Note 1443 — Chapter XVII · —The Influence Of Climate

The dominant continental and central location of Russia enables its climatic extremes to operate with little check. The peripheral location of Scandinavia in the path of the Atlantic winds modifies its climate to a mild oceanic type, and its dominant maritime situation gives its people the manifold resources of a typical coast land. Hence Buckle's estimate of national character in the Scandinavian Peninsula has little basis as to fact or cause. Irregularity of agricultural labor does not mean here cessation of all labor, and hence does not produce the far-reaching effect ascribed to it. Only about one-third of the Norwegian population is engaged in agriculture. The restriction of its arable and meadow land to 3 per cent. of the whole territory, and the fact that a large proportion of the people are employed in shipping and the fisheries,1443 are due to several geographic factors besides climate. The same thing is true of Sweden in a modified degree.