Note 1412 — Chapter XVII · —The Influence Of Climate

Man ranks among the most adaptable organic beings on the earth. No climate is absolutely intolerable to him. Only the absence of food supply or of all marketable commodities will exclude him from the most inhospitable region. His dwellings are found from sea level up to an altitude of 5000 meters or more, where the air pressure is little over one half that on the coast.1412 Seventeen per cent. of the towns and cities of Bolivia are located at an elevation above 13,000 feet (4000 meters), while Aullagas occupies a site 15,700 feet or nearly 5000 meters above the sea.1413 Mineral wealth explains these high Bolivian settlements, just as it draws the Mexican sulphur miners to temporary residence in the crater of Popocatepetl at an altitude of 17,787 feet (5420 meters), from their permanent dwellings a thousand meters below.1414 The laborers employed in the construction of the Oroya railroad in Peru became rapidly accustomed to work in the rarefied air at an elevation of 4000 to 4800 meters. The trade routes over the Andes and Himalayan ranges often cross passes at similar altitudes; the Karakorum road mounts to 18,548 feet (5,650 meters). Yet these great elevations do not prevent men going their way and doing the day's work, although the unacclimated tenderfoot is liable to attacks of mountain sickness in consequence of the rarefied air.1415