Delimitation of the area of the Polish speech is more easily made in theory than on the field. The transition to alien languages is rarely well defined. Such detailed work as has been undertaken in western Europe, where the predominant language in small villages and hamlets is often determined, does not exist for eastern sections of the continent. The zeal of German and Russian agents of nationalist propaganda aggravates the problem. Within Galicia the boundary line passes west of Sanok and Radymno.[100] Its southern extension skirts the foothills through Rymanow, Dukla, Zmigrod and Grybow. Thence to Jablunka pass it merges with the political boundary.
In its western section the physical boundary coincides for all practical purposes with the ethnographic line of division. The Gorales mountaineers have never aspired to cross the divide of the Beskid mountains. The result is that the gentler slopes of the southern side are peopled altogether by Slovaks, while habit and custom have prevented the Podhalians, or Polish shepherds inhabiting the high valley of the Tatra, from leading their flocks to the southern grazing slopes which form part of the Hungarian domain.[101]
Copyright by Brown Bros.
Fig. 39—This view is representative of the open steppeland of Ukraine in southwestern Russia.
Changes in the aspect of the land resulting from human activity provide an easily observable boundary between the territory inhabited by Poles and that occupied by Ruthenians. The former, proceeding from the Vistulian lowland, are now scattered over a territory in which deforestation and large areas of tilled soil bespeak prolonged occupancy. The latter, coming from the Pontic steppes, reached the Carpathian slopes much later than their western neighbors. Consequently only 20 per cent of the surface of the western Carpathians is now available as prairie and pasture land, whereas the percentage of grazing land in the eastern section of the mountain chain is twice as much.[102] The area of plowed land in the western region covers between 40 and 50 per cent of the surface. In the east it barely varies between 5 and 10 per cent. Again the Polish section is practically clear of the forests, which cover, in contrast, from 50 to 60 per cent of the eastern Carpathians. Similar differences can be noted in the valleys up to an altitude of about 2,300 feet. Within them the proportion of plowed land constitutes 88 per cent of the surface in the Polish section while in the Ruthenian valleys the proportion of plowed land does not exceed 15 per cent.
On the southwestern border a number of localities in the Teschen country are claimed alike by Czechs and Poles. The increasing use of Polish and German, however, tends to invalidate the claims of Bohemians.[103] A transition zone between Czech and Polish exists here and is characterized by a local dialect of mixed language. In the western Beskid mountains Polish and Moravian are divided at the Jablunka pass. The ancient duchies of Teschen, Auschwitz and Zator were situated in this region and at the southern end of the long Slavo-Germanic borderland. The two last-named duchies were incorporated with Poland in the fifteenth century. German language and customs disappeared from their territory soon after this fusion.
This important district is in every aspect a zone of transition. Its climate becomes alternately continental or oceanic according to the prevalence of winds from east or west. The change occurs sometimes in a few weeks. Occasionally it is sudden and atmospheric conditions have been known to have changed completely from one stage to the other in the course of a single day.[104] During periods of oceanic climate, the temperature often rises above 0° C. Snows melt and spring temperature prevails during January and February. Again sometimes the east wind brings all the signs of winter in April. In summer western breezes bring rain and dryness prevails when eastern winds blow. As a result of this semi-continental climate wheat crops on the Polish side are from three to six weeks later than on the Moravian side.
German immigrants invaded this region in the eighth century. Their language held its own until the fourteenth, after which it is represented only by linguistic islands dotting here and there the sea of Slavs. It is, however, still possible to distinguish settlements of German origin from the old Polish villages. The latter are situated on high ground or well-protected sites. They are generally characterized by the existence of a central open space and the random distribution of houses and lanes. The German villages, on the other hand, are found at the heads of valleys and usually occupy a rectangular site spreading over the two banks of a river. Each habitation has its own land appurtenance extending rearwards towards the valley slopes. The roads follow natural depressions. Taken as a whole, these German villages are admirably molded on the relief of the surface.