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COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY
A Book for High Schools
Commercial Courses, and
Business Colleges
by
JACQUES W. REDWAY, F.R.G.S.
Author of "A Series of Geographies," "An Elementary
Physical Geography," "The New Basis of Geography"
Charles Scribner's Sons
New York ... 1907
Copyright, 1903, by
Jacques W. Redway
PREFACE
The quiet industrial struggle through which the United States passed
during the last decade of the nineteenth century cannot fail to impress
the student of political economy with the fact that commercial
revolution is a normal result of industrial evolution. Within a period
of twenty-five years the transportation of commodities has grown to be
not only a science, but a power in the betterment of civil and political
life as well; and the world, which in the time of M. Jules Verne was
eighty days wide, is now scarcely forty.
The invention of the Bessemer process for making steel was intended
primarily to give the railway-operator a track that should be free from
the defects of the soft, wrought-iron rail; in fact, however, it created
new industrial centres all over the world and brought Asia and Africa
under commercial conquest. The possibilities of increased trade between
the Atlantic seaboard and the Pacific Coast States led to the building
of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railways. But when these were
thoroughly organized, there unexpectedly resulted a new trade-route that
already is drawing traffic away from the Suez Canal and landing it at
Asian shores by way of the ports of Puget Sound. It is a repetition of
the adjustment that occurred when the opening of the Cape route to India
transferred the trade that had gathered about Venice and Genoa to the
shores of the North and Baltic Seas.
In other words, a new order of things has come about, and the world and
the people therein are readjusting themselves to the requirements made
upon them by commerce. And so at the beginning of a new century,
civilized man is drawing upon all the rest of the world to satisfy his
wants, and giving to all the world in return; he is civilized because of
this interchange and not in spite of it.
The necessity for instruction in a subject that pertains so closely to
the welfare of a people is apparent, and an apology for presenting this
manual is needless. Moreover, it should not interfere in any way with
the regular course in geography; indeed, more comprehensive work in the
latter is becoming imperative, and it should be enriched rather than
curtailed.
In the preparation of the work, I wish to express my appreciation of the
great assistance of Principal Myron T. Pritchard, Edward Everett School,
Boston, Mass. I am also much indebted to the map-engraving department of
Messrs. The Matthews-Northrup Company, Buffalo, N.Y.
J.W.R.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 1
II. HOW COMMERCE CIVILIZED MANKIND 7
III. TOPOGRAPHIC CONTROL OF COMMERCE 17
IV. CLIMATIC CONTROL OF COMMERCE 29
V. TRANSPORTATION--OCEAN AND INLAND NAVIGATION 39
VI. TRANSPORTATION--RAILWAYS AND RAILWAY ORGANIZATION;
PUBLIC HIGHWAYS 62
VII. FACTORS IN THE LOCATION OF CITIES AND TOWNS 81
VIII. THE CEREALS AND GRASSES 88
IX. TEXTILE FIBRES 105
X. PLANT PRODUCTS OF ECONOMIC USE--BEVERAGES AND
MEDICINAL SUBSTANCES 127
XI. GUMS AND RESINS USED IN THE ARTS 141
XII. COAL AND PETROLEUM 147
XIII. METALS OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 159
XIV. SUGAR AND ITS COMMERCE 185
XV. FORESTS AND FOREST PRODUCTS 193
XVI. SEA PRODUCTS AND FURS 203
XVII. THE UNITED STATES--THE SEAPORTS AND THE ATLANTIC
COAST-PLAIN 211
XVIII. THE UNITED STATES--THE NEW ENGLAND PLATEAU
AND THE APPALACHIAN REGION 219
XIX. THE UNITED STATES--THE BASIN OF THE GREAT LAKES
AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 227
XX. THE UNITED STATES--THE WESTERN HIGHLANDS AND
TERRITORIAL POSSESSIONS 247
XXI. CANADA AND NEWFOUNDLAND 261
XXII. MEXICO--CENTRAL AMERICA--WEST INDIES 267
XXIII. SOUTH AMERICA--THE ANDEAN STATES 275
XXIV. SOUTH AMERICA--THE LOWLAND STATES 285
XXV. EUROPE--GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY 295
XXVI. EUROPE--THE BALTIC AND NORTH SEA STATES 310
XXVII. EUROPE--THE MEDITERRANEAN STATES AND SWITZERLAND 320
XXVIII. EUROPE--THE DANUBE AND BALKAN STATES 335
XXIX. EUROPE-ASIA--THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 343
XXX. THE IRAN PLATEAU AND ARABIA 349
XXXI. BRITISH INDIA AND THE EAST INDIES 358
XXXII. CHINA AND JAPAN 367
XXXIII. AFRICA 381
XXXIV. OCEANIA 391
APPENDIX 398
INDEX 399
COLORED MAPS
PAGE
PRINCIPAL TRANSPORTATION LINES AND REGIONS OF LARGEST
COMMERCE x, xi
MEAN ANNUAL RAINFALL 28
CITY OF NEW YORK AND VICINITY, WITH HARBOR APPROACHES 49
DISTRIBUTION OF VEGETATION 80
NORTH AMERICA 210
PUGET SOUND 253
MEXICO 268
SOUTH AMERICA 274
BRITISH ISLES 299
GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES 304
HOLLAND AND BELGIUM 314
FRANCE 321
ITALY 326
SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 329
TURKEY AND GREECE 338
RUSSIAN EMPIRE 342
THE IRAN PLATEAU AND ARABIA 349
EASTERN CHINA 369
JAPAN AND KOREA 375
AFRICA 382
THE COMMERCE OF THE PACIFIC 393
[Illustration: PRINCIPAL TRANSPORTATION LINES AND REGIONS OF LARGEST
COMMERCE]
TO THE TEACHER:--The contents of this book are so topicalized and
arranged that, if the time for the study is limited, a short course may
be selected. Under no circumstances, however, should Chapters V, VI,
VIII, IX, XII, and XIII be omitted. A casual inspection of the questions
at the end of each chapter will serve to show that they cannot be
answered from the pages of the book, and they have been selected with
this idea in view. They are intended first of all to stimulate
individual thought, and secondly to encourage the pupil to investigate
the topics by consulting original sources. The practice of corresponding
with pupils in other parts of the world cannot be too highly commended.
The following list represents a minimum rather than a maximum reference
library. It may be enlarged at the judgment of the teacher. A good atlas
and a cyclopædia are also necessary.
Industrial Evolution of the United States. WRIGHT. Charles
Scribner's Sons.
History of Commerce in Europe. GIBBINS. The Macmillan Company.
Discovery of America. FISKE. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
The New Empire. ADAMS. The Macmillan Company.
Statesman's Year-Book. KELTIE. The Macmillan Company.
Outlines of Political Science. GUNTON AND ROBBINS. D. Appleton &
Co.
The Wheat Problem. CROOKES. G.P. Putnam's Sons.
South America. CARPENTER. American Book Company.
From the Bureau of Statistics, Department of Commerce, Washington,
D.C., the following monographs may be procured:[1]
Commercial China. American Commerce. Commercial Australia.
Commercial Japan. Commercial Africa. Commercial India. Statistical
Abstract. Great Canals of the World. World's Sugar Production and
Consumption.
The following from the Department of Agriculture is necessary:
Check List of Forest Trees of the United States.
Lantern slides illustrating the subjects treated in this book may be
procured from T.H. McAllister, 49 Nassau Street, New York. Stereoscopic
views may be obtained from Underwood & Underwood, Fifth Avenue and
Nineteenth Street, New York.
COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY
CHAPTER I
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Commerce and modern civilization go hand in hand, and the history of the
one is the history of the other; and whatever may be the basis of
civilization, commerce has been the chief agent by which it has been
spread throughout the world. Peoples who receive nothing from their
fellow-men, and who give nothing in return, are usually but little above
a savage state. Civilized man draws upon all the rest of the world for
what he requires, and gives to the rest of the world in return. He is
civilized because of this fact and not in spite of it.
There is scarcely a country in the world that does not yield something
or other to civilized peoples. There is scarcely a household whose
furnishings and contents do not represent an aggregate journey of
several times around the earth. A family in New York at breakfast occupy
chairs from Grand Rapids, Mich.; they partake of bread made of wheat
from Minnesota, and meat from Texas prepared in a range made in St.
Louis; coffee grown in Sumatra or Java, or tea from China is served in
cups made in Japan, sweetened with sugar from Cuba, stirred with spoons
of silver from Nevada. Spices from Africa, South America, and Asia
season the food, which is served on a table of New Hampshire oak,
covered with a linen spread made from flax grown in Ireland or in
Russia. Rugs from Bokhara, or from Baluchistan, cover the floors;
portières made in Constantinople hang at the doors; and the room is
heated with coal from Pennsylvania that burns in a furnace made in Rhode
Island.
Now all these things may be, and usually are, found in the great
majority of families in the United States or Europe, and most of them
will be found in nearly all households. Certain it is that peoples do
exist who, from the immediate vicinity in which they live, procure all
the things they use or consume. In the main, however, such peoples are
savages.
A moment's thought will make it clear that before an ordinary meal can
be served there must be railways, steamships, great manufacturing
establishments, iron quarries, and coal mines, aggregating many thousand
millions of dollars, and employing many million people. A casual
inspection, too, reveals the fact that all of the substances and things
required by mankind come from the earth, and, a very few excepted, every
one requires a certain amount of manufacture or preliminary treatment
before it is usable. The grains and nearly all the other food-stuffs
require various processes of preparation before they are ready for
consumption by civilized peoples. Iron and the various other ores used
in the arts must undergo elaborate processes of manufacture; coal must
be mined, broken, cleaned, and transported; the soil in which
food-stuffs are grown must be fertilized and mechanically prepared; and
even the water required for domestic purposes in many instances must be
transported long distances.
[Illustration: AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURE SUPPLEMENT EACH OTHER]
A little thought will suffice to show that not only are all food-stuffs
derived from the earth, but that also every usable resource which
constitutes wealth is also drawn from the same source. The same is also
pretty nearly true of the various forms of energy, for although the sun
is the real source of light and heat, and probably of electricity, these
agents are usable only when they have been transformed into earth
energies. Thus, the physical energy generated by falling water is merely
a transformed portion of solar heat; so also the coal-beds contain both
the chemical and physical energy of solar heat and light converted into
potential energy--that is, into force that can be used at the will of
intelligence. Indeed, the physical being of mankind is an organism born
of the earth, and adapted to the earth; and when that physical form
dies, it merely is transformed again to ordinary earth substances.
The chief activities of living beings are those relating to the
maintenance of life. In other words, animals must feed, and they must
also protect themselves against extermination. In the case of all other
animals this is a very simple matter, they simply live in immediate
contact with their food, migrating or perishing if the supply gives out.
In the case of mankind the conditions are different and vastly more
elaborate. Savage peoples excepted, man does not live within close touch
of the things he requires; indeed, he cannot, for he depends upon all
the world for what he uses. In a less enlightened state many of these
commodities were luxuries; in a civilized state they have become
necessities. Moreover, nearly everything civilized man employs has been
prepared by processes in which heat is employed.
Therefore one may specify several classes of human activities and
employments:
(_a_) The production of food-stuffs and other commodities by the
cultivation of the soil--_Agriculture_.
(_b_) The preparation of food-stuffs and things used for shelter,
protection, or ornament--_Manufacture_.
(_c_) The production of minerals for the generation of power, such
as coal, or those such as iron, copper, stone, etc., required in
the arts and sciences--_Mining_.
(_d_) The exchange of food stuffs and commodities--_Commerce_.
(_e_) The transfer of commodities--_Transportation_.
It is evident that the prosperity and happiness of a people depend very
largely on the condition of their surroundings--that is, their
environment. If a country or an inhabited area produces all the
food-stuffs and commodities required by its people, the conditions are
very fortunate. A very few nations, notably China and the United States,
have such diverse conditions of climate, topography, and mineral
resources, that they can, if necessary, produce within their national
borders everything needed by their peoples.
The prosecution of such a policy, however, is rarely economical; in the
history of the past it has always resulted in weakness and
disintegration. China is to-day helpless because of a policy of
self-seclusion; and the marvellous growth of Japan began when her trade
was thrown open to the world.
For the greater part the environment of a people is deficient--that is,
the locality of a people does not yield all that is required for the
necessities of life. For instance, the New England plateau requires an
enormous amount of fuel for its manufacturing enterprises; but
practically no coal is found within its borders; hence the manufacturers
must either command the coal to be shipped from other regions or give up
their employment. The people of Canada require a certain amount of
cotton cloth; but the cotton plant will not grow in a cold climate, so
they must either exchange some of their own commodities for cotton, or
else go without it. The inhabitants of Great Britain produce only a
small part of the food-stuffs they consume; therefore they are
constantly exchanging their manufactured products for the food-stuffs
that of necessity must be produced in other parts of the world.
The dwellers of the New England plateau might grow the bread-stuffs they
require, and in times past they did so. At that time, however, a barrel
of flour was worth twelve dollars. But the wheat of the prairie regions
can be grown, manufactured into flour, transported a thousand miles, and
sold at a profit for less than five dollars a barrel. Therefore it is
evidently more economical to buy flour in Minnesota than to grow the
wheat and make it into flour in Massachusetts.
All these problems, and they exist without number, show that man may
overcome most of the obstacles that surround him. So we find civilized
man living in almost every part of the world. Tropical regions are not
too scorching, nor are arctic fastnesses too cold for him. In other
words, because of commerce and transportation, he can and usually does
master the conditions of his environment; his intelligence enables him
to do so, and his ability to do so is the result of the intelligent use
of experience and education.