It is not mere territorial extent, however, which has been chiefly instrumental in our national development. There have been and there are greater empires in the world if area alone be regarded. But no other domain of equal extent within the limits of a temperate climate is so diversified in features and so richly endowed with natural resources. The Atlantic coast region east of the Alleghanies has a varied soil, superb forest growths, a marvelous wealth of iron and coal, and great river systems, furnishing power for manufacturing industries. It has also a score of great harbors, including that of New York, which is without equal in the world. The Mississippi valley, of unrivaled agricultural fertility, divided into wheat and corn belts in the north, cotton and sugar regions in the south, is likewise abundantly provided with the raw materials for manufacturing industry, and natural facilities for transportation. The whole region east of the one hundreth meridian enjoys a fertility almost unknown elsewhere outside of the tropics. In no other land of equal extent does the soil bring forth so great a variety of products fit for human use. No other continent enjoys such a system of internal lake and river connections. The shores of the Great Lakes have the maritime activity of a seacoast, and the lake traffic alone exceeds the commerce of any but the greatest European nations. The shipping that passes the port of Detroit exceeds annually that of the port of Liverpool. To the westward the great plains have become the most important ranching region of the world. The mountain systems of the Rockies and the Sierras contain unestimated riches of gold and silver, while California, as Professor Royce once pointed out in the pages of this review, enjoys a climate and a combination of natural features all tending to produce an effect upon the human mind experienced only in Greece.

Human nature and its migratory instincts being what they are, such a domain could not fail to attract the most energetic of the earth's inhabitants, and under conditions of freedom they could not fail to develop the resources on a stupendous scale. Had freedom been lacking, as it certainly would have been if Spain could have extended her sovereignty over the entire American continent, or if the French despotism of Louis XIV. could have been perpetuated in the Mississippi valley, the nineteenth century would have witnessed no such growth of American population as that which our later census enumerations have revealed. This continent would have been closed to the peoples of other lands, as Russia is today. Russia is an empire of magnificent resources, to which under the operation of self-interest and of economic law, the overcrowded populations of western Europe would naturally send millions of emigrants, but the political conditions of that empire forbid. Long before despotic

sovereigns could have succeeded in placing upon this continent a sufficient number of their own subjects to take effective possession of it, men of sturdy English fibre began to come in search of mental, religious, and economic freedom. Daring men in search of new experiences came as adventurers and discoverers. Men of moral daring came in search of religious and civil freedom. Men of industrial and commercial daring came in search of larger opportunity. These men established ideals, and set standards, and created tendencies for a nation. And they came in such numbers, and they multiplied with such rapidity, that long before the potentates of Spain and of France realized that their power in the new world was threatened, it had become certain that this land was to be held by a liberty loving race, and was to welcome all men energetic enough to break away from any kind of bondage in older realms.

What has been the result? A growth of population to which all past human history affords no parallel. The first census of the United States, taken in 1790, enumerated a population of 3,929,214 souls. The twelfth census, taken in 1900, enumerated in the States and territories, not including Indian Territory, Indian reservations, Alaska, and Hawaii, 75,568,686 souls. Of this number no less than 20,901,816 have come as immigrants since the year 1820. The smallest immigration in any one year since that date was in 1823, namely, 6,354 persons. The greatest immigration in any one year until the present was in 1882, namely, 788,992. The total immigration for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, promises to surpass that for 1882. The fluctuations have been governed chiefly by economic conditions. Years of great prosperity have been followed by an increasing number of arrivals, while after years of depression the number has as regularly fallen away. On the whole, this immigrant population has been in point of physical health and energy a select stock. A small percentage of our foreign born has from the first consisted of the relatively helpless and inefficient, but a large majority has consisted of men and women that have had the enterprise and the resolution to accumulate the means necessary for the Atlantic journey, and voluntarily to cut loose from old associations.

The relation between environment and national growth is exemplified in the distribution of the American people according to certain natural features within the United States even more strikingly than in the total growth of our population. Few, even among the educated, realize what large portions of every continent are either unfit for human habitation, or present such obstacles to domicile that the great currents of migration flow all around or across them without leaving much permanent trace. Of our entire population no less than 12,104,275 or 15.9 per cent live

at sea level, that is to say, at an altitude of less than 100 feet, and within an area of 184,584 square miles. At an altitude of between 100 and 500 feet live 16,611,853 persons, or 21.8 per cent of our total number. The land area at this level is 376,372 square miles in extent. At an altitude of between 500 and 1,000 feet we have a land area of 545,480 square miles, and here live 29,402,207 persons, or 38.7 of our population. At an altitude of between 1,000 and 1,500 feet we have a land area of 394,449 square miles and here live 11,173,113 persons, or 14.7 per cent of our whole population. Thus within a little more than half of our land area, in regions which lie at less than 1,500 feet above sea level, live more than nine tenths of all our inhabitants. Since 1880 the drift has

been down hill rather than up. Thus in 1880 it was 15.1 per cent of the population that lived at sea level, 23.1 per cent that lived at an altitude between 100 and 500 feet, 40.5 per cent that lived at an altitude between 500 and 1,000 feet, and 14.6 per cent that lived at an altitude. between 1,000 and 1,500 feet. There has, however, been a marked increase in the population living at altitudes above 3,000 feet, which include portions of the ranching, as well as the more important mining regions.

Most interesting of all, perhaps, is the distribution in accordance with drainage basins. Rich in resources as is the great Pacific coast, and enormous as its population one day will be, its share of our total inhabitants at present is less than four per cent. To be precise, 95.7 per cent of the American people live in the country which drains to the Atlantic Ocean; the remainder dwell on the Pacific coast and in the Great Basin. On the other hand, the region east of the Alleghanies, which comprehends the original thirteen States, has ceased to be the dominant section of our country as measured by population and the economic and political power which population carries with it; for no less than 53.4 per cent of our inhabitants now live in the region which drains to the Gulf of Mexico. The growth of the Mormon population in the Great Basin has always been regarded as phenomenal, and so, indeed, when regarded absolutely, it has been. But how small it is relatively is revealed in the fact that the entire population of the Great Basin constitutes only five tenths of one per cent of our total inhabitants.

Of our foreign born population 93.1 per cent live in the region which drains to the Atlantic Ocean; 34.4 per cent are found in the region which drains to the Gulf of Mexico; and 6.1 per cent dwell on the Pacific coast. Of the negro population 99.8 per cent live in the regions drained to the Atlantic Ocean, and 61.4 per cent in land that drain to the Gulf of Mexico. No less than 22.4 per cent of the negro popula

tion live at sea level, and 48.2 per cent at an altitude of 100 to 500 feet. From this account of the dimensions of the population which has sprung up on the middle zone of this continent in a little more than a century, and of its distribution in accordance with natural features, let us turn to a consideration of its composition. If we have regard not to New England and Virginia alone, but to the entire area of the United States, there has never been a time since the constitution was adopted when our population has not been composite. In the colonial period the Dutch had settled New Amsterdam, the Swedes had come to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, the French Huguenots to the Carolinas, the Germans to Pennsylvania, and the Scotch-Irish to Pennsylvania and the valleys leading southward through Virginia to Carolina and Georgia. In the Northwest Territory there were many descendants of the French colonists. Others were added to the American people by the Louisiana purchase, while the acquisition of Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and California brought in a Spanish element, most of which, however, presently disappeared into Mexico and Cuba.

It thus appears that the popular notion that the American people were at one time of almost purely English blood, which has since 1820 been suffering dilution through foreign immigration, has never been quite true to fact.

In attracting men of many nationalities our country has exemplified another great law of the action of environment upon a people; in this case we might say in creating a people. A region of few resources or opportunities usually has a homogeneous population, and particularly is this true if the region is isolated. Its population is increased only by a birth-rate in excess of the death-rate. But to regions which offer opportunities of various kinds, men of all tongues come, to commingle there in a free struggle for existence. Regions of agricultural fertility, again, are more likely to have homogeneous populations than are those which offer mineral wealth, manufacturing opportunities, or, above all, opportunities for commerce.

To see how fully this is illustrated in American conditions we have only to glance at the geographical distribution of our foreign born. Of the total foreign born population,-10,356,644, enumerated in 1900,4,762,796 were dwelling in the North Atlantic division, 216,030 in the South Atlantic division, 4,158,474 in the North Central division, 357,655 in the South Central division, and 846,321 in the Western division. The North Atlantic division is preeminently the manufacturing and commercial region, closely followed by the North Central. Finally, to take note of the most striking fact of all, the great manufacturing

valley of the Merrimac River has a foreign born population of 51.6 per square mile, the valley of the Delaware has 49.6 per square mile, and the valley of the Housatonic has 29.1 per square mile.

In and of themselves the figures of the foreign born and their distribution are not particularly significant. The important question is: Of what ethnic elements is this foreign born population composed? The chief American stock in colonial days was English, notwithstanding the admixture of other nationalities which has been mentioned. Before the Civil War the immigration was chiefly of English and Irish. Then began a great German immigration, followed by a large arrival of Scandinavians, which reached its maximum in the eighties. During the last ten years the immigration from western Europe has fallen off, while that from southern and eastern Europe, including Italy, Austria, and Russia, has increased.

The question of real interest, therefore, is, Will the American people of the future be on the whole English, or Celtic, or Teutonic, or Latin, or Slavic, or will it be some new and hitherto unheard of amalgam of all these elements? Much foolish speculation and more foolish pessimism has been indulged in on this subject. The census returns enable us to answer the question with assurance, yet, curiously, the answer, so far as I know, has never hitherto been worked out from the data at our disposal. Let us see what this data is and what it reveals.

The various nationalities which make up our foreign born population fall naturally into five ethnic groups, namely: the English-Teutonic, including Australians, Danes, English, Finns, Germans, Hollanders, Poland-Germans, Norwegians, and Swedes; the Celtic, including the Irish, the Welsh, and the Scotch; the Celto-Latin, including the Belgians, the French, and the French Canadians; the Ibero-Latin, including the Greeks, the Italians, the Portuguese, and the Spanish; and the Slav, including the Austrians, the Bohemians, the Hungarians, the PolandAustrians, the Poland-Russians, the Roumanians, and the Russians.

If the census statistics of nationality be classified according to these ethnic groupings it will be found that in the North Atlantic division 35.98 per cent of the foreign born are of the English-Teutonic stocks. In the South Atlantic division 51.63 per cent; in the North Central division 71.44 per cent; in the South Central division 54.22 per cent, and in the Western division 57.53 per cent are of these stocks. In the entire United States 52.9 per cent of the foreign born are of English-. Teutonic stock. In the North Atlantic division 29.40 per cent of the foreign born are Celts; in the South Atlantic division 23.32 per cent; in the North Central division 11.97 per cent; in the South Central