Region

“ A territory extending over thirty-six degrees of latitude and thirty-four of longitude—including within its borders some of the finest rivers of the globe,—possessing a soil all but universally fertile, and a climate whose tropical heats are tempered by Atlantic breezes: such a region, of which not one-hundredth part is yet cultivated, presents a splendid field for material progress and future national greatness. ”

“ In contemplating this glorious region, one of the first thoughts that naturally suggests itself is that the early inhabitants must have been, to a great extent, isolated and shut out from all intercourse with their neighbours, by the almost insuperable obstacles which the nature of the country presents to locomotion; and this remark is equally applicable to every part of a country which is unequalled in the variety of its climates and of its general features. ”

“ That this region has been their true home since the first migrations from the south there can be no doubt. Here land and people stand in the closest relation one to the other; here every conspicuous physical feature recalls some popular memory; every rugged crest is associated with the name of some national hero, every lake or stream is still worshipped or held in awe as a local deity, or else the abode of the ancestral shades. ”

“ The prevalent character of the whole range of scenery in the region, and the general impression made by it on the eye and mind, were so vividly conveyed that no one familiar with the country can fail to recognise how faithfully the innermost soul of the West Highlands is rendered. ”

“ Just as in political geography it is found necessary to recognize divisions of different rank and scope, like nation, state, county, township, the facts of zoölogical geography require divisions of different orders of importance. Thus, in descending order, the terms realm, region, subregion, province, etc. are commonly employed, but unfortunately they are often used loosely and even interchangeably ”

“ Geologically severe, this region in geological store is the richest of the continent; physically forbidding beyond all other stretches of North America, the Barren Land alone excepted, in this region lie its gentlest valleys. ”

“ In so wild and so beautiful a region was spent my first day, every sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and building up his individuality. ”

“ In the description of the natural features of a region, little regard is paid to the artificial boundaries of political divisions and subdivisions. Thus, in the treatment of North America, which is preceded by a sketch of North and South America together, each of the general topics, surface, climate, life, etc., is dealt with for the whole continent, the portion of each of these features that becomes the share of one or another country being pointed out later. ”

“ A region which is an industrial unit—as the gold fields of the Klondike district, the iron-bearing tracts to the west of Lake Superior, the wheat-lands of the Red River Valley, the forested lands of the northwest coast, etc.—when divided between two or more countries with different laws is deprived of the advantages that should follow from the natural course of industrial development, and one part or the other suffers in consequence. ”

“ In a region so vast, the differences of climate, soil and general physical character of the country in the various districts are very considerable, and emphasize the necessity of treating certain geographical sub-divisions separately. ”

“ The idea of a country arises only when a nation, either homogeneous or composed of several races, establishes itself in a region the boundaries of which may be defined and defended against aggression from without. Political geography takes account of the partition of the earth amongst organized communities, dealing with the relation of races to regions, and of nations to countries, and considering the conditions of territorial equilibrium and instability. ”

“ The country on our right and left grows a little more broken and away southward are some low hills, the vestiges of former mountainous elevations, curving in an eastward course until they are lost in the distance. The entire region wears an appearance of newness, and [Pg 456] its many pretty towns, villages and country estates dotting its irrigated and now fertile fields renders it more picturesque and pleasing than the exceedingly level lands we recently have observed. ”

“ It has been observed that each one begins in a region, extending themselves through the neighboring regions to which they arrive with relation to their point of origin, which means the transfer of the same culture. ”

“ It is a region where, a few miles from the towns, are great stretches of unknown uplands and forest-clad slopes, unexplored territory side by side with the habitation of some of the most industrious communities of the republic. ”

“ Geologists tell us that they can answer for the modes of life of the people of any extensive district by looking at the geological map of the region. Put a geological map of England before one who understands it, and he will tell you that the inhabitants of the western parts, from Cornwall, through Wales, and up through Cumberland into Scotland, are miners and mountaineers ”

“ This is the region in which you now live. The soil produces many kinds of grains, fruits and vegetables; and animals both wild and domestic abound in great variety. This region is considered most favorable to the progress and perfection of the human race, and in it, around the whole earth, the white man is predominant and master. It embraces most parts of the civilized world of which you have heard or read in ancient or modern times.
The third region is denominated the Tropics, or warmer region, where Summer always prevails, and frost, ice and snow are unknown. ”

“ It may be taken as a postulate of social geography that every region contains the potency of a city or cities, which shall be for that region, here and now, its heaven or its hell. And in the complexity of causes that lead to evolution towards the ideal city or towards its negation, there is a geographical factor awaiting discernment, analysis, comparison with the other factors, and re-synthesis into a synthetic conception. ”

“ In this temperate region there is at present greater commercial and mental activity than elsewhere on the continent, and it is here that the dominant power of the future will be located. Supplementing the agriculture, manufactures, etc., of the temperate belt are the vast forested and fur-bearing regions on the north and the exuberant tropical countries on the south. ”

“ The region is a desert of stones, a solitude with a character of its own, an arid spot, which could only be inhabited by beings who had either attained to absolute nullity, or were gifted with some abnormal strength of soul. ”

“ For richness of vegetable productions and universal fertility of soil it is unequalled on the globe, and offers to our notice a natural region capable of supporting a greater population, and supplying it more completely with the necessaries and luxuries of life, than any other of equal extent. Of this wonderful district we will now describe the principal physical peculiarities. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the frontier of the South extends some distance north of the region with which we are accustomed to associate it, and the real line of demarcation is a natural boundary fixed by certain well-marked geographical features and indicated by the distribution of certain animals and plants. ”

“ The successful penetration of such a region must, nevertheless, have its value, both in a commercial and a geographical sense, as it points out to the future emigrant or settler, those portions of our continent which he should rigorously avoid. ”

“ At a height of two or three thousand feet above the level of the sea a temperate and even cold region is to be found, where the vegetables, fruits, and grain of northern Europe nourish, and the settler or traveller finds the necessity of warm clothing, and the comfort of blazing fires. ”

“ It will certainly be a curious and varied region, far less monotonous than our present English world, still in its thinner regions, at any rate, wooded—perhaps rather more abundantly wooded, breaking continually into park and garden and with everywhere a scattering of houses. ”

“ From this region westward the highlands increase in elevation, the valleys become narrower, steeper and cooler, and the landscape progressively assumes the wilder features which belong to what is distinctly meant by "the mountain country." ”

“ But in the great central region, where there may be some doubt as to the effect of natural causes, who ought to decide the question except the people residing there, who have all their interests there, who have gone there to live with their wives and children? ”

“ Such a region was suited for the gradual development of a vigorous race, capable of reaching to a high state of culture. The different valleys and plateaux are separated by lofty mountain chains or by profound gorges, so that the inhabitants would, in the earliest period of their history, make their own slow progress in comparative isolation, and would have little intercommunication. ”

“ It is a wild and secluded region, and the range which forms it seems to extend for twenty or thirty miles under the sea, where it rises again to the surface, forming a little group of islands, more wild and rugged even than the land. ”

“ This immense region is better known to scientific men in America than is generally supposed. Observations, made for many years by officers of the United States Army on frontier stations, have done much to throw light on this hitherto benighted land ”

“ The magnificent region sloping west from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific being the deepest and also the richest in undeveloped resources. In the production of provisions grains, grasses, and all which proceed from them this great interior region is naturally one of the most important in the world. ”

“ Zoogeography and plant geography are concerned with the division of the earth’s surface into regions possessing individual characteristics in regard to their fauna or flora. The principle of regional division, indeed, has become a leading principle of geographical research, in regard not only to fauna and flora, but to man as well ”

“ It is evident, from this hasty view of the entire continental area, that we have before us precisely the same factors, though on a much larger scale and much more pronounced in character, as are present in the settled Eastern portion, namely, an open grass-covered region bordered by a vast forest. The same conditions hold good as in the case of the smaller areas of field and woodland, and we are not surprised to find differences in life of a corresponding nature. ”

“ Certain wide regions will become specifically administrative and central—the home lands, the mother lands, the centres of education and population, and others will become specifically fields of action. ”

“ If our views of the origin of the several regions are correct, it is clear that no mere binary division—into north and south, or into east and west—can be altogether satisfactory, since at the dawn of the Tertiary period we still find our six regions, or what may be termed the rudiments of them, already established. ”

“ The arrangement of chapters is the same. The first four, treating of the geography, combine as many and accurate details of recent explorers or residents as the proportions of this section will permit. The extra-provincial regions are described from the researches of Russian, English, and Indian travellers of the last twenty years. It is a waste, mountainous territory for the most part and can never support a large population. Great pains have been taken by the cartographer, Jacob Wells, to consult the most authentic charts in the construction of the map of the Empire. ”

“ It is customary to represent the various regions and sub-regions as if they had boundaries as fixed as political frontiers. Such limitations are quite arbitrary, and what is of more importance, they differ in reality according to the class or order of animals with which we happen to deal. ”

“ The country shall be divided into Plano regions based on the potentialities and the geographical, natural, social and human characteristics of the national territory, with a view to its balanced development and taking into account the needs and interests of the populations. ”

“ Geography, Maps, &c. The knowledge of the regions and localities inhabited by mankind, or where colonies are sent, empires founded, is needful to history, in order to understand and treat the events and migrations. The physical configuration of the land, the climates, plains, mountains and streams, have a great influence on civilization and communications. Physical geography is constant and invariable: while civil or ethnographical geography is constantly fluctuating in limits and names. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A few years is insufficient to acquire a particular knowledge of such extensive territories. It yet remains for others to explore, discover, and make known, many of the hidden resources and subjects of interest, with which those remote, new, and peculiar regions, most probably abound. ”

“ Physiographic regions Physiographic regions are based on terrain texture, rock type, and geologic structure and history. The classification system has three tiers: divisions, which are broken into provinces, and some provinces break further into sections. All names are capitalized, not the class ”

“ The region west of the Mississippi continued in the popular mind to be a strange land for which the reports of explorers and travellers did the work of fiction, and Cooper’s Prairie had few followers. ”