Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II GEOGRAPHIC FACTORS IN AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT "Man can no more be scientifically studied apart from the ground which he tills, or the lands over which he travels, or the sea over which he trades, than polar bear or desert cactus can be understood apart from its habitat. . . . Man has been so noisy about the way he has 'conquered Nature,' and Nature has been so silent in her persistent influence over man, that the geographic factor in the equation of human development has been overlooked." That the geographic factor has played an important part in shaping the history of the American people no thoughtful person can deny. The conformation of the Atlantic coast, the mountains and plains and virgin forests of the interior, the frequency of water courses and the variations of climate and soil have all left their impress upon the manner and quality of American development. In a strict sense of the term, geographic influences are to be regarded as those influences exerted on man by the exterior physical features of the earth; but, for all practical purposes, variations in temperature and moisture may be included as a part of the physical conditions because of the close connection between physiography and climate. In American history two features of the geographic situation have been of commanding importance: the sheer distance of the New World from the Old; and the physio- graphical peculiarities of the North American continent. Although, of course, these two aspects of American geography were parts of an inseparable whole and constantly interacted upon each other, their historical consequences will be examined separately for purposes of the present discussion. So real was the physical isolation of the New World that the Christian era was fifteen hundred years old befo...