Where the climatic difference is small, it is nevertheless often conspicuous enough to eclipse other concomitant factors which are at work, and hence to encourage the formation of some easy blanket theory of climatic influences. But just because the difference is slight, all attending geographic and ethnic circumstances ought to be scrutinized, to insure a correct statement of the geographical equation. The contrast between the light-hearted, gracious peasants of warm, sunny Andalusia and the reserved, almost morose inhabitants of cool and cloudy Asturias is the effect not only of climate but of the easy life in a fertile river plain, opposed to the bitter struggle for existence in the rough Cantabrian Mountains. Moreover, a strong infusion of Alpine blood has given this group of Spanish mountaineers the patience and seriousness which characterizes the race in other parts of continental Europe.[1429] The conditions which have differentiated Scotch from English have been climate, relief, location, geologic composition of the soil, and ethnic composition of the two peoples. The divergent development of Northerners and Southerners in America arose from contrasts in climate, soil and area. It was not only the enervating heat and moisture of the Southern States, but also the large extent of their fertile area which necessitated slave labor, introduced the plantation system, and resulted in the whole aristocratic organization of society in the South.[1430]
Monotonous climatic conditions.
When one type of climate extends monotonously over a vast area, as in Russia. Siberia, Central Asia or immense tracts of Africa, the differences of temperature which prick and stimulate national endeavor in small climatic districts here lose much of their force. Their effects flatten out into insignificance, overwhelmed by the encounter with too large a territory. All the southern continents are handicapped by the monotony of their zonal location. The map of annual isotherms shows Africa quite enclosed between the two torrid lines of 20° Centigrade, except for a narrow sub-tropical belt along the Barbary coast in the north, and in the south an equally narrow littoral extending east and north from the Cape of Good Hope. At first glance, the large area of South Africa lying on the temperate side of the Tropic of Capricorn raises hopes for a rich economic, social and cultural development here; but these are dashed by an examination of the isotherms. Excessive heat lays its retarding touch upon everything, while a prevailing aridity (rainfall less than 10 inches or 25 centimeters), except on the narrow windward slope of the eastern mountains, gives the last touch of climatic monotony. The coastal belt of Cape Colony and Natal raise tropical and sub-tropical products[1431] like all the rest of the continent, while the semi-arid interior is committed with little variations to pastoral life. [See maps pages 484 and 487.] Climatic monotony, operating alone, would have condemned South Africa to poverty of development, and will unquestionably always avail to impoverish its national life. South African history has been made by its mines and by its location on the original water route to India; the first have dominated its economic development, and the latter has largely determined its ethnic elements—English, Dutch, and French Huguenots, while the magnet of the mines has drawn other nationalities and especially a large Jewish contingent into the urban centers of the Rand.[1432] In the background is the native Kaffir and Hottentot stocks, whose blood filters into the lower classes of the white population. The diversity of these ethnic elements may compensate in part for the monotony of climatic conditions, which promise to check differentiation. However, climatic control is here peculiarly despotic. We see how it has converted the urban merchants of Holland and the skillful Huguenot artisan of France into the crude pastoral Boer of the Transvaal.
In contrast to South Africa, temperate South America has an immense advantage in its large area lying outside the 20°C. isotherm, and in the wide range of mean temperatures (from 20°C. to 5°C.) found between the Tropic of Capricorn and Tierra del Fuego. Climate and relief have combined to make the mouth of the La Plata River the site of the largest city of the southern hemisphere. Buenos Ayres, with a population of over a million, reflects its large temperate hinterland.
The effects of Artic cold.
Frigid zones and the Tropics alike suffer from monotony, of Arctic the one of cold and the other of heat. The Arctic climatic belt, extending from the isotherm of 0°C. (32°F.) to the pole, includes inhabited districts where the mean annual temperature is less than -15°C. (or 5°F.), as at the Greenland village of Etah on Smith's Sound and the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk. Here the ground is covered with, ice or snow most of the year, and permanently frozen below the surface. Animal and plant life are reduced to a minimum on the land, so that man, with every poleward advance of his thin-strung settlements, is forced more and more to rely on the sea for his food. Hence he places his villages on narrow strips of coast, as do the Norse of Finmarken, the Eskimo and the Tunguse inhabiting the Arctic rim of Asia. Products of marine animals make the basis of his domestic economy. Farther inland, which means farther south, all tribes live by hunting and fishing. The Eurasian Hyperboreans find additional subsistence in their reindeer herds, which they pasture on the starchy lichen (Cladonia rangiferina) of the tundra. [See maps pages 103, 153.]
Similarity of cultural development.