Identifier: historyofmankind01ratz (find matches)
Title: The history of mankind
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Ratzel, Friedrich, 1844-1904 Butler, Arthur John, 1844-1910
Subjects: Ethnology Anthropology
Publisher: London, Macmillan and co., ltd. New York, The Macmillan co.
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Wellesley College Library

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d from Polynesia prevented it fromexercising those more penetrating effects which might have been expected toemanate from the largest among the islands. Thus we have before us, almostuniversally, only the population of small and numerous areas, very unevenlyendowed, and widely separated from each other. Of all people the ethnographermust bear that well in mind. Further, the denser population is confined to thecoast spaces, while the interior is thinly inhabited. Rapid changes from habitationto non-habitation are frequent under these conditions; nor is the list of islandsnow uninhabited, but showing- traces of former habitation, a short one. The i56 THE HISTORY OF MANKIND majority of the Pacific islands lie in a region where the prevailing currents andwinds move in a westerly direction, north and south of the equator, between theannual isothermals of 68°. It has often been pointed out how the prevailing eastto west direction of the trade-winds would facilitate immigration from the New
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Bread-fruit tree (Artocarpus incisus) : (a) inflorescence, (/>) fruit. World. In small districts the influence of the winds and currents is no doubtgreat; but the facts of migrations and castings-away show that, though it mayoften determine the lines of distribution of mankind, it does not always do so.In more recent times, meteorology has no less shown us the existence of westerlycurrents of air, than a study of the ocean has taught us that there is an equatorialcounter-current in the same direction. In their regular traffic the Polynesianswait for a west wind to sail eastwards, and they have a corresponding traditionthat their domestic animals were brought from the west. By the time we reach THE RACES OF THE PACIFIC AND THEIR MIGRATIONS 57 the Hervey or Cooks, and Tubuai or Austral groups, the west winds, which inthe southern hemisphere prevail south of 200, begin to make themselves felt. The flora and fauna of this region, the pronounced Asiatic character of whichChamisso was th

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