might the black man, the yellow man, and the brown man help the Australian white man to make his country richer? AUSTRALIA’S DESERT AND PASTORAL REGIONS 887. The dry heart of Australia. — What do you notice about central and western Australia as you examine the maps of sheep (Fig. 630), cattle (Fig. 625), and wheat (Fig. 88)? Look at a place where the tropic of Cancer or of Capricorn touches the western edge of some continent. It is a place where the trade winds blow away from the land. What kind of place is it in South Africa? in North Africa? in South America? in North America? If you have forgotten what kind of a place it is, the rainfall maps (Figs. 144, 540, 541) will give you the answer, which is the same for all the continents — a dry country, a very dry country. How much of it has inland drainage? (Fig. 620.) The center of Australia is a desert. The eastern mountains shut off from the interior most of the moisture that southeast trade winds from the Pacific might bring to Australia. Fig. 628. Sheep of five nations: Million A. Australia (1920) 78 B. Russia and Ukraine (1921). 47 C. Argentina (1919) 46 D. United States (1923) 37 E. Union of South Africa (1921) 32 In no other continent does the desert possess such a large share of the land. South Australia is so dry that one-half of it is almost without inhab- itants. For the same reason West Australia has fewer people than the state of Arizona, and most of its area cannot be used even for ranches. (Figs. 625, 630.) Drought makes the pasture so poor in the interior of Queens- land that the government will let one man have ninety-nine square miles for a farm. The drought also helps to prevent the North- ern Territory, which is ten times as large as New York State, from having more people than may sometimes be found in a single building in New York City. For a long time a ship was the only means by which people could travel from West Australia to the eastern states, but in 1917 the Commonwealth government completed a transcontinental railroad from Port Augusta to the desert gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie. For several hundred miles this road crosses neither stream nor hill and runs without a curve across a bare gravel plain so smooth that automobiles were used to carry materials when the railroad was built. Notwithstanding the help of camels brought from Africa, many daring men have died of thirst while try- ing to explore Australia’s deserts. Even yet there are places as large as some American states which no white man has ever seen. As in the Sahara and in Arabia, the mountains in the desert have enough rain Photo. Doubieday, Page & Co., n. y. to provide springs, and areas Fig. 627. Prize-winning merino rams. It has been a triumph of breeding to w i+u pnmio-b fn get these fellows wrinkly so that a little sheep in a dry land would have as ® " much wool as a smooth sheep twice his weight. port some animals. AUSTRALIA’S DESERT AND PASTORAL REGIONS 425 Photo. Keystone View Co., N. Y. Fig. 629. Cattle in the interior of Queensland drinking at an artificial lake. Why must an artificial lake be made? 888. The eastern grasslands. — To the west of the eastern mountains is a wide stretch of level or gently rolling interior plain, drained by the Murray River system. The rainfall gradually grows less and less, as one goes from the forested mountains of the east toward the sandy or gravelly deserts that begin near latitude 140° east (Fig. 620, D2), and stretch away to the Indian Ocean, 1500 miles to the westward. Most of this grassland is too dry for wheat, but it is much like the grasslands that lie west of the wheat lands of Argentina or central Kansas. It is one of the great sheep- raising regions of the world. Here the herder with his collie dogs drives his flock of two or three thousand sheep backward and forward over most of the territory. Even in the wheat sections at the eastern edge, the grain fields cover but a small part of the land. Long railroads reach across this plain as they do across the plains of Argentina and central North America. They carry the wool and sheep to market and bring supplies to the few farmers who live on ranches so large that each covers as much ground as a big city, a township, or even as much as a county in the United States. The family of the sheep rancher has a very lonely life so far from neighbors. 889. The tropic grasslands. — The northern part of Australia has a belt of tropic grass- land, with a rainy season in the summertime. Its rain is like that of India, though not so heavy. (Sec. 688.) The air over the north central deserts is heated and rises; then the air from the sea pushes in to take its place. The sea wind, or monsoon, blows from the north for a few months, and brings heavy rains to a belt across the northern part of Australia that has been parched for more than half the year. (Fig. 626.) During this season of sultry, rainy weather, the land changes from brown to green, as it does in other tropic grasslands (Secs. 748, 808). The grass fairly shoots up; sometimes it grows ten feet high. This country is very much like the tropic grasslands of the Sudan (Sec. 743), but most of it is still unused, and except for a very few scattered natives en- tirely unsettled. White people are not at- tracted by the climate. To make it worse, the coasts of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and other parts of northern Australia are swampy and very unhealthful. Years ago some people brought over some water buffaloes from India, and they are now running wild by thousands in the unused woods and grasslands. On the average, the territory of North Australia has one person to each hundred square miles. One short railroad runs inland from Port Darwin, where there is a meat-freezing plant. 890. The western grasslands. — Like Lower California, the western edge of the desert occasionally receives a little rain from the cyclones that cross central Australia. The sheep and cattle maps show a few animals near the sea. 891. Uncertain rainfall. — The people of 426 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES Fig. 630. Map showing where sheep are grown in Australia. Each dot stands for 10,000 sheep. Why is it that no sheep are grown in the central part of Australia? (Fig. 626.) Australia can never tell what their weather will be. Their rainfall at the best is un- certain. Deluges of rain sometimes drown people in the desert, and in other places the crops wither under months of pitiless sun- shine. Drought is the greatest enemy that men have had in making their homes in Aus- tralia. At times river freight boats on the Darling River have steamed twenty-five miles across flooded country to deliver freight. At other times at the very same place the river itself is dry. In 1920 an Englishman writing from Sydney said : “ For 20 months not a single drop of rain has fallen in vast areas — areas within which the whole of the United Kingdom could be put and there would still be tens of thousands of square miles to spare. The drought has been strengthening its hold on practically the whole interior of Queensland, New South Wales, central Aus- tralia, and South and West Australia. The aborigines (natives) call it the ‘old man drought,’ which Signifies that in their opinion it is the most terrible visitation they can recollect. Meantime the dry season has played havoc with the wheat crops.” What can the poor sheep do when it does not rain for a year? Often they perish from hunger and thirst. In some localities the drought of 1920 killed four-fifths of the sheep. Sometimes they die by millions. Conditions would be even worse if it were not for the artesian wells. In many of the drier parts of the eastern grassland districts there are no running steams, but rain that falls on the eastern mountains sinks deep down into the earth and rocks, where it travels slowly through the layers of porous stone. (Fig. 114.) The Australian govern- ment has dug hundreds of artesian wells into these layers of rock. Thus, in times of drought, water may be had for the sheep, if it so happens that farmers can find enough food to keep them alive. In some places the sheep and cattle for market must be driven for many days to reach a railroad station. The government carefully reserves wide strips of grassland along these trails, so that the animals can eat as they go. Much work is done to build tanks, cisterns, and dams along the way, to store water for the moving animals. Never- theless whole herds sometimes die of thirst, as their owners, fleeing from drought, try to get their animals to market. At other times Australia has years of heavier rainfall, with plenty of grass and water. Then the flocks increase, and trade is good because the people have something to sell and can therefore buy. 892. The fight with the rabbits. — The rabbit is another of the troubles of the Australian sheep farmer. There is almost no winter in Australia; so rabbits can breed and feed all the year. Pet rabbits that were brought out from England soon ran wild, and increased to such numbers that in many places they ate up the grass, leaving none for the sheep. Men have spent millions of dollars building tight wire fences for hun- dreds of miles, to keep the rabbits away from the pasture. Where one of these fences crosses a road, the traveler must open a gate. If he should neglect to close it, he must pay a heavy fine. The farmer is compelled by law to kill the rabbits on his own land, but still they run by millions and millions. Some- times fences have been built around water holes and the rabbits, dying of thirst, piled TASMANIA AND NEW ZEALAND 427 up several feet deep outside the fences. During the World War, rabbit skins for hat- making became so high in price that men in the Australian sheep country could make sometimes as much as ninety dollars a week catching rabbits. Your father’s felt hat may be made of Australian rabbit fur. Rabbit meat has also been frozen and canned. 893. Minerals. — Australia has rich mines. It was the gold mines of Victoria, now a mile deep, that brought thousands of settlers to Australia about 1851, and now gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, and coal are important exports of Australia. Each day the provi- sion trains from Adelaide go three hundred miles to a place called Broken Hill, in the dry country of western New South Wales, where forty thousand people are busy digging silver and lead from one of the world’s richest mines. It is an astonishing fact that minerals can cause a city to exist for a time in the wildest solitude. Railroads make the miracle possi- ble. Read what a Frenchman says of a gold-mining city of West Australia. “ . . . Take Kalgoorlie for example. On the bare moor rise mills arranged in the form of an amphitheater .... Trains wind about, emptying entire forests into the furnaces. Everywhere the subsoil has been burrowed, and there are sometimes as many as twenty stories of underground galleries. '‘Thousands of workmen labor in these hills under the burning sun, blinded and sometimes almost asphyxiated by the smoke, the pulverized refuse of the ores, and the yellow sand of the desert It is a vast camp, a temporary refuge for a popula- tion which will scatter when the last veins are exhausted.” QUESTIONS 1. Fill out the following chart. It will help you understand this region. Figuee What It Tells Me About the Australian Desert and Pastoral Regions. Fig. 620. Fig. 624 . Fig. 625. Fig. 626. Fig. 630. Fig. 634 . 2. Why are rabbits called vermin in Australia? 3. If wild rabbits double their number every three months, how many offspring would one pair of rabbits have in five years? What enemies have these rab- bits? 6. How might it be said that Molly Cottontail now pays her board? 7. Compare the proportion of desert area in Australia with the proportion of desert in Africa; in South America; in Europe. What effect have deserts on the wealth of continents? 8. How have the railroads across Queensland and New South Wales aided British factories at Leeds and Bradford? 9. What is the elevation of Lake Eyre? Would you want to drink its water? (Sec. 137.) 10. Would a rainfall of 40 inches a year make any difference in its size? See Secs. 137 and 891. 11. On an airplane trip from Port Darwin to Sydney or to Adelaide, what kind of country and what industries would you see? TASMANIA AND NEW ZEALAND- OTHER OREGONS 894. Good rain and fine forests. — In Chile and in California, we found, you remember, that a short journey toward the pole from the land of oranges brought us to a land where the west winds made heavy rains, at about latitude 40° south in Chile, and 40° north in California. In Australasia the same thing holds true. Tasmania, across Bass Strait, nearly two hundred miles from the island of Australia, and the New Zealand islands, twelve hundred miles to the south- east, are lands of good rain and fine forests. These cooler islands miss the droughts of Australia, and have the climate and the crops of Oregon, of England, and of western France. 895. Tasmania. — Much of Tasmania is mountainous and covered with fine forests. The area is about the same as that of West Virginia, and only a small part of it has been turned into farms. The climate is excellent for fruit, and the factories of Hobart, the capital, make jams, jellies, and canned fruit in great quantities for shipment to Australia and even to England. Tasmania also has very rich tin mines. 896. New Zealand. — New Zealand was settled about six hundred years ago, by big brown men who came in boats from the islands to the northward. These people, called Maoris, were very different indeed from the black natives of Australia and 428 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 631. Pear orchards blooming on the slope of a beautiful valley in well- watered Tasmania. In what part of the United States could we find such a scene in a similar climate? Find places on the west shores of three continents having the same distance from the equator that the ends of Tasmania have. Tasmania. Being very intelligent, they were expert weavers, dyers, wood carvers (Fig. 616), and builders when the British settled New Zealand, which was after Australia was settled. (Sec. 872.) In 1871 the Maoris stopped fighting the white men and were allowed to send some of their number to the New Zealand parliament. They quickly learned the white man’s way of doing things. Most of them now live as white people do. They make up about one-twentieth of the population of the islands and are increasing. New Zealand is about two-thirds as large as Oregon and Washington. It has about half as many people as those states. When the Australian colonies formed the Australian Commonwealth (Sec. 872), New Zealand remained a separate colony, just as New- foundland did when the Canadian provinces formed the Dominion of Canada. The gov- ernment of New Zealand is very democratic. Many public utilities, such as railroads, tele- graphs, and telephones, are managed by the government, which thus helps the people to do for themselves things which in other countries are done by private enterprise and capital. The state even gives pensions to old people who are poor. Not only is New Zealand like England in population, but the South Island also resem- bles England in climate, and in some of its natural features. It has a mountain system to the west, called the New Zea- land Alps, where the rainfall is very heavy indeed, as it is upon the mountains of Wales and of Scotland. Like the eastern part of England, the eastern part of New Zealand is a plain with moderate rain. Here the farmers grow much wheat and other cool land crops. Other parts of South Island have the cool, damp climate suited to potatoes; but there is no market except the home market and that of Australia, because potatoes are too cheap and perishable to ship to Europe. One of the ways by which the New Zealand farmer feeds many sheep with little labor is to raise a field of turnips, and let the sheep go in and eat them up. The North Island has such a mild winter that cattle can pasture in the fields all the year, and here many of the farmers keep cows, and make a great deal of butter, cheese, and dried milk. These products are shipped to England because they are so valuable that they can stand the costly freight, as can the other valuable New Zealand products — wool and frozen meat. There are meat-freezing plants in each of the seven chief ports of New Zealand. Every day ships loaded with frozen New Zealand meat are steaming across the seas, en route to London and other European cities, and sometimes to New York as well. QUESTIONS 1. How are the mines of Tasmania helpful to her fruit industry? Where does she get sugar? 2. What do the colonists from the United Kingdom find in New Zealand to remind them of their motherland? 3. What products do New Zealand and Tasmania produce which the British need? the motherland which the colonies need? 4. What do they produce that we need? 5. Show some points of similarity and difference between Tasmania, New Zealand, and the Willamette-Puget Sound Region. 6. Complete the following chart: THE TRADE AND FUTURE OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 429 How I Distinguish Between New Zealand and Tasmania Topic. New Zealand. Tasmania. Location Distance from Australia Size Climate Chief productions Important cities The natives 7. How do you account for there being so much more industry in Tasmania and New Zealand, in propor- tion to their size, than in Australia, so much larger and so near by? Give all the reasons. 8. Why would you say that the governments of Australia and New Zealand are progressive? THE TRADE AND FUTURE OF AUS- TRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND 897. A raw material region. — People of Australia have a very great trade in pro- portion to their numbers, because they are a rich people living in a region rich in raw materials. They export raw materials and import a great variety of manufactures. Why? People with so much land find they can make more money by producing raw materials than by working in factories. So we find in each part of the continent, that any given locality exports the things which the conditions of that locality makes it eas- iest for men with much land to produce. 898. The region and the product. — In South Aus- tralia, with the California climate, we found the Cal- ifornia products of fruit, wool, and wheat. In the dry pastoral regions of Aus- tralia, there are flocks of wool-producing sheep (Fig. 627). In the eastern dis- tricts of New South Wales and Victoria more rain falls, and consequently better and richer grass grows. There the farmers have cows, and big, fat sheep which do not bear so much wool as the merinos, but which make much more mutton. At the ports the sheep are frozen, and then sent in refrigerator ships to Europe and America. Chief of all the exports of this far continent is wool. Each year about one hundred pounds is exported for each man, woman, and child in British Australia. Much of the best woolen cloth used in the United States is made of wool from Australia. The hot grasslands of Queensland and the moist grasslands of New Zealand produce beef cattle. Some of the meat is canned, and some of it is frozen at the packing houses in the coast towns. The great shipments of dairy products come from the moist lands of Victoria and New Zealand. 899. The imports. — Some of the wool, along with much American cotton, comes back from England after it has been made into cloth. The people of Australia import vast quantities of clothing, machinery, metal goods, petroleum, dishes, glass, and all kinds of things which one finds in a store. There are many factories in Australian cities but they do not make half of the thousands of kinds of articles that are sold in Australian stores. Most of the imported supplies come from the United Kingdom and the United States. Photo. Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 632. Lake Makatipu in the beautiful New Zealand mountains. On some of these mountains are large glaciers. 430 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES Courtesy R. G. Dun & Co., N. Y. Fig. 633. Stacks of unthreshed wheat. Wagonloads of the grain going to a South Australian railway. How will the English school children who eat this wheat pay the Australian farmer who grows it? This is winter wheat. In what months is it sown in Australia ? When harvested? 900. The future trade. — The people of Australia have so much unused land that it will pay them to keep on producing raw materials. All of the cultivated land in Australia is less than one-hundredth of the total area of the continent. Several times as much could be cultivated if the world market needed the produce. The Aus- tralians need to use more of their land be- fore they build many factories. That is the reason why Australia, with all her forests, has not a single mill manufacturing paper from wood pulp. This trade of raw materials in exchange for manufactures will probably continue a great many years. 901. The future industry. — If rain fell in Australia as it does in Europe, there would be room for three hundred million people. Even with her deserts and droughts she could feed several times as many people as she does. As for New Zealand, it is about six- sevenths the size of Great Britain, is almost as good for farming, and is cultivating only one acre in forty. In Belgium two acres out of three are cultivated each year. Plainly, rich New Zealand with its good climate might easily feed many times as many people as are now living in it. We are safe in saying that Australia and New Zealand can produce for export, if the world needs them, great quantities of fruit, dried milk, butter, cheese, meat, wool, and other agricultural products. It is true, however, that few immigrants are settling there now, and that the pop- ulation is increasing very slowly. We should remember that New Zealand and the south- ern half of Australia are cool lands where white men can be healthy and feel ener- getic, and that they are now settled by well-educated white people having a high civilization and a good government. QUESTIONS 1. Why does one find the center of population and all the important Australian cities near the south- east coast? Compare the location of these cities with South America’s centers of population. 2 What changes have been wrought in Australia since the coming of the English? 3. The Australians and New Zealanders are proud to be members of the British Empire. Tell how the trade between the two colonies and the mother country strengthens this bond. THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC 902. The scattered lands of the brown men. — In the great stretches of the mid- Pacific there are many small islands; how many no one knows. Their original settlers are supposed to have come from Asia, in canoes, and they spread over all the Pacific from Hawaii to New Zealand, and from Tahiti to Samoa. Many of the islands are not inhabited; indeed most of them are only little low reefs of coral rock covered with sand and shaded by groves of coconut trees. 903. Native characteristics. — The Polyne- sians are brown people, friendly and polite. THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC 431 © Publishers’ Photo Service, N. Y. Fig. 635. Ships, freight sheds, and grain warehouses at Melbourne. What do you think is the use of the large inclined pipes at the left of the picture? They welcome the stranger and treat him kindly. They love music, dancing, and sports. Often they deco- rate their bodies with gar- lands of flowers and won- derful designs in tattoo. Among the Polynesians, men are often honored for their artistry, a high place being given to tattooers, carvers, and builders of canoes. The men are expert boatmen, and everybody swims a great deal in the warm waters of the Pacific. In 1921 Pau Kealoha, the Hawaiian champion, broke the world’s swimming record at Adelaide, Australia, by making 100 yards in 521- seconds. 904. A bounteous land. — This ocean world is a land of delight for the brown man. The tropic heat and moisture, which are so trying for people of the white race, seem to interfere but little with his welfare. Living is easy, because nature has covered these islands with crops. An American, traveling in the Marquesas Islands, says: “In a couple of miles from the water’s edge to the jungle tangle of the high hills were thousands upon thousands of coconut palms, breadfruit, mango, banana, and lime trees. “There is scarcely a need of the islander not supplied by the coconut trees. Their wood makes the best spars, and furnishes rafters and pillars for native houses, the knee and headrests of their beds, rollers for the big canoes or whaleboats, fences against the wild pig, and fuel. The leaves make baskets and covering, screens and roofs of dwellings. ... On the stiff stalks of the leaves, oily candlenuts are strung to give light for feasts The network that holds the leaves of the young tree . . . has every appearance of coarse cotton cloth, and is used to wrap food, or is made into bags, and even rough garments, for fishermen especially.” The nuts are a nutritious food, used in many forms. 905. The breadfruit. — The coconut is only one of many food trees of this bounteous region. Before white men began to trade with these people, the main food of the native was breadfruit. Breadfruit grows on a tree, ,and looks like an enormous rough-skinned 432 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES Fig. 636. A section of ocean cable one-half size. The small wires in the center do the work. The rest is protection. First, gutta-percha insulation; second, tough waterproof fabric; third, strong wire, called armor; fourth, waterproof fabric. orange. Not only do the Polynesians eat this fruit daily, but they make of it a starchy food called popoi, which they store in pits dug in the earth, and thus keep it for many months to guard against famine. “As bread is to us, so was popoi to my tawny friends. They ate it every day, some- times three or four times a day. As the peasant of certain districts of Europe depends on black bread and cheese, the poor Irish on potatoes, .... the Scotch on oatmeal, so the Marquesan (and other Polynesians) satisfies himself with popoi, and likes it really better than anything else.” 909. The coming of the white man. — The white man’s trading ships have changed the life of the people on the larger islands. Small trading vessels, which are really float- ing stores, sail around Polynesia. The trad- ing room of such a vessel is packed from floor to ceiling with a great variety of goods, such as pins and anchors, harpoons and pens, crackers and jewelry, cloth, shoes, medicines, tobacco, soap, socles, and writing paper. These goods are traded for copra, the dried meat of the coconuts. Thus the coconut be- comes the great basis of trade with the white man. The copra is carried to Sydney, Aus- tralia; to Wellington and Auckland, New Zea- land; and to Samoa, and Honolulu. At these ports it is crushed for oil or shipped on steamers to Europe and America. We use copra for shredded coconut; also the oil from it for cooking fat, or for soap fat. We can get enormous quantities of copra if we should need it, for the coconut tree grows on nearly all shores between Cancer and Capricorn- It is a sad fact that white man’s rum and white man’s diseases have killed many of the Polynesians. Even the measles sometimes killed half the people on an island ; and some islands, populous when the white men came have again become jungle. 907. Hawaii. — The Hawaiian Islands, the largest group of the brown men’s tropic isles, are as large, all together, as Rhode Island and Connecticut. Like Tahiti and Marquesas, this group was built up from the bottom of the deep sea, by the out- pourings of lava from several volcanoes which have finally raised their heads far above the surface of the water. The decayed lava makes very rich soil and the trade wind brings much rain (Fig. 641); so the islands are a splendid place for tropical farming. A hundred years ago, American mission- aries went to Hawaii to teach the natives our way of living. Finally the people asked their queen to resign and voted that the island should be joined with the United States. It is now an American territory, with a government much like that of our own state governments. Hawaii sends a representative to our Congress at Washington. Many Hawaiian sugar plantations are owned by American capitalists. Many of the native Hawaiians have died, and immi- grants have come to work in the canefields which stretch like a sea of green across the rich slopes. The white man does not like to work under the tropic sun much Fig. 637. Ocean cables. Who owns Midway, Guam 0 Yap, Cocos, Mauritius, Fiji? (Fig. 10.) THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC 433 Fig. 638. Pineapples on the Hawaiian lava slopes, ripening for the canning factory. See where the pineapples in your grocery were canned. more than do the Polynesians; so high wages have been paid to other workers who have been brought to these shores. Population of Hawaii in 1920 Hawaiians 38,000 Americans 31,000 Chinese 23,000 Japanese 110,000 Portuguese . . 25,000 Filipinos .... 22,000 Porto Ricans. 5,000 The sugar plantations are among the finest in the world. They are managed by the Americans and worked by the various im- migrants. There are 1500 miles of irrigation canals, and 70 miles of tunnels, to carry water from the rainy to the drier side of the islands. (Fig. 641.) In many plantations the water is pumped up several hun- dred feet to the canefields. Scores of shiploads of sugar are sent to the United States each year. Fig. 639. Expert South Sea Island pearl divers. The export next in im- portance is pineapples. The fruit is canned in great quantities, for it is used in the American navy and in many Ameri- can homes. Bananas are also sent to our Pacific coast ports. Many kinds ofcropsare grown for home use. Among these is rice, which the Chinese and Japanese immigrants grow as it is grown in China. 908. Trade. — Look at the map (Fig. 9) and see if you can tell why Hono- lulu, the beautiful capital of Hawaii, is called the crossroads of the Pacific. It is a modern city with steamships, trolleys, schools, telephones, and most things that one finds in the United States. Hawaiian trade has increased greatly since Hawaii became part of the United States; most of her trade is with us. We take nearly all of the Hawaiian sugar, pineapples, and bana- nas. Ships going to Hawaii carry the manu- factures that are wanted in Honolulu and Courtesy R. G. Dun & Co., N. Y. Note the diving goggles. 434 AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC ISLES in other Hawaiian places. 909. Samoa. — A part of the Samoan Islands be- longs to the United States, and a part belongs to Great Britain. If the Samoans want a little extra money they can go out, pick up some coconuts, cut them open, dry the meats, and have copra to sell. Copra is the chief export. The people even pay taxes in copra. The trees grow so well on these islands that the Samoans have more coconuts than Fig. 640. Rainfall of are needed to meet their Hilo, Hawaii (143.4 • , , mi inches), located on a own sim P le wants * They northeast shore in do not want many things, the trade winds, at mr. r • i the base of a high The y llve in grass houses mountain. Trade and use a piece of cotton STgrassiand P or for- cloth called a lava lava, est land? forty-four by seventy-two inches in size, to wrap about themselves for clothing. 910. Fiji, another group of islands, six hundred miles to the southwestward from Samoa, belongs to Great Britain. The native Polynesians do not want to work on the Eng- lishman’s plantations, so many thousands of people have been brought from India to work in the canefields. Sugar is the chief export of this group of islands. 911. The islands of the black men. — Between Fiji and New Guinea are the New Hebrides, the Solomons, and the Bismarck Islands. Here the native people seem to be much like the natives of Australia. They are not nearly so pleasant to meet as the Poly- nesians, for it has long been their habit to eat people. But now, since the Europeans and Australians govern these islands, the natives usually sell coconuts instead of eat- ing their neighbors. Missionaries have been surprised to find how quickly cannibals change their habits when they are taught by good people. The French island of New Caledonia has one of the world’s richest deposits of nickel, and many shiploads of this ore are sent each year to Europe and America for smelting. 912. Future. — The area of the Pacific Islands is not great, but if fully used they could produce large quantities of sugar, as well as coconut and other tree crops. Ha- waii has a suggestive new tree crop industry in the mesquite tree. (Sec. 151.) Its nutri- tious beans are picked up off the rough ground on which the tree grows, and sold for as much as com. They are made into meal and used as stock food. QUESTIONS 1. Locate the islands mentioned in the text and the Cook Islands; the Society Islands; Tahiti; Yap. Tell the importance of the coconut to the people of these islands before and after the white man came. 2. What do the Samoan chief and his little boy have which came from far-off lands? (Fig. 614.) How do you think the chief made the money with which he paid for these articles? 3. At which of the islands of the Pacific would you be most likely to stop on your way to Japan? to Australia? 4. Why are Guam and Yap important? Who own them? 5. What kind of sports do the Hawaiians enjoy? Why? 6. Islands of the South Seas: Name. Belongs to Produces to Sell. Buys From Other Lands. the larger mountain has over 150 inches. What is the highest rainfall on the island? the lowest? What parts of the United States have rainfall like the two sides of this island? (Fig. 158.) What differences would you see in looking at the northeast and south- west sides of the island as you sailed around it? S-SUN I- MERCURY n- VENUS m- EARTH Iff- MARS ff-JUPITER ff 3 - SATURN MI-URANUS HU- NEPTUNE v in J T65DAYS ""-— 6 «?mys ~(L8