Not all peoples have the necessary intelligence and training at first to adapt themselves to their environment. For the greater part, the American Indians were unable to take advantage of the wonderful resources of the continent in which they lived. The Boers occupied about the richest part of Africa, but made no use of the natural wealth of the country beyond the grazing industry; in fact, their nomadic life reduced them to a plane of civilization materially lower than that of their ancestors. People of the highest state of civilization do not always adjust themselves to their environment readily. The people of the New England plateau were nearly a century in learning that they possessed nearly all the best harbors of the Atlantic coast of North America. When, however, the great commerce of the country had been wiped out of existence, it did not take them long to readjust themselves to the industry of manufacture, the water-power being the natural resource that made the industry profitable. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION Were the middle Atlantic coast of the United States to undergo an elevation of 100 feet, what would be the effect on New York City? Find the factors that led to the settlement of the city or town in which or near which you live. What caused the settlement of the three or four largest towns in the same county?--of the following places: Minneapolis, Fall River, New Haven, New Bedford, Cairo (Ill.), Cairo (Egypt), Marseille, Aix-la-Chapelle, Alexandria (Egypt), Washington (D.C.), Columbus (O.), Johannesburg (Africa), Kimberley (Africa), Albany (N.Y.), Punta Arenas (S.A.), Scranton (Pa.), Vancouver (B.C.), San Francisco, Cape Nome? What circumstances connected with commerce led to the passing of the following-named places: Palmyra, Carthage, Babylon, Genoa, Venice, Ancient Rome, Jerusalem? COLLATERAL REFERENCE Any good cyclopaedia. CHAPTER VIII THE CEREALS AND GRASSES Of all the plants connected with the economies of mankind the grasses hold easily the first place. Not only are the seeds of certain species the chief food of nearly all peoples, but the plants themselves are the food of most animals whose flesh is used as meat. Wheat, maize, and rice are used by all except a very few peoples; and about all the animals used for food, fish and mollusks excepted, are grain eaters, or grass eaters, or both. The grasses of the Plains in Texas, the Veldt in South Africa, and the hills of New Zealand by nature's processes are converted into meat that feeds the great cities of western Europe and the eastern United States. The corn of the Mississippi valley becomes the pork which, yielded from the carcasses of more than forty million swine, is exported to half the countries of the world. Even the two and one-half billion pounds of wool consumed yearly is converted grass.