final partition in 1795; Bolivia, Switzerland, and Afghanistan.

II. Peripheral location: Ancient Phoenicia; Greek colonies in Asia
Minor and southern Italy; the Roman Empire at the accession of
Augustus; the Thirteen Colonies in 1750; island and peninsula
lands.

III. Scattered location: English and French settlements in America
prior to 1700; Indians in the United States and the Kaffirs in
South Africa; Portuguese holdings in the Orient, and French in
India.

IV. Location in a related series: Oasis states grouped along desert
routes; islands along great marine routes.

[Sidenote: Continuous and scattered location.]

All peoples in their geographical distribution tend to follow a social
and political law of gravitation, in accordance with which members of
the same tribe or race gather around a common center or occupy a
continuous stretch of territory, as compactly as their own economic
status, and the physical conditions of climate and soil will permit.
This is characteristic of all mature and historically significant
peoples who have risen to sedentary life, maintained their hold on a
given territory, and, with increase of population, have widened their
boundaries. The nucleus of such a people may be situated somewhere in
the interior of a continent, and with growing strength it may expand in
every direction; or it may originate on some advantageous inlet of the
sea and spread thence up and down the coast, till the people have
possessed themselves of a long-drawn hem of land and used this