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Show xiv EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION wars, hence the significance of this preliminary description of the routes of travel. The two chapters upon the agricultural products and animal life of North America are also the foundation for many discussions in later volumes of the series, not only because they affected the distribution of the natives and of later settlers, but because they underlie many of our present social and economic problems. The fur trade, the timber supply, the cattle ranges, the areas of profitable cultivation of wheat, corn, cotton, and other staple crops, have been throughout the history of the United States elements of immense importance; and Professor Farrand's summary of the scientific conclusions upon these subjects will serve as a basis for later writers in the series. Physical barriers have been easily overcome, but the human barriers were always more resisting. The special feature of this volume is, therefore, an account of the native Indians. This subject, to which Professor Farrand has given much of his lifei is one upon which there is an immense literature, yetj nowhere a single, brief volume surveying the whole! ground. Professor Farrand has condensed in these) pages the results of scientific investigations which, have gone on for more than half a century, and by which the fleeting records of the civilization of the aborigines have been preserved. One of the most interesting chapters is on the] vexed question of the antiquity of man in North! |
