Note 12 — Chapter I · —The Operation Of Geographic Factors In History

In England conditions were much the same, and from the sixteenth century produced there a predominant maritime development which was due not solely to a long indented coastline and an exceptional location for participating in European and American trade. Its limited island area, its large extent of rugged hills and chalky soil fit only for pasturage, and the lack of a really generous natural endowment,12 made it slow to answer the demands of a growing population, till the industrial development of the nineteenth century exploited its mineral wealth. So the English turned to the sea—to fish, to trade, to colonize. Holland's conditions made for the same development. She united advantages of coastline and position with a small infertile territory, consisting chiefly of water-soaked grazing lands. When at the zenith of her maritime development, a native authority estimated that the soil of Holland could not support more than one-eighth of her inhabitants. The meager products of the land had to be eked out by the harvest of the sea. Fish assumed an important place in the diet of the Dutch, and when a process of curing it was discovered, laid the foundation of Holland's export trade. A geographical location central to the Baltic and North Sea countries, and accessible to France and Portugal, combined with a position at the mouth of the great German rivers made it absorb the carrying trade of northern Europe.13 Land and sea coöperated in its maritime development.