aits, and fiords,[1031] in contrast to the smoother,
unified course of history in the more uniform England. Carl Ritter
compares the dull uniformity of historical development and relief in
Africa with the variegated assemblage of highlands and lowlands, nations
and peoples, primitive societies and civilized states in the more
stimulating environment of Asia.[1032]

[Sidenote: Homologous relief and homologous histories.]

The chief features of mountain relief reappear on a large scale in the
continents, which are simply big areas of upheaval lifted above sea
level. The continents show therefore homologous regions of lowlands,
uplands, plateaus and mountains, each district sustaining definite
relations to the natural terrace above or below it, and displaying a
history corresponding to that of its counterpart in some distant part of
the world, due to a similarity of relations. This appears first in a
specialization of products in each tier and hence in more or less
economic interdependence, especially where civilization is advanced. The
tendency of conquest to unite such obviously complementary districts is
persistent. Hence the Central Highland of Asia is fringed with low
peripheral lands like Manchuria, China, India and Mesopotamia, into
whose history it has repeatedly entered as a disturbing force. All the
narrow Pacific districts of the Americas from Alaska to Patagonia are
separated by the Cordilleras from the lowlands on the Atlantic face of
the continents; all reveal in their history the common handicap arising
from an overwhelming preponderance of plateau and mountain and a paucity
of lowlands. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have in the past century been
stretching out their hands eastward to grasp sections of the bordering
Amazon lowlands, where to-day is the world's great field of conflicting
boundary claims. Chile would follow its geographical destiny if it
should supplement its high, serrated surface by the plateaus and
lowlands of Bolivia, as Cyrus the Persian married the Plateau of Iran to
the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, and Romulus joined the Alban
hills to the alluvial fields of the Tiber.

[Sidenote: Anthropo-geography of lowlands.]

Well-watered lowlands invite expansion, ethnic, commercial and
political. In them the whole range of historical movements meet few
obstacles beyond the waters gathering in their runnels and the forests
nourished in their rich soils. Limited to 200 meters (660 feet)
ele