The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1877-08-30
ULTIMATE AMERICA.
THE CAPAcITY on THIS CoNTINENr'
FOR SUSTAINING A GREAT PoPU-
LATIoN6oME REl6ARK,AIsLE
1a AND INTEREsTING FACTS

LATIoN-6oME RElfARKAI3LE
~ AND INTEREsEINa FACTS
AND FIaUREs, 81. = s
80 ettf az > q --~- ~ ttWa " 500
From the Rey, Joseph coek's Letter. - \ a.
Is not commonly known 4 yen In
cultivated circles, that the amount o.
arabic soil In North and South Ameri'
CO u greater than that In Europe. Asis
and Africa taken together. Although
less than half the size Of the Old
World. the American Continent con-
tains a greater extent of productive
soil. This supreme fact is nowhere
noticed by De Tocqueville; but, as.
tonishing as the assertions appear, that
the New World has more useful land
than the Old, and can, therefore, aus.
tain o greater population, we shall
cease to doubt these suggestive propo-
sitions IL we rise up for a moment In
thought to point from which we can
see both the great lakes and the Am.
azon and. letting the planet roll be-
meath us, It's green and yellow CONT
nents set In the illuminate emerald
and purple and azure of the great deep,
compare the subtleties OF physical
geography In the two hemispheres, a.
we look down with the eyes ola Hum
boldt, q Ritter, an Agassiz, q Dana, and
o Guyot. / find ten most striking
physical contrasts between the Old
World and the New, and all to the
advantage Of the productive power OF
the soil of America. am fascinated
with n rain map of the globe, for II
shows that my county Is on the
humid, and therefore the fertile, soil
of the world,
/. This continent Is narrow. Hence
the ocean winds waterit well. The Old
Worlds wide. Hence the ocean winds
water 10 poorly. Sahara, Arabia, Per-
sia. Central Thibet,, are almost or
wholly rainless. We have no Sahara.
no Arabia, no Persia.
2. In the New World the noun
tain chains on the east side of the con-
tinent are low; in the Old World the
mountain chains on the east side are
high. But the earth rolls east, and
therefore, the trade winds blow west.
The permanent winds of the globe,
bearing the fertilizing exhalation OF
the ocean, breathe always out Of the
morning. They impinge upon the
breast Of the continents on the side OF
the sunrise. High mountain chains
on that side shut out those winds large
ly from the Old World low mountain
chains on that side admit them to the
new. If the Himalayas and the Noun
tains of the Moon stood on the west
side of Africa, Sahara would cease to
be q desert. fthe Andes stood on the
east side of South America the Anna
zOn Valley would become q desert. A
- 4. ~ 10 In 90
through the West Indies into the
Gulf OF Mexico and ascends the Mis-
eissippi Valley. Guyot says that II
that Gulf had chain of mountains on
its north side as the Mediterranean has,
that valley would be almost rainless.
8. AS the more important wind
blows from the east, ours is the cOnti-
nent of wetocean winds, the Old World
of dry land Winds. 1t is a dry land
that makes Sahara; and this land Is
made dry by the breath of the Old
World and its. height on the east.
Under the tropics, the Old World re-
ceives seventy-seven inches Of water
by the year; America, one hundred
and fifteen.
A. The New World, therefore, as
Guyot has shown. Is the humid, the
Old World the arid, side OF the globe.
s. America, therefore, has great, the
Old World small, river systems. There
is no position i'm which the Mississippi
could be placed in Europe, south of st.
Petersburg, and find room. Join in
one current the Lena, the Oby, the
Amoor, the Yang-tse, the Hoang- no,
the Yeneses, the Indus and the Ganges,
and these eight principal rivers of
Asia do not carry to the ocean as much
water as the Amazon.
@. America is the continent of fat
plains; the Old World that of frozen
or scorched plains. In the New World
the Mississippi and the Amazon trav-
erse plains whose fertility no other
part of the globe can equal; but In the
Old World the great plain extending
from Norway to Kamschatka is locked
in perpetual frost; and that which
stretches from the western shoulder Of
Africa to the heart of Asia Is made
barren by tropical heat.
z. America Is q concave, the Old
World a convex, continent. Our
chains run north and south;
those of Asia and Europe east and
west. Ours, therefore, have the sun on
both sides, and culture, with us, can
climb the mountains those of the Old
World have the sun on the south side,
and on the north side are comparative
ly infertile.
8. Cooling inlets of the ocean, like
the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean
Sea, are found I'm America under the
equator; but the hottest regions Of the
Old World are distinguished by dis
tances from the ocean. The Mediter-
ranean lies too far north to be Of much
service to the Old Worlds fertility as
the Gulf Is to that of the New and 1t
is, besides, shut up by the Alps and
Sahara.
8. America Is high and the Old
World low, under the equator. The
table lands of Mexico and Brazil are
comparatively cool, although in the
tropics; but Sahara Is so low that It
might be, as 1t ought to be, made a
sea, by channel from the
Mediterranean or the ocean.
10. The New Word Is narrow under
the equator; the Old World is wide
there. The fertility Of the New. there
fore, loses less than that OF the Old by
tropical scorching. The equator, 1t is
true, hangs under Orion, directly above
the mouth of the Amazon. But the
isotherm of greatest heat runs through
the mouth Of the Orinoco. 1t cuts only
through the narrow neck Of South
America, necklaced by oceans and
famed by wet winds; but 1t burns
through Africa from tawny shoulder
to ,tawny shoulder, each unsprinkled
by the dew of the sea.
Gut out from 81 ,OOO, 600 square miles
of the Old World and the 10, 00O, 900 of
the New al mountains, frozen and
arid regions. The remnant OF produce
tive soil scholars say Is about 10, 000, 900
miles in the Old World and IL :
600, 900 I'm the New. In America, in
this estimate, rejecta as frozen all ter
ritory north of line running through
the Straits of Belle Isle, the south end
of Hudson's Bay and the north of Van
couver's Island. / exclude the ranges
of sterility in the Rocky Mountains
and the Andes. omit the dry regions
east and west Of Colorado and on the
coasts Of Chill and Peru. / exclude
the sterile portions OF Patagonia. In
the Old World shut out Sahara, great
parts of Arabia-Persia and Central
Asia, and Northern Russia and Siberia.
Here, then, bursts upon US the great