Handbook of Commercial Geography

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Longmans, Green, and Company, 1908 - 660 pages

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Page v - It stimulates his mental activity; it fosters in him a habit of wise inquisitiveness; it makes him more intelligent, more ready, more trustworthy in his ordinary work; it raises the tone of his life in working hours and out of working hours; it is thus an important means...
Page 26 - Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm. For to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds, which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants by drawing straws and stalks of leaves into it ; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth, called worm-casts,...
Page 389 - ... vivid green spots, showing out sharp and distinct like blots of green paint dropped on to a sepia picture. In the western end round Kashgar and Yarkand the cultivation is of greater extent and more continuous than in the eastern half, where the oases are small and separated from each other by...
Page 26 - Earth-worms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm.
Page 32 - I reckoned on an average that each wall retains a terrace not more than twice its own height in width, and I do not think I saw a single breach in one of them unrepaired" (General ET Haig, Proceedings Geographical Society, 1887, p.
Page 380 - China will mean not only the subjugation of the latter, but their own exclusion from the Far East. Since the geography of a country often determines military strategy, it is necessary to note the salient features in the geography of China. China's most important lines of communication are her three great rivers : the Hwang-ho (or Yellow River) in the North, the Yang-tse in the Centre, and the Si-Kiang in the South. The entrance to the Si-Kiang is controlled by the British port of Hongkong; to the...
Page xvii - Corn is a much more bulky commodity than butcher's meat. A pound of wheat at a penny is as dear as a pound of butcher's meat at fourpence. The small quantity of foreign corn imported even in times of the greatest scarcity, may satisfy our farmers that they can have nothing to fear from the freest importation.
Page 450 - States the climate is like that of the Mediterranean region, the summer nearly rainless, the winter mild. Gold, which first attracted a large population to this part of the world, is still an important product; but the fine Californian valley, watered by the Sacramento in the north and the San Joaquin in the south, now teems with -wheat, maize, wine, and southern fruits.
Page 423 - Britain ; but in 1867 a union was formed called the DOMINION OF CANADA. Each of the seven provinces — Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia — now has a government of its own, as our states have ; but by their union they also have a central government with the capital at OTTAWA, which corresponds to our capital at Washington. Besides these provinces, there are four organized territories : Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Athabasca...
Page 71 - ... four and a half to seven months long, without frost, the middle portion hot both day and night, sunny skies, sufficient rain to supply the demand of a rapidly growing and luxuriant crop, falling at such intervals as to best provide moisture without ever making the land actually wet.

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