For the state, a territory of varied relief is highly beneficial, because it combines manifold forms of economic activity, a wide range of crops, areas of specialized production mutually interdependent. It induces a certain balance of urban and lief, rural life, which contributes greatly to the health of the state.[1253] The steep slopes of Dai Nippon, fertile only under spade tillage, will forever insure Japan the persistence of a numerous peasantry. For geological and geographical reasons, as from national motives, therefore, Japan will probably never sacrifice its farmer to its industrial class, as England has done. On the other hand, contrasted reliefs on a great territorial scale tend to invade political solidarity. Tidewater and mountain Virginia were poor running-mates for a century before the Civil War, and then the mountain region broke out of harness. Geographical contrasts made the unification of Germany difficult, and yet they have added to the economic and national strength of the Empire. The history of Switzerland shows the high Alpine cantons always maintaining a political tug of war with the cantons of the marginal plain, and always suffering a defeat which was their salvation.
Relief and climate.
The chief effect of a varied relief is a varied climate. This changes with altitude in much the same way as with latitude. Heat and absolute humidity diminish, generally speaking, as height increases, while rainfall becomes greater up to a certain level. The effect of ascending and descending currents of air is to diminish the range of temperature on mountain slopes and produce rather an oceanic type of climate. The larger and more uniform a climatic district, the more conspicuously do even slight elevations form climatic islands, like the Harz Mountains in the North German lowlands. A land of monotonous relief has a uniform climate, while a region rich in vertical articulations is rich also in local varieties of climate.[1254] A highland of considerable elevation forms a cold district in the Temperate Zone, a temperate one in the Tropics, and a moist one in a desert or steppe. Especially in arid and torrid belts does the value of elevation for human life increase.
Altitude zones of economic and cultural development.
The highlands of Mexico, South America and the Himalayan rim of India show stratified zones of tropical, temperate, and arctic climate, to which plant, animal and human life conform. The response is conspicuous in the varying density of population in the successive altitude zones. Central Asia shows a threefold cultural stratification of its population, each attended by the appropriate density, according to location in steppe, piedmont and mountain. The steppes have their scattered pastoral nomads; the piedmonts, with their irrigation streams, support sedentary agricultural peoples, concentrated at focal points in commercial and industrial towns; the higher reaches of the mountains are occupied by sparse groups of peasants and shepherds, wringing from upland pasture and scant field a miserable subsistence. The same stratification appears in the Atlas Mountains, intensified on the southern slope by the contrast between the closely populated belt of the piedmont and the wandering Tuareg tribes of the Sahara on the one hand, and the sparse Berber settlements of the Atlas highlands on the other. The long slope of Mount Kilimanjaro in German East Africa descends to a coastal belt of steppe and desert, inhabited by Swahili cattle-breeders. Its piedmont, from 1000 feet above the plain up to 2400 feet, constitutes a zone of rich irrigated plantations and gardens, densely populated by peaceful folk of mingled Bantu and Hamitic blood. At 6000 feet, where forests cease, are found the kraals, cattle, sheep and goats of the semi-nomadic Masai of doubtful Hamitic stock, who raid the coastal lowlands for cattle, and purchase all their vegetable food from the tillage belt.[1255] [See maps page 105 and 487.]
Density Of Population In Italy.