+526+. In North America the variety of climatic and other economic conditions might lead us to expect clear testimony as to the relation between these conditions and totemic development; but the value of such testimony is impaired by the absence of information concerning early forms of organization. In the period for which there are details it appears that in the Eastern groups (Iroquois, Algonkin, Creek, Natchez, Siouan, Pueblo) the effective rôle of totemism is in inverse proportion to the development of agriculture and to stable civil organization: there are clans bearing the names of animals and other objects, with mythical stories of descent from such objects, and rules of exogamy, but the civil, political, and religious life is largely independent of these conditions; there are great confederations of tribes with well-devised systems of government that look to the well-being of the whole community, the clan-division being of small importance. The mode of life appears to be determined or greatly influenced by climate, though different climatic situations sometimes lead to similar results: agriculture naturally arises from fertility of soil, but the Pueblo tribes have been driven (perhaps under civilized influences), by the aridness of their land, to till the soil. Throughout the East the known facts suggest that a nontotemic organization has followed an earlier form in which quasi-totemic elements are recognizable. +527+. The interesting social organization of the Northern Pacific Coast, on the other hand, appears to be independent of agriculture. The people live by hunting and fishing; families and villages are the important social units; instead of totems there are crests or badges; society in some tribes is marked by a division into classes differing in social rank. The history of all these tribes, however, is obscure: there have been modifications of organization through the influence of some tribes on others; the details of the various social schemes are not all accurately known. The settled village life and the half-commercial, half-aristocratic constitution of society must be referred to racial characteristics and other conditions with which we are not acquainted. As in the East, so here there is the suggestion of a movement away from a form of organization that resembles true totemism. The Northwest has a remarkable system of ceremonies, but in definiteness and elevation of religious conceptions it is greatly inferior to the East.