Current Literature
THE PULSE OF PROGRESS. By Ellsworth limit ington. (Scribner's Sons. 21s.)—No one who is conversant with the lines of modern geographical investigation needs to be told that anything from Dr. Huntington 's pen deserves careful attention. In this volume he examines some of the geograph- ical conditions which make for or mar human progress. That, before it can extract the fullest advantage out of cultured conditions, must primarily depend on biological factors. Sonic of these are considered in this stimulating and closely reasoned book—what the weather does to us especially in the matter of disease ; how far civilization and economies are conditioned by climate ; what influences the same factor exerts on national temperament, the instability of the modern Greek, for instance, being quite possibly due to endemic malaria, which is the child of the climate that breeds the anopheles. The author specially emphasizes the occurrence of periodicity and pulsation in nature and particularly of climatic pulsations, which lead on the one hand to vastly increased human opportunities, and on the other to over-population, poverty and political dis- content.
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