Identifier: northamerica00russ (find matches)
Title: North America
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Russell, Israel C. (Israel Cook), 1852-1906
Subjects: North America
Publisher: New York : D. Appleton and Company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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than elsewhere. Theland is there treeless, the indigenous plants are easily killedby fire and by irrigation, the soil is rich, intense sunshinefavours plant growth, and the gathering of harvests is notdelayed or the efforts of industry rendered abortive by rain.Of all portions of the continent, this is the one where resist-ance to human development is least, providing mans ideasare sufficiently advanced to permit him to grasp and put inpractise the art of irrigation. It is reasonable to suppose thatthe Indian there first began to build permanent homes and tocultivate the soil. This hypothesis is sustained in part byhistorical evidence, and in part by the ruins of ancient vil-lages or communal houses, irrigation, ditches, etc. From thiscentre it may be presumed, in the absence of definite proof,that the art of horticulture spread to Central America andthe Mississippi Valley. In spite of the glowing accounts given by certain his-torians concerning the high degree of skill in agriculture
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THE ABORIGINES 3S7 attained by the aborigines of Mexico and Central America,and the extent of their plantations, a conservative balancingof the evidence indicates that they never advanced beyondthe stage of gardening, and that held agriculture, the cul-tivation of orchards, and the domestication of mammalswas practically unknown to them. Houses.—The houses of the primitive Indians, owing tothe various stages in culture attained by different tribes anddifferences in climatic conditions, showed a wide range inmaterial used and in the results obtained. The shelters ofthe wandering tribes and of the village Indians during theirjourneys were usually some form of tent, either composedwholly of boughs or of a framework of sticks over whichskins were spread and secured by thongs. The typical wig-wam consisted of a number of poles from 15 to 18 feet long,lashed together at the top and arranged in a circle some 10feet in diameter at the base, on which a covering of skins,bark, or mats was spr

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