ck and Stralsund to Amsterdam and
Bristol, as the historical horizon widened. England, prior to this
sudden dislocation, lay on the outskirts of civilized Europe, a terminal
land, not a focus. The peripheral location which retarded her early
development became a source of power when she accumulated sufficient
density of population for colonizing enterprises, and when maritime
discovery opened a way to trans-oceanic lands.[9]

Meanwhile, local geographic advantages in the old basins remain the
same, although they are dwarfed by the development of relatively greater
advantages elsewhere. The broken coastline, limited area and favorable
position of Greece make its people to-day a nation of seamen, and enable
them to absorb by their considerable merchant fleet a great part of the
trade of the eastern Mediterranean,[10] just as they did in the days of
Pericles; but that youthful Aegean world which once constituted so large
a part of the _oikoumene_, has shrunken to a modest province, and its
highways to local paths. The coast cities of northern Germany still
maintain a large commerce in the Baltic, but no longer hold the
pre-eminence of the old Hanse Towns. The glory of the Venetian Adriatic
is gone; but that the sea has still a local significance is proven by
the vast sums spent by Austria and Hungary on their hand-made harbors of
Trieste and Fiume.[11] The analytical geographer, therefore, while
studying a given combination of geographic forces, must be prepared for
a momentous readjustment and a new interplay after any marked turning
point in the economic, cultural, or world relations of a people.

[Sidenote: Interplay of geographic factors.]

Skepticism as to the effect of geographic conditions upon human
development is apparently justifiable, owing to the multiplicity of the
underlying causes and the difficulty of distinguishing between stronger
and weaker factors on the one hand, as between permanent and temporary
effects on the other. We see the result, but find it difficult to state
the equation producing this result. But the important thing is to avoid
seizing upon one or two conspicuous geographic elements in the problem
and ignoring the rest. The physical environment of a people consists of
all the natural conditions to which they have been subjected, not merely
a part. Geography admits no single blanket theory. The slow historical
development of the Russian folk has been due to many geographic
causes--to excess