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Ellsworth Huntington Quotes


A journey of four hundred and thirty miles can be made in any part of the United States, but in Turkey it takes as many days.

According to the now almost universally accepted theory, all the races of mankind had a common origin.

After washing there was no place to pour the water except out of the window onto the heads of the people in the streets, which is the proper place to throw everything that is not wanted.

Again and again, to be sure, on the way to America, and under many other circumstances, man has passed through the most adverse climates and has survived, but he has flourished and waxed strong only in certain zones.

Although farming of any sort was almost as impossible in the plains as in the dry regions of winter rains farther west, the abundance of buffaloes made life much easier in many respects.

Although mountains may guide migrations, the plains are the regions where people dwell in greatest numbers.

America forms the longest and straightest bone in the earth's skeleton.

America is the last great goal of these migrations.

As a matter of fact, an ordinary desert supports a much greater variety of plants than does either a forest or a prairie.

Curiously enough man's body and his mind appear to differ in their climatic adaptations.

Except on their southern borders the great northern forests are not good as a permanent home for man.

Fertile soil, level plains, easy passage across the mountains, coal, iron, and other metals imbedded in the rocks, and a stimulating climate, all shower their blessings upon man.

For the source of any characteristic so widespread and uniform as this adaptation to environment we must go back to the very beginning of the human race.

From first to last the civilization of America has been bound up with its physical environment.

Geologists are rapidly becoming convinced that the mammals spread from their central Asian point of origin largely because of great variations in climate.

History in its broadest aspect is a record of man's migrations from one environment to another.

In America the most widespread type of forest is the evergreen coniferous woodland of the north.

In fact, the history of North America has been perhaps more profoundly influenced by man's inheritance from his past homes than by the physical features of his present home.

It seems strange that almost no other traces of the strong vikings are found in America.

Man could not stay there forever. He was bound to spread to new regions, partly because of his innate migratory tendency and partly because of Nature's stern urgency.