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The Probable Effect of the Climate of the Russian Far East on Human Life and Activity
Author(s) -
Novakovsky Stanislaus
Publication year - 1922
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.2307/1929033
Subject(s) - citation , history , library science , computer science
If, as in the Arabian fairy-tales, it were possible to bring the past before our eyes again so that we could follow the first steps of human civilization, then we could, without doubt, see how great has been the influence of geographical conditions. We should see how nature determined the first and most difficult steps of humanity, sometimes giving human beings numerous opportunities and opening wide and easy paths to progress, and again without pity keeping whole nations during long, long centuries without the least ray of light. From the material on hand, which has been gathered by students of geography. ethnography, history, and other branches of science, we must conclude that all of mankind's customs and inclinations, its physical characteristics, and the anthropological types of various nationalities, as well as the very germs of its religious beliefs, are due first of all, and above all, not to some unseen, supreme power, but to the law-abiding forces of nature. If we could sum up all the present knowledge about nature, it would be possible to conclude without hesitation that the surrounding nature has always had a deep and irresistible influence on all the branches of the vegetable and animal kingdom, as well as on the physical and spiritual nature of man. Geography recounts the history of geographical conditions, and among them the chief place of importance belongs to the climate. On it depends the material as well as the spiritual organization of governments, and on it is based all their future. Explorers in Siberia have constantly noted the influence of the climate on its life. Of these observations, the most notable are those of the famous Russian scientist, Prof. A. Midendorff. In his work, "Travels to Northern and Southern Siberia," Part I (St. Petersburg, i860), which constitutes an epoch-making event in the study of Siberia, he says: " Nowhere in all the world does the climate act in such an unfriendly manner toward vegetable and animal life, not excluding man, as it does in Siberia. Nowhere but there [Ecology, Vol. III., No. 2 (pp. 89-I80) was issued May i8, I922.]