Note 614 — Chapter X · —Man's Relation To The Water

The fact that the earliest civilizations have originated in the sub-tropical rainless districts of the world has been ascribed solely to the regular and abundant returns to tillage under irrigation, as opposed to the uncertain crops under variable meteorological conditions; to the consequent accumulation of wealth, and the emancipation of man for other and higher activities, which follows his escape from the agricultural vicissitudes of an uncertain climate. When Draper says: "Civilization depends on climate and agriculture," and "the civilization of Egypt depended for its commencement on the sameness and stability of the African climate," and again, "agriculture is certain in Egypt and there man first became civilized,"614 he seizes upon the conspicuous fact of a stable food supply as the basis of progress, failing to detect those potent underlying social effects of the inundations—social and political union to secure the most effective distribution of the Nile's blessings and to augment by human devices the area accessible to them, the development of an intelligent water economy, which ultimately produced a long series of intellectual achievements.615