they are perhaps the most usable geographies in the market, both from the standpoint of pupil and teacher. Both books are to be complimented for their order of arrangement and for the interesting tone in which they are written.

In the primary book sufficient emphasis has not been placed upon home geography to allow the pupil to use his ideas, gained at first hand, to be the basis of further study of foreign conditions. The manner of heating the earth is well given and the conclusions and effects well applied. The relief maps are confusing for they are not clear cut. On the whole the illustrations are poor, because their proportions are not true and because they are many times drawn from ideal rather than actual conditions. The maps are good. Above all, the book is to be complimented for the rational way in which the commercial and human sides of the science have been brought out. Much more could have been suggested as to how the pupil should be taught to reason out conditions, but the book is a laudable attempt in the right direction.

The most striking feature of the grammar school book is the division into two parts (not sold separately); one part containing the text and the other the maps and illustrations. Such a division is most commendable, for most of the grammar school geographies hitherto published have been too heavy for ready use and transpor tation by pupils. In part II. are grouped all the illustrations except certain small maps and sketches in the text. The maps are good but the special state maps have too many unnecessary names and too few commercial details. They thus seem dead. The illustrations are usually well chosen and well grouped, though perhaps foreign countries might have well been represented more fully as to their topographic conditions. It is to be regretted that the form of reproduction adopted was such as to blurr details and to take much from the beauty and meaning of the pictures.

In the text the subject matter is excellent and on the whole well arranged. The books open with too many unrelated definitions, which could be much simplified had the phenomena been described in their relation in space and time to other similar phenomena. It is to be regretted that the author has not followed the modern classification of land forms which, with only a little introduction of a physical nature, is readily and eagerly grasped

by the average pupil above the third grade. As in the smaller book the consideration of climate is good and the commercial and human aspects of the subject excellent.

One criticism that can be applied to many books besides the one in hand is in regard to the manner of quoting references. The list given is a well selected and valuable one, but the prices and publishers are not given as they should be in all books. Teachers far removed from other sources of information would find great assistance, in ordering books for collateral reading, could they have these necessary details all in one reference.

On the whole Dr. Tarbell has done his task well and has answered the requirements of the Committee of Fifteen more perfectly than anyone else. We may repeat, as the best compliment that can be given, that the books are readily usable by both teachers and pupils, and this is unfortunately not true of all the newer books on this subject.

The Connecticut and Rhode Island State Maps.-Prof. Wm. M. Davis of Harvard University has prepared two reports upon the State Maps of Connecticut and Rhode Island as aids in the study of geography in grammar and high schools. These reports can be secured from Charles D. Hine, Room 42 Capital, Hartford, Conn., for Connecticut; and Thomas B. Stockwell, 104 North Main street, Providence, R. I., for Rhode Island.

Each report describes the plan of the state map, gives suggestion for the study of local areal features, taking up the primary geographic forms in detail and considering their relation. Final paragraphs consider the relation of man to the physical features of the state and suggestions are offered for further observation in a similar line.

These reports should be in the hands of every geography teacher in the states treated. The author is willing to supply a limited number of these reports on application.

New York State Map.-Professor Davis has also prepared a report on the New York State Map similar to above for Connecticut and Rhode Island. This report is published by the Regents of the University of the State of New York, and will be sold for five cents a copy, when issued. It is promised for January 1, 1897, and application therefore should be made to the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, Albany, N. Y.

THE

JOURNAL OF SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY

A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF THE COMMON-SCHOOL TEACHER OF GEOGRAPHY.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.

One dollar a year in advance. Single copies 15 cents. Subscriptions should be sent to the Journal of School Geography, 41 North Queen Street. Lancaster, Pa.

Mss. intended for publication, books, etc., intended for review, and all correspondence, except concerning subscriptions, should be sent to the reponsible editor, Richard E. Dodge, Teachers College, 120th Street West, New York City.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE APPALACHIAN BARRIER UPON COLONIAL HISTORY.

History shows us by repeated instances that the geographical conditions most favorable for the early development of a people are such as secure to it a certain amount of isolation. For this reason, a highly articulated continent like Europe has proved a forcing-house for nations. Almost every people there has grown up, shut off from its neighbors by barriers of mountain or sea. Confined to a limited area, protected from without by bulwarks of nature's own making, population increased rapidly and civilization moved with strides under the strongly interactive life. The people soon filled out their natural territory, then began to crowd it, pressing upon the limits of subsistence, and perfecting their political and social organization in the effort to avoid the friction incident to greater density of population. Local life grew in intensity and the sense of statehood was early developed. An increasing industrial and commercial activity endeavored to supply from abroad the deficit of food for the growing number of consumers; while the population, already redundant, began to expand beyond its natural environment and overflow into other lands.

Of the three leading colonizing nations which came to North America from Europe, one happened to discover and settle the

only part of this continent which could afford geographic isolation in any way approximating that which it had enjoyed in Europe. That people were the English. At the end of the first century of permanent settlement they found themselves in possession of a narrow strip of coast, shut off from the interior of the country by an almost unbroken mountain wall. Sea and water-shed drew their boundary lines, and constituted at the same time their frontier defences. Only one border was really open, that to the south along the Spanish possessions in Florida. The English were therefore in a naturally defined area, isolated enough to lend them the protection and cohesion which colonial life so much needs, affording the long line of coast which could give to this maritime people its most favorable environment, large enough for growth and strength, but small enough to secure concentration and to guard against the evils of excessive expansion. Beyond this seaboard country lay the great valley of the continent, shut in by the upheaved masses of the Appalachian and Rocky Mountain systems, a vast basin unbroken save by the faint traceries of its winding streams. Here nature offered no obstruction, afforded no protection. The two natural highways into this country, the St. Lawrence on the east and the Mississippi to the south, came, by the chance of discovery and exploration, into the hands of the French, and consequently gave them control of this extensive territory. It proved, however, too large for them to hold; the very extent of it scattered their population, tempted to the adventurous, half-nomadic occupation of the fur trader rather than the sedentary life of the colonist. Here were seen fortified trading-posts instead of the agricultural villages which dotted the seaward slope of the Alleghanies.

The beginning of English colonial enterprise in the New World followed right on the heels of the loss of Calais. The idea of a balance of power was even then looming up in the national consciousness. For England the hope of regaining her continental possessions had gone glimmering. Her only chance now was to make the loss good in foreign lands; hence the government encouraged all colonizing ventures. The small island kingdom was already experiencing the evils of over-crowding. The people who came to the New World realized that here was a chance to make

a living; and in so far their motive was wholesomely selfish. They went to work accordingly to get an industrial hold on American soil. The narrow strip of land between the Atlantic and the mountains favored and strengthened their purpose. The Appalachian barrier narrowed their horizon and shut out the great beyond; it took away the temptation to wide expansion which was defeating the political aims of the Spanish and the French and transformed the hunter into the farmer, the gentleman adventurer into the tobacco grower. Territory that is held industrially in all its extent is held strongly. The less dispersed the population, the fewer are the avenues for invasion and the more solid is the front which the country presents to attack. The mountain wall gave to the thirteen colonies a certain solidarity which they would not have otherwise possessed-a solidarity which fought for them in the Revolution.

The Appalachian system which presented such an insuperable barrier to the early colonists extends from the Saddleback Mountains of Maine to the pine covered hills of Georgia. It consists in general of parallel ranges, altogether some three hundred miles in width, which stretch along with only one considerable break in all their length of thirteen hundred miles. A mantle of primæval forest, with a singularly dense undergrowth, contributed further to make them impassable. The backwoodsman had fairly to carve a path for himself through this wall of living green. In consequence, the tidewater country had its long established colonies before anything of the mountains was known. The rivers flowing down the eastern slope were not navigable and, therefore, did not afford ready access into the interior; but when followed to their head waters they were found to disclose excellent passes. This was especially true of the southern portion of the system, but even here the disposition of the passes involved long, circuitous routes to reach the western slope; for one range passed, the next one presented a similar barrier and the longitudinal valleys in between had to be traversed before another gap could be found. These trough-like valleys, therefore, became natural highroads and had a pronounced effect in the distribution of the population when it finally began to move towards the West. The Scotch-Irish emigrants from Pennsylvania found themselves landed in western Virginia and Kentucky; and those