The higher culture, anything above the mere fight for life, can find a place only when it is possible, through accumulated wealth, to call a truce in that fight. The leisure so obtained may not be, generally is not, employed to that higher end; but without it the effort remains impossible. Anthropo-geography, therefore, is primarily a branch of economics, not of ethnology. It affects the ethnic mind only indirectly, and not at all through the action of any laws of its own. It is a vital factor in the production of tribal or national wealth, but in no way influences the use which the tribe or nation may make of that wealth; while this is the only question with which the ethnologist or the historian of human culture is primarily concerned. With this perfectly clear understanding on the real bearings of the much-talked-of “geographic environment,” I shall proceed to review its leading divisions. Such a conclusion will not be favoured by those writers who teach that the surroundings exert in some manner an inspiring or a depressing effect on the mind, and that this reflects itself in the ethnic character. What! they will exclaim; are we to count for nothing the sweet meads, the sparkling waters, the glory of the landscape, and the hues of the flowers? The grandeur of the forest, the sublimity of beetling crags, the solemn expanse of the ocean,—are these of no avail in impressing the souls that see them with exalted aspirations and fervently stimulating the imagination?— Alas! “The hand of little use has the daintier touch,” and lifelong familiarity with the most beautiful scenes of nature reduces to zero the stimulus which they are capable of yielding to others. Wordsworth held the other view and could sing: The thought of death sits easy on the man Who has been born and dies among the mountains. But it is obvious, on reading the note in which he explains the source of his observation, that it was their social culture, not their local habitation, which imparted this seeming indifference to the peasantry. Precisely the same indifference to death among their congeners in France was noted long before by Montaigne. There are three chief economic factors, derived from geographic surroundings, which decide the material welfare of a human group on any part of the earth’s surface. They are: 1.—The distribution of the surface land and water. 2.—The character of the soil with reference to productiveness, in the mineral, floral, and faunal realms. 3.—Its salubrity for man. These favour or oppose the three essential desiderata for human progress, to wit: 1.—Intercommunication. 2.—Abundant nutrition and materials for the arts. 3.—Bodily health.