TO THE TEACHER:--The contents of this book are so topicalized and arranged that, if the time for the study is limited, a short course may be selected. Under no circumstances, however, should Chapters V, VI, VIII, IX, XII, and XIII be omitted. A casual inspection of the questions at the end of each chapter will serve to show that they cannot be answered from the pages of the book, and they have been selected with this idea in view. They are intended first of all to stimulate individual thought, and secondly to encourage the pupil to investigate the topics by consulting original sources. The practice of corresponding with pupils in other parts of the world cannot be too highly commended. The following list represents a minimum rather than a maximum reference library. It may be enlarged at the judgment of the teacher. A good atlas and a cyclopaedia are also necessary. Industrial Evolution of the United States. WRIGHT. Charles Scribner's Sons. History of Commerce in Europe. GIBBINS. The Macmillan Company. Discovery of America. FISKE. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The New Empire. ADAMS. The Macmillan Company. Statesman's Year-Book. KELTIE. The Macmillan Company. Outlines of Political Science. GUNTON AND ROBBINS. D. Appleton & Co. The Wheat Problem. CROOKES. G.P. Putnam's Sons. South America. CARPENTER. American Book Company. From the Bureau of Statistics, Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C., the following monographs may be procured:[1] Commercial China. American Commerce. Commercial Australia. Commercial Japan. Commercial Africa. Commercial India. Statistical Abstract. Great Canals of the World. World's Sugar Production and Consumption. The following from the Department of Agriculture is necessary: Check List of Forest Trees of the United States. Lantern slides illustrating the subjects treated in this book may be procured from T.H. McAllister, 49 Nassau Street, New York. Stereoscopic views may be obtained from Underwood & Underwood, Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth Street, New York. COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER I GENERAL PRINCIPLES Commerce and modern civilization go hand in hand, and the history of the one is the history of the other; and whatever may be the basis of civilization, commerce has been the chief agent by which it has been spread throughout the world. Peoples who receive nothing from their fellow-men, and who give nothing in return, are usually but little above a savage state. Civilized man draws upon all the rest of the world for what he requires, and gives to the rest of the world in return. He is civilized because of this fact and not in spite of it.