nomads, returned from Egypt to Canaan with their large flocks and herds,
rivalry for the pastures occasioned conflicts among their shepherds, so
the two sheiks decided to separate. Abraham took the hill pastures of
Judea, and Lot the plains of Jordan near the settled district of
Sodom.[103]

[Sidenote: Geographical mark of low-type societies.]

The larger the amount of territory necessary for the support of a given
number of people, whether the proportion be due to permanent poverty of
natural resources as in the Eskimo country, or to retarded economic
development as among the Indians of primitive America or the present
Sudanese, the looser is the connection between land and people, and the
lower the type of social organization. For such groups the organic
theory of society finds an apt description. To quote Spencer, "The
original clusters, animal and social, are not only small, but they lack
density. Creatures of low type occupy large spaces considering the small
quantity of animal substance they contain; and low-type societies spread
over areas that are wide relatively to the number of their component
individuals."[104] In common language this means small tribes or even
detached families sparsely scattered over wide areas, living in
temporary huts or encampments of tepees and tents shifted from place to
place, making no effort to modify the surface of the land beyond
scratching the soil to raise a niggardly crop of grain or tubers, and no
investment of labor that might attach to one spot the sparse and migrant
population. [See density maps pages 8 and 9.]

[Sidenote: Land and state.]

The superiority over this social type of the civilized state lies in the
highly organized utilization of its whole geographic basis by the mature
community, and in the development of government that has followed the
increasing density of population and multiplication of activities
growing out of this manifold use of the land. Sedentary agriculture,
which forms its initial economic basis, is followed by industrialism and
commerce. The migratory life presents only limited accumulation of
capital, and restricts narrowly its forms. Permanent settlement
encourages accumulation in every form, and under growing pressure of
population slowly reveals the possibilities of every foot of ground, of
every geographic advantage. These are the fibers of the land which
become woven into the whole fabric of the nation's life. These are the
geographic