e winter, and whose
winters give both motive and energy for the summer's work, are richer in
cultural possibilities and hence in historical importance.

[Sidenote: Effects of contrasted seasons.]

The advantage of the Temperate Zone is not only its moderate and
adequate allowance of heat, but its contrast of seasons. Beyond the
range of a vertical sun, grades of temperature change rapidly from
latitude to latitude and from summer to winter. The seasons bring
variety of activities, which sharply react upon one another.
Manufactures were in their origin chiefly winter industries, as they
still are in small isolated communities. The modern factory system
flourishes best in cooler parts of the Temperate Zone, where the
agricultural demands of the summer, spreading over a shorter period,
leave a longer time for winter work, and where that once long winter of
the Glacial Period, by the scouring action of the ice cap, has reduced
the fertile area of the northern fields. The factory system is also
favored, as Heinrich von Treitschke maintains, by the predominance of
cool or cold weather, which facilitates the concentration of numerous
workmen in large buildings, and renders possible long labor hours the
year round,[1439]--conditions unthinkable in a warm climate. The iron and
steel industries which have grown up about Birmingham, Alabama, find
that the long hot summers and mild winters reduce the efficiency of
their skilled labor imported from the North.

[Sidenote: Effects of length of seasons.]

[Sidenote: Effect of long winters.]

The length of the seasons is of conspicuous importance. It determines,
for instance, whether a given climate permits continuous field work with
summer and winter crops, whether field work is possible at all, and how
long it is interrupted by excessive cold. Buckle maintains that climate
not only enervates or invigorates man, but affects also the constancy of
his work and his capacity for sustained labor throughout the year. He
considers "that no people living in a very northern latitude have ever
possessed that steady and unflinching industry for which the inhabitants
of temperate regions are remarkable" and assigns as a reason "that the
severity of the weather, and, at some seasons, the deficiency of light,
render it impossible for the people to continue their usual out-of-door
employments." The result of this he finds to be desultory habits of
work, which help to make the national character