e to the
rich Mediterranean trade, failed to offset the attraction of the gardens
and orchards of the Jezreel Valley and the pastures of the Judean hills,
or to overcome the land-born predilections and aptitudes of the
desert-bred Jews. Similarly, the river-fringed peninsulas of Virginia
and Maryland, opening wide their doors to the incoming sea, were
powerless, nevertheless, to draw the settlers away from the riotous
productiveness of the wide tidewater plains. Here again the geographic
force of the land outweighed that of the sea and became the dominant
factor in directing the activities of the inhabitants.

The two antagonistic geographic forces may be both of the land, one born
of a country's topography, the other of its location. Switzerland's
history has for centuries shown the conflict of two political policies,
one a policy of cantonal and communal independence, which has sprung
from the division of that mountainous country into segregated districts,
and the other one of political centralization, dictated by the necessity
for cooeperation to meet the dangers of Switzerland's central location
mid a circle of larger and stronger neighbors. Local geographic
conditions within the Swiss territory fixed the national ideal as a
league of "sovereign cantons," to use the term of their constitution,
enjoying a maximum of individual rights and privileges, and tolerating a
minimum of interference from the central authority. Here was physical
dismemberment coupled with mutual political repulsion. But a location at
the meeting place of French, German, Austrian and Italian frontiers laid
upon them the distasteful necessity of union within to withstand
aggressions crowding upon them from without. Hence the growth of the
Swiss constitution since 1798 has meant a fight of the Confederation
against the canton in behalf of general rights, expanding the functions
of the central government, contracting those of canton and commune.[16]

[Sidenote: Local and remote geographic factors.]

Every country forms an independent whole, and as such finds its national
history influenced by its local climate, soil, relief, its location
whether inland or maritime, its river highways, and its boundaries of
mountain, sea, or desert. But it is also a link in a great chain of
lands, and therefore may feel a shock or vibration imparted at the
remotest end. The gradual desiccation of western Asia which took a fresh
start about 2,000 years ago caused t