the alkali salts so commonly present in the arid soils, exert an important effect. It is a well-known fact that on lands slightly impregnated with neutral salts (sodic sulphate and chlorid) crops will succeed without irrigation, when in adjoining tracts destitute of these salts, no crops can be made in dry seasons. Such slightly alkaline tracts will (in the morning especially) appear moist to the eye, when not a vestige of dew can be seen on the non-alkaline lands adjacent. These soils not only retain moisture more abundantly and tenaciously (as is readily shown by determinations of hygroscopic co-efficients before and after leaching), but also condense it from the air more abundantly; and this moisture is to a certain extent available to plants, so that the salts serve as a vehicle of the atmospheric moisture to them. This is probably one of the reasons why the „,saltbushes" prefer alkali soils, and in dry, non-alkaline land respond strongly to irrigation; while indifferent to it when in their natural habitat, and resenting the presence of bottom-water when within a few feet of the surface.

Alkali salts do not usually appear visibly at the surface unless their amount (within four feet) exceeds 2500 pounds per acre. The latter amount, when consisting of neutral salts (white alkali), does not interfere with the welfare of any ordinary crop; and it cannot be doubted that in many cases the succes of non-irrigated crops is due to these small amounts of hygroscopic salts in the land.

While the chemical examination of the four-foot column of soil usually affords a definite clew to the quality of the alkali lands, it is a method not readily available to the farmer desiring to locate upon such tracts. Upon the presumption that the native vegetation must afford definite indications if properly understood, this study has been taken in hand by the California Station, and with very encouraging results from one season's work. It has already been definitely settled what plants indicate, in California, land which under present economic conditions is irreclaimable; while it has been as definitely shown that the presence of certain other plants, known to be tolerant of alkali, indicates that certain crops can be grown successfully. Of course it will take some time to carry these investigations into such detail as is necessary to deal with cases in which the question is a close one; but there is reason to believe that it can be accomplished and that the farmer will thus be enabled to determine, without the aid of the chemist, what are the possibilities as regards reclamation, and the subsequent cultural adaptations, of alkali land covered with certain kinds of natural growth. It goes without saying that the characteristic guiding plants will be different in each climatic region and country, and must be studied in connection with the cultural experience and practice of each. It cannot be

doubted that the abundant supply of plant-food present as a rule in arid soils contributes to the ease with which nutrition proceeds, even in the absence of abundant moisture. Also that the abundance of lime present, tending to maintain flocculation and thus facilitating root penetration and the ready clasping of the soil particles by the root-hairs, is of material advantage. Soil acidity in land that usually shows effervescence with acids is out of the question. The conditions of ready nitrification are supplied both by the earth carbonates, the ready penetration of air, the moderate degree of moisture, and the warmth prevailing in the depths of the soil during most of the year; while the nitrates formed are not wasted by leaching. With a rainfall of 375 mm, from 1000 to 1500 kg of nitrates may be found in a soil; with perhaps an equal amount of water-soluble potash salts. These facts explain why in Ferghana, as v. Middendorf reports, the cultivators consider that ,,the salt is the life of the land“, and actually carry it from strongly impregnated spots to the higher lands as a fertilizer. The same practice has in individual cases been followed in California with good results.

It thus appears that as a whole, the soils of the arid regions should be more highly and lastingly productive than those of the temperate humid climates; and history shows, in accordance with this, that in the past the highest civilization has everywhere developed first in arid countries. The necessity of irrigation, which almost. necessarily implies social cooperation, has doubtless had its share in favoring a higher social development; but the latter could not have persisted in the same countries for thousands of years without soils of exceptionally high resources, so long as agricultural science was unknown.

VII. Int. Geogr.-Kongr. Thl. II.

36

Gruppe IVb. Politische Geographie.

Colonial Administration in different Parts
of the World.

By Poultney Bigelow, M. A., (New York).

(Vormittags-Sitzung vom 3. Oktober.)

This year, 1899, memorable for the International Congress at the Hague, whose noble purpose it has been to make war less frequent and less brutal will be none the less gratefully recorded for the supplementary work of peace entrusted to the great Geographical Congress of Berlin. It has taken centuries of bloodshed to reach the state of comparative civilization we now enjoy. We are just beginning to realise that the whole World is none too big as a white man's country; that what interests one interests all; and that in matters colonial the most important condition to-day is unity amongst the white men, whether these be English or Russian, French or German.

Approaching the subject of administration in this spirit, the historian can, to be sure, record brilliant achievements, but must shudder when noting the vast amount of blood and treasure squandered in far away fights, when a small fraction of the forces employed would have established a great commerce. The philosopher, Franklin, whose maxim was that there never was a righteous war, or a disgraceful peace, was wont to look upon every lump of sugar as stained with blood, because of the long sad years when the great powers of Europe made the West India Islands the object of their ambition.

It is a popular notion to-day shared by no less an authority than the distinguished explorer, Karl Peters, that England is a model Colonizer. I cannot share this view without qualifaction. The Englishman has achieved great things in far away countries, but these achievements have been often in spite of the English Government. Let us then separate in our minds the individuals of a country, organizing by private initiative, from the great machinery of the

State, wich subsequently claims credit for efforts which it did not initiate or control.

In 1620 the political and religious intolerance of the English Government drove out into the wilderness a ship-load of English Protestants. The Mother Country regarded them as no better than aliens, if not traitors. They steered for the Western Continent, but with no definite home in view. They landed, they knew not where, on a rocky shore in the midst of snow and ice dense forests about them and Red Indians their only neighbours for a thousand miles. This was the stuff of which martyrs are made and they founded New England. They were successful because England forgot them. They brought to America the Bible, the Common Law, free schools, and civil liberty. From that little handful has grown an Englishspeaking community reaching from the Gulf of Mexiko to the North Pole, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Had the English Government planted that Colony in 1620, I venture to think that to-day the prevailing language from New York to San Francisco might have been Spanish or possibly French.

One hundred and fifty years passed before England discovered that in America had grown up a Colonial Empire worthy of her attention. This discovery was forced upon her by the Seven Years' War, when the French had colonized not only Canada, and claimed the Mississippi Valley, but had erected forts on the Ohio, at the very gates of Virginia. The English Colonist fought the French Colonist with little concern as to whether he was supporting the interests of Frederick the Great, or of George III. He had become an American in the sense that the Huguenot in South Africa became an Afrikander, if not a Boer. When England officially took practical interest in American affairs it was to levy taxes. It was not heavy taxation; no American quarrelled with the amount, but all Americans united in fighting for the principle that there should be no taxation without representation. England under George III fought her American Colonies for seven years, between 1775 and 1783; she enlisted Red Indians on her side, to say nothing of 30,000 white mercenaries recruited in Germany. She waged war as agaist rebels and drove a wedge between two sections of the Anglo-Saxon family. The American Colonists were little better than armed peasants, and at no time was England seriously menaced at sea. Yet, two complete armies of regulars were compelled to surrender, and England concluded peace from sheer incapacity to make any impression across the Atlantic. Soon afterwards, in 1812, she renewed the war, and carried it on for three years at enormous cost; but this time not only were her best regulars driven back in confusion before New Orleans, but

on the high seas a series of naval duels demonstrated the fact that Yankees could build good ships; arm them well, and fight them so as to evoke the praise of the Mother Country.

Thus in less than half a century England devoted ten years to fighting unsuccessfully her most valuable colony. Throughout these struggles however America had many friends in the British Parliament. It was civil war as between Cromwell and the Stuarts, or as later on between the American Slave States and the North. The first two hundred years of English colonization in America are glorious as demonstrating the capacity of intelligent and courageous English Colonists to organize and resist an ignorant and obstinate government. Fortunately for England she was defeated. The moment she accepted that defeat, her commerce with America increased by leaps and bounds and to-day it is an English author (Trevelyan) who gives American readers their best history of the American Revolution.

Canada has profited by England's experience and received very generous treatment almost from the outset. Even to-day the traveller finds the French language all along the lower St. Lawrence and its tributaries, yet those who speak it are loyally English so far as the flag is concerned. Many a time have I entered a Canadian tavern and discussed English politics from English and Canadian points of view with people who spoke only French. It is curious to note that the largest aggregation of French colonists should to-day have their language, their religion, and their local customs guaranteed to them by England.

Canada was

The French went to America under Louis XIV. planted by Government officials, not to say Priests. Even to-day the French Canadian has risen but little above the Brittany peasant whom he resembles. The great tide of western immigration has gone past him to the rich country beyond the Great Lakes. He is another illustration of the degree to which government, political and clerical, can hamper human development.

In the United States it is worth noting that the English language without any government assistance, has taken the place of every other. In the 17th Century the Dutch held New Amsterdam and the Hudson River tributaries. Their language has long ceased to be heard on the American Continent, and their colonial efforts are recalled only by geographical names such as Hoboken, Newdorp, Haarlem, Kaaterskill, Spuyten Duyvil, &c. St. Louis and New Orleans recall the French occupation of the Mississippi River, and though I have talked in French with plantation negroes in Louisiana the French language even there has ceased to be dominant. About half a century ago the Spanish tongue prevailed upon the Pacific sea