Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-02-12
VIZ ASHINGTON, d. c., Feb. S.--What kind @
Wv a climate is being encountered by tn
Americans that going to France?

VXT ASHINGTON, ID. c., Feb. S-What kind OF
Wv climate is being encountered by the
Americans that are going to France?
This question has been asked of the United
States Weather bureau by. number of thoughtful
persons, and 1T is an important one. Climate is
mighty factor in warfare Man, like all other ami
mals is adapted by his habits of life, and by his
physical makeup-especially the color of his skin,
hair and eyes-tO certain climatic zones to GER
tain amounts of light heat and humidity. Take
him to. radically different from the one to
which he is accustomed or by nature adapted, and
he will scken, sooner or later he will perish
less removed, just tropical animals sicken and
perish in northern ZOOS, and domestic animals
from the temperate zone die or degenerate when
TAKEN TO the tropics; Ihat is the reason why
American soldiers and civilian officials sent to
S the Philippines only for few years, British
soldiers and officials to India, and why manay of
these develop nervous troubles and other diseases
during their short stays The tropics are suited
only to men with dark skins, and who are accus-
toned to considerable degrees Of heat This is
also the reason why Indian and other tropical
troops have failed to be of material the
western front in Europe. They are out of their
natural zone.
1t will be seen at once that in most of our re-
cent warfare the climate has been the side of
the enemy. In the Philippines, in Cuba in Puerto
Rico forms of disease anti degeneration to which
the natives were immune took heavy toll of our
troops This hostility of the tropical climate has
been important factor in all tropical conquests
by the white men of the temperate
In France, our troops will not encounter hos
tile climate. On the other hand, many of them
will be going to climate which is more congenial
to them than the in which they born,
and IL is probable that many will benefit by the
change, so far purely Chronological influences
are concerned. For they will be going to eli
mate which resembles more than any other the
climate of North Pacific states, such as
Washington and Oregon, and which is known to
be of the healthiest climates in the world for
the blonde or Aryan man. To Americans who
of south European or African stock, the climate
of the battle line will be much less congenial.
Ethnologists pretty we'll agreed that
the type of men known the dolicho-cephalic
blonde, to which most Englishmen Scandinavians,
Scotch, Irish, Germans, Swiss, Dutch, natives of
northern France, and all Americans descended
from these and other blonde stocks belong, orig
mated in the Baltic regions In this Baltic region
the blonde man spent the tens of thousands of
years before he became civilized This COOL cloudy
Baltic region is therefore his natural life zone,
just much the Arctic tundra is the life zone
of the musk OK, and he will fail to thrive in any
other life Zone just the musk OK fails to thrive
when brought south. That explains why, although
white men have been pushing south into the trop-
les for many centuries, they have never been able
to make permanent habitat of the hot countries.
They have to control them by sending men to
them for few years; the dark races still remain
the only permanent inhabitants.
1t follows that nearly the whole of the Amer
lean continent has a climate to some extent hos