COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY. Com mercial geography is the study of the ex changes of merchandise between the geographic sections of the world. Nature has greatly diversified the productions of the globe. Trop ical growths for example differ in quality from those of the temperate zones and those of the mountain regions differ from those of the plains. Certain areas are especially fitted to produce foodstuffs, others manufacturing ma terials and in still others, the circumstances of population, transportation and supplies of raw material and fuel have developed great manu facturing industries. Commercial geography studies these conditions and notes the produc tion of each area, and the interchanges present and possible. It is in fact a study of the geography of commerce.
The great improvement in facilities of transportation, communication and production which have characterized recent years, has stimulated the study of commercial geography. World international commerce has made its chief growth in the life time of the present generation. It was but $4,000,000,000 in 1850, $10,000,000,000 in 1870, 000,000,000 in Bap and then jumped to $40,111,000,000 in 1913, the year preceding the great European War, which disarranged the commerce of the entire world and especially that of the great European coun tnes, the world's largest importers and ex porters. International trade quintupled in the half century, 18.50 to 1900, and then doubled again in the 13 years 1900-13. The per capita of international commerce taking the entire world population, averaged in 1850 $4 per capita, in 1900 $13 per capita, and in 1913 $24 per capita.
This growth in international trade is, of course, very unevenly divided arnong the vari ous countnes and (geographical sections of the world. The United States for example doubled its saks to Europe from 1900 to 1915, and doubled its purchases from that continent from 1900 to 1914, and this is true in a general way of its trade with Asia, Africa and South America. Equally striking is the fact that the United States' imports of tropical and sub tropical products, including those from island possessions, grew from $335,000,000 in 1900 to $1,060,000,000 in 1916, having thus actually trebled in value in the short 16-year period, and this is a mere illustration of the grow ing demand of the temperate zones upon the tropical world. The international trade
of the United States averaged $15 per capita in 1850, and $43 per capita in 1913. The international trade of all the countries forming the continent of Europe averaged $10 per capita in 1850, and $54 in 1913; that of the countries of the North American continent averaged $11 per capita in 1850, and $45 in 1913; that of the countries forming the con tinent of Asia 69 cents per capita in 1850, and $4.64 per capita in 1913. The contrast in com mercial conditions in the different countries is illustrated by the fact that the commerce of China in 1916 averaged $1.63 per capita of its population, and that of Japan, which lies just alongside $1120 per capita in the same year. Commercial geography studies these currents and cross-currents of trade, and seeks to de termine the underlying causes of the contrasts and dianges which these studies disclose.
Nature divided the land area of the globe into two great land masses stretching from the Arctic regions of the north to the Antarctic at the south. Then she across-sectionedo these by climatic belts, thus multiplying the ex changeable qualities of the products of their respective areas. America stretches in a con tinuous land mass from above the Arctic circle at the north to within a comparatively short distance of the Antarctic circle at the south. The continent of Eurasia, which we improperly divide into Europe and Asia, stretches in a continuous land mass from above the Arctic circle well into the tropics, and then by one southern extension, Africa, extends well into the south temperate zone, while its eastern limb, the Malayan Peninsula, with the co-operation of the chain of islands extending to Australia, stretches well into the south temperate zone. These two great masses, America on the one hand and Eurasia with its southern extensions on the other, are separated by two great oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific, thousands of miles in width, while climatic conditions cross section each into a half dozen distinct belts, Arctic and Antarctic, north temperate and south temperate, tropical and sub-tropical.