HANDBOOK 
OF 
COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY 
INTRODUCTION 
1. The great geographical fact on which commerce depends is that 
lifferent parts of the world yield different products, or furnish the same 
products under unequally favourable conditions. Hence there are two 
great results of commerce; the first, to increase the variety of com- 
modities at any particular place ; the second, to equalise more or less, 
according to the facilities for transport, the advantages for obtaining 
any particular commodity in different places between which commerce 
is carried on. Among the difficulties of transport to be overcome we 
here include all the profits necessarily levied in the transference of 
goods from hand to hand (profits of exchange). 
2. The variety of products in different places is due either to arti- 
icial production, whether by cultivation or manufacture, or to original 
distribution. The original distribution of minerals of economic value 
's an important matter for consideration in commercial geography, 
but under this head we must consider, not merely the latitude and 
longitude of the place of occurrence, but all the varied conditions, local, 
political, or historical, which help to render mineral deposits commer- 
cially available. Original distribution under the same provisos is like- 
wise the prime consideration in the case of forest products, where the 
forests have not been planted by the hand of man. 
3. In the case of cultivated products, soil and climate are considera- 
tions of first importance in determining the variety obtaining at different 
places. But even with reference to such products these are not the 
sole considerations. Facilities for finding a market, and all the condi- 
tions that affect these facilities, have also to be taken into account, 
4. The cost, in labour, of bringing goods from one part of the world 
bo another has been greatly reduced since the time of the earliest 
ommerce of which we can get a glimpse. On the whole. there has