Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/488

470 supposition the phenomenon is of purely modern origin; in the second its roots are imbedded in the past. When the explanation thus becomes retrospective, if the people be in any wise homogeneous in characteristics, customs, or speech, we substitute another shorter word for inheritance. The whole matter simmers down to a decision between environment and race. Our problem in this paper is to adjudge a few such difficulties, whereby we may subserve a double purpose. We may discover what are the distinctive social peculiarities of the three races whose history we have been outlining; and we may form a definite idea of the class of remedies necessary to meet the peculiar needs of each community; for it is quite obvious that social evils due to inherited tendencies require very different treatment from those which are of recent origin, the product of local circumstances.

Purely environmental factors in social phenomena have been all too largely neglected by investigators in the past. At times they rise paramount to all other circumstances. One of the most striking instances of the influence of climate, for example, upon the distribution of population is offered by the present location of the cotton mills of Lancashire along the west coast of England. Why were these mills all set up about the city of Manchester, nearly a century ago? Why were they not placed where plenty of labor was at hand—viz., in the south and west, at that time the most densely populated district in England? The mills were not moved up into Lancashire, far from the crowd, because of the proximity to coal or iron. That may have in part induced them to remain there, when the choice had once been made. But before the days of the steam engine coal had no influence upon the selection of sites. Neither population nor coal being important elements, it is certain that climate was all-powerful in its attractiveness. Here, along the west coast, where the warm, moist Gulf-Stream winds blow steadily landward, is the most humid district in all England. In such an atmosphere the cotton fiber becomes naturally pliant and supple, rendering the spinning of thread a comparatively simple task. So considerable an element was this, that all sorts of devices were adopted for securing permanent benefit from the natural climatic endowment. Building sites were chosen on the western hill slopes, just where the humidity from the rising currents of air was greatest. Oldham and other towns above Manchester were located in accordance with it. Artificial ponds were created just west of the mills, so that the gentle winds blowing over them might become duly dampened. So subtle was this advantage that potted plants in the windows sometimes sufficed to humidify the air to just the right amount. Even to-day, with all the artificial devices for supplanting Nature's aid, we are