Creatures of low type occupy large spaces considering the small quantity of animal substance they contain; and low-type societies spread over areas that are wide relatively to the number of their component individuals."[104] In common language this means small tribes or even detached families sparsely scattered over wide areas, living in temporary huts or encampments of tepees and tents shifted from place to place, making no effort to modify the surface of the land beyond scratching the soil to raise a niggardly crop of grain or tubers, and no investment of labor that might attach to one spot the sparse and migrant population.

[See density maps pages 8 and 9.] [Sidenote: Land and state.] The superiority over this social type of the civilized state lies in the highly organized utilization of its whole geographic basis by the mature community, and in the development of government that has followed the increasing density of population and multiplication of activities growing out of this manifold use of the land.

Sedentary agriculture, which forms its initial economic basis, is followed by industrialism and commerce.

The migratory life presents only limited accumulation of capital, and restricts narrowly its forms.

Permanent settlement encourages accumulation in every form, and under growing pressure of population slowly reveals the possibilities of every foot of ground, of every geographic advantage.