The new air world

by Willis L. Moore

CHAPTER XII
CIVILIZATION FOLLOWS THE STORM TRACKS

THE MOST DOMINANT RACES—THOSE THAT BEST CO-ORDINATE THE MENTAL AND PHYSICAL FACULTIES—ARE FOUND TO EXIST UNDER CERTAIN CLIMATIC CONDITIONS—CHANGE THE CLIMATE AND YOU CHANGE THE MAN

In a climate where man needs little protection from the elements, where he may lie upon his back in the shade and with his bare toes pick wild growing fruit to nourish his body, one will find no great leaders in art, literature, science, statecraft, or industry; likewise, in the Arctic, where man simply gathers enough blubber to supply his animal wants and then burrows beneath the snows of fierce winters, one will not find leadership or creative genius. The regions of greatest human potential are limited to such portions of the temperate zone as have an abundance of rainfall, frequent changes in the weather, and an alluvial soil. In other words, the most perfect composite of human resourcefulness is found where nature is neither so fierce as to crush human aspiration, nor yet so gentle as to lull human desire.

Humboldt says: “Man is the product of soil and climate; he is brother to the tree, the rocks, and the animals.” We shall endeavor to show that civilization and the greatest human potential follow the storm tracks of the world, and that climate is the most important factor in his environment, for without its proper adjustment to his needs the richest soil and the most beneficent form of government fail to bring out the best that is in him. Empire is determined as much by direction and force of the wind and changes in the weather as by the scheming of politicians, the deep-laid plans of diplomats, or the marshaling of battalions.

The first thing that vigorous man requires is active atmospheric conditions and in his migrations he follows the climatic lines that appease his desires. A climate of little change between day and night and between winter and summer is soothing and at the same time deadening to the human faculties; but changes should be frequent rather than violent. The daring, the creative, the pioneering, the persistent spirits of mankind, like snow birds showering themselves with icy crystals, revel in the cool air, the perpetual oscillations of temperature, and the frequent changes from sunshine to cloud that pertain to the regions where storms are most numerous.

Some days the mind works with a joyous lucidity, the spirits are high and the step elastic and vigorous. On another day the mind is turbid; it works slowly and hesitates in reaching decisions; one is listless and lacking in physical energy. On both days one may be in a perfectly normal physical and mental condition, except for the effects of the weather.

Under the direction of the writer, comparison of the records of crimes of violence with the weather records, by officials of the U. S. Weather Bureau, showed a marked increase of crime of this sort during midsummer as against midwinter, and the extremely hot summer showed more crime than the cool ones. During recent years Ellsworth Huntington has made exhaustive and extremely valuable studies of the records of piece workers in factories and elsewhere from New England and the Middle Atlantic States down to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, and also of the mental activities of the cadets at West Point and Annapolis, and of the students in colleges, as shown by their recitation markings.[4] He has compared these records with the weather day by day and hour by hour and definitely shown a direct relation between variations in the meteorological conditions and human efficiency. He finds that people’s health and strength are greatest when the temperature falls to between 56° and 60° at night and rises to somewhere between 68° and 72° during the day. He has determined the optimum, or, in other words, the meteorological conditions best suited to man’s health, happiness, and efficiency. For mental activity the optimum temperature is much lower than for physical. People’s minds are more alert, they reason with greater analytic precision, they have greater confidence in their decisions and they are more optimistic, when the temperature falls to about freezing at night and rises to 45° or 50° during the day. Except for limited activities, the most efficient man is the one in whom the mental and physical faculties are most perfectly coördinated. Broadly speaking, this agreement may be best accomplished during times when the daily temperature ranges between 45° and 65°.

Excessive humidity in midsummer—eighty per cent. or over—is harmful and adds enormously to the death rate; on the other hand, some of the worst colds may come from extreme dryness in summer. It may be found feasible to dry the air in sleeping and living rooms in summer when the humidity is too high, by closing the apartment and forcing the air over or through calcium carbide or melting ice and salt. When the air is kept at 65 to 70 per cent. humidity in winter one will feel comfortable in a much lower temperature—about 68°—than when the air is extremely dry, as it usually is in the average living apartment. With a relative humidity of 30 to 40 per cent. which one now often finds in warm houses in winter, the temperature may be forced up to 75° or over and still one may feel cold, because of the rapid evaporation from the pores of the skin, and the cold created inside the clothing by the heat lost in the process of evaporation. Bear in mind that perspiration is going on at all temperatures, even if one is unconscious of the fact.

In the most populous portions of the United States there are two periods of maximum efficiency and two of minimum each year. Let us consider that wonderful region including southern New England, the Middle Atlantic States, the Ohio Valley, and westward to the Rocky Mountains. Again referring to the records of Huntington we find that human energy is greatest in October; the output of factory, mine, and counting room is greater per man than at any other time of the year and the product of mental effort is greater and of higher quality. Likewise disease is less and the death rate the least. From this time there is a loss in energy until January or February, when vitality and efficiency may have dropped twenty to thirty per cent. Then there is a gain until May or early June, when the conditions of health and efficiency are nearly equal to the most favorable time of the year in October. Again there is a loss until the middle of July, when a second minimum occurs; physical and mental energy are at a low ebb and the death rate is high. Diseases are not quite the same as in winter, as stomach troubles are more common than colds. The hotter the summer and the colder the winter the less favorable are the conditions of human existence.

As there is a certain optimum beyond which diurnal and annual range of temperature cannot increase without a loss in energy, so there is a limitation in latitude beyond which the favorable climatic conditions decrease as one goes northward or southward. As an example, Canada and northern Maine have but one unfavorable period, which is the entire winter. The people of these regions are at their greatest potential July to September, after which they show a steady decline as the severity of the northern winter draws upon their vitality, until in January and February their minimum is below that of regions considerably farther south for the same period.