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THE 
 
 EARTH AND MAN: 
 
 LECTURES ON 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, 
 
 in its 
 
 RELATION TO THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. 
 
 BY 
 
 ARNOLD GrUYOT, 
 
 LATE PROF. OP PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY, AT NEUCHATEL, SWITZERLAND. 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, BY 
 
 C. C. FELTON, 
 
 PROFESSOR IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Our Earth is a star among the stars ; and should not we, who are on it, prepare 
 ourselves by it for the contemplation of the Universe and its Author? — Carl Ritter. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION, REVISED. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 GOULD AND LINCOLN, 
 
 59 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 
 1 852. 
 
r 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, 
 By Gould, Kendall & Lincoln, 
 In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 Stereotyped by 
 HOB ART & ROB BINS; 
 NEW ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDERY, 
 BOSTON. 
 
To C. C. FELTON, Esq., 
 
 Professor in Harvard University, Cambridge. 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 It is to your friendship that I owe the idea and the possibility 
 of publishing this little work in a language not my own. With 
 rare kindness, and a disinterestedness still more rare, you have placed 
 at my disposal your hours of leisure and your skilful and inde- 
 fatigable pen. The book is yours already, and I but renew your title 
 to it by begging you to accept this dedication, as a testimony of 
 my heart-felt gratitude, and at the same time as a souvenir of the 
 long but pleasant hours of labor which you have so kindly shared 
 with me to the last. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 668667 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The lectures contained in the volume here offered to the pub- 
 lic were delivered, by invitation, in French, between the 17th of 
 January and the 24th of February, of the present year. One 
 of the halls of the Lowell Institute, in Boston, was placed, for 
 that purpose, at the author's disposal, by the liberality of the Trus- 
 tee, John A. Lowell, Esq. They were spoken with the help 
 only of a few notes, and were not intended, at the time, for the 
 press. But the publication having been desired by some friends, 
 and requested by the editors of the Boston Daily Traveller, for 
 the columns of that excellent journal, the author determined to 
 write out, the next morning, the lecture of the evening before. 
 These rapid pages, translated, from day to day, by Mr. C. C. Fel- 
 ton, Professor in Harvard University, are collected and reprinted 
 in the present volume. Neither time nor circumstances have per- 
 mitted any important alterations ; the only material additions are 
 found in the first lecture, the last part of which did not appear in 
 the journal, and, at the beginning of the eighth, the portion which 
 treats of the marine currents. This subject, although announced 
 in the programme of the course, it was found necessary, for want 
 of time, to pass over in silence. As to the rest, the lectures have 
 retained their original cast, notwithstanding the incongruity which 
 sometimes happens, of bringing several different subjects into the 
 same discourse. 
 
 1* 
 
6 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 This brief history of the present book will place the reader in 
 a position to form a just opinion of the work, and perhaps will 
 induce him to extend to it some indulgence. 
 
 It will, moreover, be readily understood, that oral instruction 
 is naturally clothed in forms appropriate to itself, which are not 
 those of a systematic and didactic exposition, such as is required 
 by a book intended only for reading, or for the silent study of 
 the closet. In the opinion of the author, it should bring out in 
 strong relief, even by venturing a dash of the pencil somewhat 
 bold, the essential traits of the subject, in order to fix and deepen 
 the impression, while the secondary features are thrown into the 
 shade. Truth, far from losing by this mode, will gain the advan- 
 tage of being grasped in a manner at once more distinct and 
 more correct. For nothing is less indispensable to true science, 
 — may the reader of these pages find it so, — than the scholastic 
 and doctoral robe, which is too often unnecessarily worn. 
 
 This little work is not, then, a treatise on the subject indicated 
 by its title. The author would wish to consider this unforeseen 
 publication only as the forerunner of a more complete work, the 
 materials of which, gradually collected during long years of study, 
 and still daily accumulating, he hopes to arrange, and work out 
 more at leisure, if not in the same form, at least in the same 
 spirit. However, he is confident that the man of science will find, 
 in this first sketch, the traces of serious and matured studies. 
 
 Numerous quotations and references were incompatible with 
 the form of these discourses. The facts, properly so called, are 
 drawn from the common domain of science ; and as to the results 
 that have been deduced from their combination, the author wil- 
 lingly leaves to men versed in the subject the task of distinguish- 
 ing those which may be regarded as constituting a progress in 
 knowledge of the creation, and of its relations to man. 
 
 There are, however, three names so closely connected with the 
 history of the science to which this volume is devoted, and with 
 the past studies of the author, that he feels bound to mention 
 them here. Humboldt, Hitter, and Steffens, are the three great 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 7 
 
 minds who have breathed a new life into the science of the phys- 
 ical and moral world. The scientific life of the author opened 
 under the full radiance of the light they spread around them, and 
 it is with a sentiment of filial piety that he delights to recall this 
 connection, and to render to them his public homage. 
 
 Notwithstanding the praiseworthy care the publishers of this 
 volume have taken to provide it with the maps and drawings 
 necessary to understand the text, the reader will perhaps desire 
 more. He will find them in the Physical Atlas of Berghaus, the 
 most excellent, and almost the only work of the kind, or in the 
 English publications based on it, by J ohnston of Edinburgh, by 
 A. Petermann of London, and others. The explanatory pages 
 give the information necessary for the plates that accompany these 
 sheets. For their execution on stone, the author deems himself 
 happy in having been able to avail himself of the talents of an 
 artist so able and obliging as M. Sonrel. 
 
 Besides Prof. Felton, who has read all the proof-sheets, the 
 author returns his sincere acknowledgments to Professors Agas- 
 siz, Peirce, and Gray, who have had the goodness to revise por- 
 tions of them. 
 
 Few subjects seem more worthy to occupy thoughtful minds, 
 than the contemplation of the grand harmonies of nature and 
 history. The spectacle of the good and the beautiful in nature, 
 reflecting everywhere the idea of the Creator, calms and refreshes 
 the soul. The view of the hand of Providence, guiding the chariot 
 of human destinies, reassures and strengthens our faith. May 
 these unpretending sheets, launched upon the sea of publicity, 
 reach those who feel the need of both, and by them be kindly 
 received. 
 
 Cambridge, Mass., May 1, 1849. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The marked favor with which the public, here and abroad,* 
 have received this essay, imposed on the author the duty of care- 
 fully revising it. But the time of its first appearance is so recent, 
 that no important alterations are to be made. Except a few addi- 
 tions of facts quite recently acquired for science, particularly in 
 the paragraph relating to the sub-marine relief of the basin of the 
 oceans, the work has remained, in substance, what it was. Not 
 so with the translation. The translator, exercising a severer crit- 
 icism than the reader upon his own work, has carefully revised, 
 improved, and corrected it ; and the author seizes this occasion 
 to repeat his thanks for this fresh endeavor to render these sheets 
 more worthy of the public approbation. 
 
 If there is any reward worthy of desire to him who communi- 
 cates his thoughts to his fellow-men, it is that of meeting, in the 
 midst of throngs preoccupied with so many diversified cares, an echo 
 and sympathy. This gratification has not been wanting to the 
 author, and he recalls with gratitude the numerous testimonies he 
 has received from so many quarters. He finds in these mani- 
 festations an encouragement to continue his work, and to prepare 
 a second volume, on the Historical Development of Humanity, 
 which he considers as the necessary complement to the present. 
 
 Cambridge, July, 1850. 
 
 * This volume has been republished in London, by Bentley, and an edition 
 in French is about to appear at Paris. A mutilated edition, called M revised," 
 has also been published by E. Gover, Sen., London, in which many passages, 
 amounting to over thirty pages of the original edition, and essential to the con- 
 tinuity of the argument, or containing conclusions, have been suppressed ; 
 additions have been inserted expressing views not advanced by the author ; 
 alterations have been made, in exceedingly bad English, all without the least 
 intimation in the preface. Against the two first, the author protests ; against 
 the last, the translator. 
 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES AND FIGURES. 
 
 PLATE I. Physical Map of the "World. 
 
 This map, in Mercator's projection, is intended to enable the eye to 
 seize at a glance the great physical features of the surface of the globe. 
 To this end, each particular is indicated by a different color. The 
 color of the ocean forms a ground which clearly defines and brings out 
 the characteristic forms of the continents. The bands of white lines 
 which cross them indicate the course of the marine currents, according 
 to the Physical Map of Berghaus. The arrows mark their direction. 
 In the continents, three colors distinguish the three principal forms of 
 relief from each other. The green tint marks the low lands; the 
 white, the more elevated parts and the table lands ; the brown, the 
 systems of mountains, the borders of the table lands, and the slopes in 
 general. It is easy thus to form by a single glance an idea of the 
 general features of relief of the different countries of the earth. The 
 dotted lines which cross the map are, beginning at the top, the Arctic 
 circle, the tropic of Cancer, and the tropic of Capricorn. The entirely 
 straight line is the Equator. The latitudes are marked in the margin 
 by a line for every 15°. The longitudes in the same way, by 15° East 
 and "West from the meridian of Paris. The two winding lines in the 
 northern half of the map are the isothermal lines of zero Centigrade 
 or 32° Fahrenheit, and of 15° Centigrade or 59° Fahrenheit. All the 
 places situated on these lines, having the same mean annual tempera- 
 ture, set in a clear light the difference of climate between the opposite 
 coasts of the continents, while referring it to the true causes. Every 
 letter has been omitted from this little map, which is intended to be a 
 physical picture, and to speak to the eye. The scale, moreover, 
 scarcely allowed their insertion, and the great features which it repre- 
 sents are so well known that there is no need of naming them. 
 
10 
 
 EXPLANATION. 
 
 PLATES II. AND III. (pp. 60, 61.) 
 
 These plates contain a series of ideal profiles intended to illustrate 
 the general laws of relief of the continents. The profiles comprise 
 each a transverse zone rather than a simple line, which often would 
 have answered but imperfectly the proposed end. The relation of the 
 heights to the horizontal distances would have to be magnified about 
 one hundred times. The numbers placed in the margin, indicate the 
 heights in thousands of feet. The letters placed at the top of the verti- 
 cal dotted lines, are the initials of the names of the principal points 
 contained in the tables ; when the same initial is repeated, the second 
 in the order of the table is marked thus : (' ). The profiles of the massive 
 and entire parts of the continents, comprising the plains and table 
 lands, are distinguished from the heights which surround them, or the 
 mountain chains, by a particular line, by different hatchings, and 
 deeper shading. The peaks, which are merely indicated above the 
 base line, without being connected, are either mountains situated 
 outside of the zone, followed by the profile, as the Carpathian and 
 Mont-Blanc, in Europe, Plate II. profile 5 ; or volcanic peaks, isolated, 
 not affecting the general relief, as the Erdschich, in Asia Minor, Plate 
 II. profile 4 3 the Ararat, in Armenia, Plate III. profile 1. Plate II. 
 profile 3 ; the St. Elias, in North America. 
 
 Plate II. comprises 7 profiles across the three principal continents of 
 the Old "World, in the direction from north to south. In profile 1, 
 Eastern Asia, and profile 6, Africa, the line of horizontal distances 
 being too considerable to be ta-ken into the frame, the profiles are inter- 
 rupted to indicate that one portion of the horizontal line has been 
 suppressed. In the profile of Eastern Asia the portion omitted is 
 almost equal to the less section. In Africa it is much larger still. 
 
 Plate III. comprises the profiles of the New "World, from east to 
 west. No. 2, passing along the line of the Antilles, is necessarily 
 broken. But the gradual increase of the reliefs and their disposition 
 prove that this line ought to be considered in reality continuous, 
 although at some points it is covered by the waters of the ocean. The 
 profiles are arranged in the plates in such a manner as to show, at 
 once, in the vertical line, the increase of the reliefs from west to east 
 in the Old World, and from north to south in the New World. The 
 text itself makes further explanation unnecessary. 
 
EXPLANATION. 
 
 11 
 
 PLATE IV. Map of the Distribution of Rain. 
 
 This map, taken from the Plrysical Atlas of Berghaus, shows the 
 distribution of rain on the surface of the globe. The deeper the color, 
 the greater is the quantity of rain-water indicated ; the deserts are left 
 in white. North and south of the tropics, which are marked by dotted 
 lines, are the regions of continuous, but not abundant rains. Between 
 the tropics, the region of periodical and copious rains. A little north 
 of the Equator a deeper shaded strip indicates the region of calms, 
 where daily thunder storms cause almost throughout the year the fall 
 of a considerable quantity of water. 
 
 PLATES V. AND VI., 
 
 Intended to illustrate the law of the degeneration of the human type 
 in leaving the central region of Western Asia, comprise 16 portraits, 
 all drawn from nature, and taken from the plates of the " Animal 
 Kingdom " of Cuvier, wherever a dilFerent source is not indicated. 
 
 Plate V. First Series. From the central regions of Western Asia, 
 to the extremity of Africa, through Arabia and the eastern coast. 
 
 No. 1. A Circassian, belonging to the suite of the Persian Ambas- 
 sador ; drawn from the life, at Paris, in 1823, by M. A. Colin. 
 
 No. 2. An Arab of Algiers, of the Mozabite tribe ; drawn from life, 
 under the direction of Mr. Milne Edwards, by A. Lordon. 
 
 No. 3. A negro of Mozambique, on the south-east coast of Africa ; 
 drawn from life, in Brazil, by Rugendas. 
 
 No. 4. Joshua Makoniane, an old Bassouto warrior, a convert to 
 Christianity, drawn from life by Mr. Maeder, of the French Mission to 
 South Africa. Journal des Missions Evangeliques de Paris, Vol. XX. 
 
 Second Series. From Europe to tropical Africa, by the western coast. 
 
 No. 5. Portrait of Captain Cook, painted by Dauce, in the gallery 
 of the Naval Hospital at Greenwich. Geographical Almanac of 
 Berghaus. 
 
 No. 6. A Cabyle of Flissa, in Algeria; drawn from life by A. 
 Lordon. 
 
 No. 7. Senegal Chief, after an unpublished drawing by an officer in 
 the expedition of Captain Laplace. 
 
 No. 8. A Negro of Congo j drawn from nature by Rugendas, Voyage 
 Pittoresque au Bresil. 
 
 Plate VI. First Series. 
 
 No. 1. Mongolian type, portrait of one of the Siamese twins, seen 
 in Europe in 1830, after a drawing made from nature, at Paris. 
 
12 
 
 EXPLANATION. 
 
 No. 2. Malay, belonging to the group of the KoutousofF Smolensky, 
 from a plate in the work of Choris, Voyage du Rurick. 
 
 No. 3. New Holland. Portrait of Onrou-Mare ; a warrior of the tribe 
 of the Gwea-Gul, from the Atlas du Voyage aux Terres Australes. 
 
 No. 4. A woman of Van Diemen, from P Atlas de P Astrolabe. 
 
 Second Series. America, from the sources of the Missouri to Terra 
 del Fuego ; and the Polar variety. 
 
 No. 5. Oto Indian, portrait taken from the Travels of Prince Max- 
 imilian of Neuwied. 
 
 No. 6. Coroado Indian, from the banks of the Rio Xipoto, one of 
 the tributaries of the Rio Pomba, in tropical South America, after a 
 portrait published by Spix and Martius. 
 
 No. 7. An inhabitant of Terra del Fuego ; Univers Pittoresque. 
 
 No. 8. Inhabitant of the Aleutian Islands, after Choris - } Voyage of 
 Zotzebue. 
 
 Fig. 1. page 43. Land Hemisphere, and Water Hemisphere. 
 
 Fig. 2. page 106. Europe at the Silurian Epoch. 
 
 Fig. 3. page 108. America at the Coal Epoch. 
 
 Fig. 4. page 111. Europe at the Tertiary Epoch. 
 
 These three last maps, intended to show the gradual increase of the 
 dry lands, do not so much indicate the real contours of the lands exist- 
 ing at those epochs, — this would be impossible, — as the portions 
 which have not since been covered by the waters of the ocean. The 
 white portions are the only dry land. All the portions in ruled lines 
 are under water j but the existing contours of the continents are repre- 
 sented by means of a lighter shade, as a point of comparison. The 
 maps Fig. 2, and Fig. 4, have been constructed after the geological 
 maps of Elie de Beaumont, (in Beant geologie,) Boue, and Dechen ; 
 the map Fig. 3, after the geological map of the United States, by Mr. 
 James Hall, completed by that of Sir Charles Lyell and the geological 
 map of the world, by Boue. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Subject of the course — What should be understood by Geography 
 — Definition of Physical Geography — The life of the globe — Impor- 
 tance of the geographical forms of contour and relief, and of their 
 relative situation — The Earth as the theatre of human societies — 
 Different parts performed by the continents in history — Asia, Europe, 
 America — Inquiry into the analogies of the general forms of the 
 continents 19 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 Recapitulation — Vertical dimensions or forms of relief — Difficul- 
 ties presented by their study — Usefulness of profiles — Great influence 
 of differences of height — Elevations in mass, and linear elevations — 
 Importance of the former — Labors of Humboldt and Ritter on this 
 subject — Examination of the general features of relief of the conti- 
 nents — A great common law embracing them all. . . .49 
 
 2 
 
14 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 Distribution of the table lands, the mountains, and the plains, in the 
 different continents ; the Old World that of plateaus, the New World 
 that of plains — The basin of the oceans j this inquiry completes the 
 study of the plastic forms of the earth's crust — Division and char- 
 acteristics of the oceans ; their contours and their depth — Comparison 
 of the latter with the mean elevation of the continents — Conclusions 
 — Necessity of considering the physiology of the continental forms — 
 Point of view which should be taken — Law of the development of 
 life 73 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Recapitulation — Is the law of development applicable to the whole 
 globe, considered as an individual ? — Origin of the Earth, according to 
 the hypotheses of Laplace and Herschell — Gradual formation of the 
 continents — Europe at the Silurian epoch — North America at the 
 Carboniferous epoch — Character of inferiority of the organized beings 
 which correspond to these ancient formations — Europe at the Tertiary 
 epoch — Greater diversity and perfection of the organized beings — 
 Distinction of the three epochs ; the insular, the maritime, and the 
 continental — The formula of development the same for the entire 
 globe and for the organized beings — Consequences — The law of 
 differences and the law of contrasts — The three grand terrestrial 
 contrasts * 100 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 The North-east or Continental hemisphere, and the South-west or 
 Oceanic hemisphere — Land and water — Differences in the forms of 
 their surfaces — Continental climate and sea climate — Their different 
 influences upon the vegetation and organized beings — The oceanic 
 the inferior element ; the terrestrial element the superior — Blending 
 of the two natures — Transportation of the waters of the ocean into the 
 continents — The atmosphere the mediator between them. . .118 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 15 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 The study of the distribution of the rains supposes that of the 
 winds — Difference of temperature the principal cause of the winds — 
 Theory of the general winds — The winds of the tropical regions 
 
 — Trade winds of the Pacific Ocean — Trade winds of the Atlantic — 
 The monsoons of the Indian seas — The winds of the temperate 
 regions — Two general currents ; the return trade wind, or equatorial 
 wind, and the polar currents — The conflicts of the two, and the 
 variable winds — Lateral displacement of the currents, and their influ- 
 ence upon the temperature, the productions of the soil, and commerce 
 
 — The law of the rotation of the winds — The atmospheric water 
 falling back into rain — Circumstances favorable to the precipitation 
 of vapors — The rains of the tropical zone — The rains in the region 
 of the monsoons — Annual quantity of the rain-water under the 
 tropics — Distribution and annual quantity of the rain in the temperate 
 regions 132 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Modifications of the general laws of distribution of the rains — 
 Decrease of the quantity of rain waters and of rainy days, from the 
 sea-board towards the inlands — Numerous exceptions, and their 
 causes — Influence of the mountains and the table lands in the two 
 worlds — Distribution of rain in South America ; in North America ; 
 in Africa j in Europe ; in Asia ; in Australia — Special hygrometrical 
 character of each continent — Difference between the Old and the 
 New World, corresponding to the nature of their relief — Mixture of 
 the continental and the oceanic element — Influence on organized 
 beings — Superiority of the zone of contact, or the maritime zone. 160 
 
16 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The marine currents — The motion of the seas due to other causss 
 ihan that of the continental waters — Various causes of the marine 
 currents — Differences of temperature the principal, acting indirectly 
 by the winds, directly by the unequal density of the waters — Coinci- 
 dence between the great atmospheric currents and the marine currents 
 — System of general currents — The Equatorial current and the Polar 
 currents — The currents of the Pacific Ocean ; of the Indian Ocean ; 
 of the Atlantic Ocean — Contrast of the Old World and the New — 
 Disposition of their continental masses — Consequences — The Old 
 World the Continental; the New the Oceanic — The first essentially 
 temperate, the second tropical — Special character of the New World — 
 Its structure more simple — Abundance of its waters — Vegetation 
 predominates on the Animal World — Incomplete development of 
 the higher animals — Influence on the indigenous man — Conclu- 
 sions 186 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Geographical characteristics of the Old World — The Continent of 
 Asia-Europe — Comparison of its structure with that of America — 
 The continental climate prevailing in the Old World — Consequences 
 — Vegetation less abundant — Preponderance of the animal world — 
 The Old World the country of the higher and historical races — 
 Reciprocal action of the two worlds by means of man — Establish- 
 ment of the man of the Old World in the New — Historical America 
 compared with Europe — Alliance of the two worlds ; solution of the 
 contrast 219 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 17 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 Contrast of the three continents of the North and the three conti- 
 nents of the South — Physical characteristics of the two groups j the 
 former more articulated, more consolidated, more similar ; the latter 
 more entire, more isolated, more different — These differences and 
 analogies reproduced in the vegetation and the animal world — The 
 three continents of the North temperate ; the three of the South 
 tropical — Superiority of the tropical climate in nature — Gradual 
 increase of life, of the variety and improvement of the types of organ- 
 ized beings, in proportion to the warmth, from the poles to the equa- 
 torial regions — Man alone forms an exception — Law of the dis- 
 tribution of the human races — Geographical centre of mankind 
 marked by the race of the highest perfection — Gradual degeneracy 
 of the human type towards the southern extremities of the continents 
 
 — The geographical distribution of the races of man and the animals 
 founded upon a different principle — Advantage of the temperate 
 climate for the improvement of man 240 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 The continents of the North considered as the theatre of history — 
 Asia-Europe ; contrast of the North and South ; its influence in 
 history j conflict of the barbarous nations of the North with the 
 civilized nations of the South — Contrast of the East and "West — 
 Eastern Asia a continent by itself and complete ; its nature ; the 
 Mongolian race belongs peculiarly to it j character of its civilization 
 
 — Superiority of the Hindoo civilization ; reason why these nations 
 have remained stationary — "Western Asia and Europe; the country 
 of the truly historical races — Western Asia ; physical description j its 
 historical character : Europe — the best organized for the development 
 of man and of societies j America — future to which it is destined by 
 its physical nature. 272 
 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 
 Geographical march of history — Asia the cradle of civilization — 
 Common character of the primitive nations — Powerful influence of 
 nature — The human race in its infancy lives under authority, which 
 becomes slavery — Civilization passes to Europe — Greece ; period of 
 youth ; emancipation, and intellectual and moral development ; action 
 on the East and West ; the Greek the teacher of the world — Rome j 
 her work political and social — Inability of the Ancient "World to 
 attain the end of humanity — Coming of Christ ; his doctrines new in 
 a historical point of view — The Germanic Christian world begins 
 their application — Civilization passes to the North, and embraces 
 all Europe ; its different phases — Europe owes it to the rest of the 
 world — Discovery of America — Universal inroad of the civilized 
 nations — Social work begun at the same time — America must finish 
 it — The people of the future ; by what signs recognized — Conclu- 
 sions — Foreseen solution of the contrast of the three Northern conti- 
 nents and the three Southern — Duties of the privileged races towards 
 the inferior — A few words upon the method pursued — Science and 
 faith 299 
 
THE 
 
 EARTH AND MAN. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Subject of the course — What should be understood by Geography — 
 Definition of Physical Geography — The life of the globe — Impor- 
 tance of the geographical forms of contour and relief, and of their 
 relative situation — The Earth as the theatre of human societies — 
 Different parts performed by the continents in history — Asia, Eu- 
 rope, America — Inquiry into the analogies of the general forms of 
 the continents. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 In asking your attention to a few scientific discourses, 
 in a language not your own, I have not disguised from 
 myself that this circumstance is perhaps a source of 
 embarrassment for some of you, as it certainly is for me. 
 In the communion of mind with mind, in the mutual 
 interchange of ideas, the first condition necessary for 
 establishing between him who speaks and those that 
 hear, the sympathetic harmony which makes its charm, 
 is, that the word shall reach the understanding without 
 obstacle and without effort. 
 
 In my favor you have made the sacrifice of your lan- 
 guage. I need not tell you, that, on my part. I will do 
 
20 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 all in my power to render that sacrifice less irksome ; and 
 I shall always be desirous of giving to those who will 
 do me the favor to ask it, all the explanations which 
 they can require. 
 
 The subject to which I propose to call your attention, 
 is Comparative Physical Geography, considered in its 
 relations to the history and the destinies of mankind. 
 But the term geography has been applied to such dif- 
 ferent things, the use, the misuse rather to which it has 
 been subjected, has rendered it so elastic and ill-defined, 
 that, in order to prevent misconception, I must first of 
 all explain to you what I understand by Geography. 
 
 If, preserving the etymological sense of the word 
 geography, we should, with many authors, undertake to 
 limit this study to a simple description of the surface of 
 the globe and of the beings which are found there, we 
 must at once renounce the idea of calling it by the name 
 of science, in the lofty sense of this word. To describe, 
 without rising to the causes, or descending to the con- 
 sequences, is no more science, than merely and simply 
 to relate a fact of which one has been a witness. The 
 geographer, who thus understands his study, seems to 
 make as little of geography as the chronicler of history. 
 It would be easy to show that even the power of 
 describing well ought to be denied him ; for if he re- 
 nounces the study of the laws which have presided over 
 the creation, over the disposition of the terrestrial indi- 
 viduals in their different orders : if he will take no ac- 
 count of those which have given birth to the phenomena 
 4hat he wishes to describe, soon, overwhelmed beneath 
 the mass of details, of whose relative value he is igno- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 21 
 
 rant, without a guide and without a rule to make a 
 judicious choice in the midst of this infinite variety of 
 partial observations, he remains incapable of mastering 
 them, of grouping them in such a manner as to bring 
 prominently forward those which must give character to 
 the whole, and thus dooms himself to a barren confusion 
 at least ; happy, if, in place of a faithful picture of na- 
 ture, he does not finally profess to give us, as such, the 
 strangest caricature. 
 
 No! Geography- — and I regret here that usage for- 
 bids me to employ the most suitable word, Geology, to 
 designate the general science of which I speak — Geog- 
 raphy ought to be something different from a mere 
 description. It should not only describe, it should com- 
 pare, it should interpret, it should rise to the how and 
 the wherefore of the phenomena which it describes. It 
 is not enough for it coldly to anatomize the globe, by 
 merely taking cognizance of the arrangement of the 
 various parts which constitute it. It must endeavor to 
 seize those incessant mutual actions of the different por- 
 tions of physical nature upon each other, of inorganic 
 nature upon organized beings, upon man in particular, 
 and upon the successive development of human societies; 
 in a word, studying the reciprocal action of all these 
 forces, the perpetual play of which constitutes what might 
 be called the life of the globe, it should, if I may venture 
 to say so, inquire into its physiology. To understand 
 it in any other way, is to deprive geography of its vital 
 principle ; is to make it a collection of partial, unmean- 
 ing facts ; is to fasten upon it forever that character of 
 dryness, for which it has so often and so justly been 
 
22 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 reproached. For what is dryness in a science, except 
 the absence of those principles, of those ideas, of those 
 general results, by which well-constituted minds are 
 nurtured ? 
 
 Physical geography, therefore, ought to be, not only 
 the description of our earth, but the physical science of 
 the globe, or the science of the general phenomena of 
 the present life of the globe, in reference to their connec- 
 tion and their mutual dependence. 
 
 This is the geography of Humboldt and of Ritter. 
 
 But I speak of the life of the globe, of the physiology 
 of the great terrestrial forms ! These terms may per- 
 haps seem here to be misapplied. 
 
 I ask your permission to justify them, for I cannot find 
 better, to express what appears to me to be the truth. 
 
 Far from me the idea of attempting to assimilate this 
 general life of the inorganic nature of the globe to the 
 individual life of the plant or the animal, as some 
 unwise philosophers have done. I know well the wide 
 distance which separates inorganic from organized 
 nature. I will even go further than is ordinarily done, 
 and I will say that there is an impassable chasm be- 
 tween the mineral and the plant, between the plant and 
 the animal, an impassable chasm between the animal 
 and the man. But this nature, represented as dead, 
 and contrasted in common language with living nature, 
 because it has not the same life with the animal or 
 the plant, is it then bereft of all life? If it has 
 not life, we must acknowledge that it has at least the 
 appearances of life. Has it not motion in the water 
 which streams and gushes over the surface of the con- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 23 
 
 tinents, or which tosses in the bosom of the seas ? — in 
 the winds which course with terrible rapidity and sweep 
 the soil that we tread under our feet, covering it with 
 ruins? Has it not its sympathies and antipathies 
 in those mysterious elective affinities of the different 
 molecules of matter which chemistry investigates 7 Has 
 it not the powerful attractions of bodies to each other, 
 which govern the motions of the stars scattered in the 
 immensity of space, and keep them in an admirable 
 harmony ? Do we not see, and always with a secret 
 astonishment, the magnetic needle agitated at the ap- 
 proach of a particle of iron, and leaping under the fire 
 of the Northern light ? Place any material body what- 
 soever by the side of another, do they not immediately 
 enter into relations of interchange, of molecular attrac- 
 tion, of electricity, of magnetism ? The disturbance of 
 the equilibrium at one point induces another elsewhere, 
 and the movement is propagated to infinity. And what 
 will it be, if we rise to the contemplation of all the 
 phenomena of this order together, exhibited by a vast 
 country, by an entire continent ? 
 
 Thus, in inorganic nature likewise, all is acting, all 
 is changing, all is undergoing transformation. Doubt- 
 less this is not the life of the organized being, the life of 
 the animal ; but is not this assemblage of phenomena 
 also a life ? If, taking life in its most simple aspect, we 
 define it as a mutual exchange of relations, we cannot 
 refuse this name to those lively actions and reactions, to 
 that perpetual play of the forces of matter, of which we 
 are every day the witnesses. Yes, gentlemen, it is indeed 
 life, but undoubtedly in a very inferior order of things. 
 
24 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 It is life; the thousand voices of nature which make 
 themselves heard around us, and which in so many 
 ways betray that incessant and prodigious activity, 
 proclaim it so loudly that we cannot shut our ears to 
 their language. 
 
 This general life, this physical and chemical life, be- 
 longs to all matter. It is the basis of the existence of 
 all superior beings, not as the source, but as the condi- 
 tion. It is in the plant, it is in the animal ; only here it 
 is subservient to a principle of higher life of a spiritual 
 nature, of a principle of unity, the mysterious force of 
 which, referring all to a centre, modifies it, 'controls it, 
 and organizes it, for the benefit of an individual. 
 
 Now it is precisely this internal principle of unity 
 belonging to organized nature, which is wanting in in- 
 dividuals of inorganic nature ; and that is the difference. 
 
 In inorganic nature, the bodies are only simple ag- 
 gregations of parts, homogeneous or heterogeneous, and 
 differing among themselves, the combination of which 
 seems to be accidental. Nevertheless, to say nothing of 
 the law that assigns to each species of mineral a par- 
 ticular form of crystallization, we see that every aggrega- 
 tion, fortuitous in appearance, may constitute a whole, 
 with limits, and a determinate form, which, without 
 having anything of absolute necessity, gives to it, how- 
 ever, the first lineaments of individuality. Such are the 
 various geographical regions, the islands, the peninsulas, 
 the continents ; the Antilles, for example, England, Italy, 
 Asia, Europe, North America. Each of these terrestrial 
 masses, considered as a whole, as an individual, has a 
 particular disposition of its parts, of the forms which 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 25 
 
 belong only to it, a situation relatively to the rays of the 
 sun, and with respect to the seas or the neighboring 
 masses, not found identically repeated in any other. 
 
 All these various causes excite and combine, in a 
 manner infinitely varied, the play of the physical forces 
 inherent in the matter composing them, and secure to 
 each a climate, a vegetation, and animal life; in a 
 word, an assemblage of physical characters and func- 
 tions peculiar to it, and really giving it something of 
 individuality. 
 
 It is in this sense that we shall speak of the great 
 geographical individuals, that we shall be able to define 
 them, to indicate their characters, to mark their differ- 
 ences ; in a word, to apply to them that comparative 
 study, without which there is no true science. But let 
 us not forget that these individuals have the cause of 
 their existence, not within, like organized beings, but 
 without, in the very circumstances of their aggregation. 
 Hence, gentlemen, the great importance of external 
 form ; the importance of the geographical forms of con- 
 tour, of relief of the terrestrial surface ; of the relations 
 of size, of extent, of relative position. In considering 
 them simply in a geological point of view, it may appear 
 quite accidental that such a plain should or should not 
 have risen from the bosom of the waters ; that such a 
 mountain rises at this place or that ; that such a con- 
 tinent should be cut up into peninsulas, or piled into a 
 compact mass, accompanied by, or deprived of, islands. 
 When, finally, we reflect that a depression of a few 
 hundred feet, which would make no change in the 
 essential forms of the solid mass of the globe, would 
 3 
 
2G 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 cause a great part of Asia and of Europe to disappear 
 beneath the water of the oceans, and would reduce 
 America to a few large islands, we might he led to the 
 conclusion that the external shape of the continents has 
 but an inconsiderable importance. 
 
 But, in physics, neither of these circumstances is 
 unimportant. Simple examples, without further dem- 
 onstration, will be sufficient to set this in a clear light. 
 
 Is the question of the forms of contour? Nothing 
 characterizes Europe better than the variety of its 
 indentations, of its peninsulas, of its islands. Suppose, 
 for a moment, that beautiful Italy, Greece with its 
 entire Archipelago, were added to the central mass of 
 the continent, and augmented Germany or Russia by the 
 number of square miles they contain ; this change of 
 form would not give us another Germany, but we should 
 have an Italy and a Greece the less. Unite with the 
 body of Europe all its islands and peninsulas into one 
 compact mass, and instead of this continent, so rich in 
 various elements, you will have a New Holland with 
 all its uniformity. 
 
 Do we look to the forms of relief, of height 1 Is it a 
 matter of indifference whether an entire country is lifted 
 into the dry and cold regions of the atmosphere, like the 
 central table land of Asia, or is placed on the level of 
 the ocean ? See, under the same sky, the warm and fer- 
 tile plains of Hindoostan, adorned with the brilliant vege- 
 tation of the tropics, and the cold and desert plateaus of 
 Upper Tubet ; compare the burning region of Vera Cruz 
 and its fevers, with the lofty plains of Mexico and its 
 perpetual spring ; the immense forests of the Amazon. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 27 
 
 where vegetation puts forth all its splendors, and the 
 desolate paramos of the summits of the Andes, and you 
 have the answer. 
 
 And the relative position 1 Do not the three penin- 
 sulas of the south of Europe owe to their position their 
 mild and soft climate, their lovely landscape, their numer- 
 ous relations, and their common life ? Is it not to their 
 situation that the two great peninsulas of India are in- 
 debted for their rich nature, and the conspicuous part 
 one of them, at least, has played in all ages 1 Place them 
 on the north of their continents, Italy and Greece become 
 Scandinavia, and India a Kamtschatka. 
 
 All Europe is indebted for its temperate atmosphere to 
 its position relatively to the great marine and atmos- 
 pheric currents, and to the vicinity of the burning regions 
 of Africa. Place it at the east of Asia, it will be only a 
 frozen peninsula. 
 
 Suppose the Andes, transferred to the eastern coast of 
 South America, hindered the trade wind from bearing 
 the vapors of the ocean into the interior of the continent, 
 and the plains of the Amazon and of Paraguay would 
 be nothing but a desert. 
 
 In the same manner, if the Rocky Mountains bordered 
 the eastern coast of North America, and closed against 
 the nations of the East and of Europe the entrance to 
 the rich valley of the Mississippi; or if this immense 
 chain extended from east to west across the northern 
 part of thi§ continent, and barred the passage of the polar 
 winds, which now rush unobstructed over these vast 
 plains ; — let us say even less : if, preserving all the great 
 present features of this continent, we suppose only that 
 
28 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 the interior plains were slightly inclined towards the 
 north, and that the Mississippi emptied into the Frozen 
 Ocean, who does not see that, in these various cases, the 
 relations of warmth and moisture, the climate, in a word, 
 and with it the vegetation and the animal world, would 
 undergo the most important modifications, and that these 
 changes of form and of relative position would have an 
 influence greater still upon the destinies of human socie- 
 ties, both in the present and in the future ? 
 
 It would be easy to multiply examples ; but I do not 
 wish to anticipate the results that will be brought out 
 by the more exact study of these phenomena, which we 
 are about to undertake. It is enough for me to have 
 opened a view of the important part performed by all 
 these physical circumstances, and the necessity of study- 
 ing them with the most scrupulous care. 
 
 Let us not, then, despise the study of these outward 
 forms, the influence of which is so evident. They are 
 everything in this class of things. 
 
 We shall see all the great phenomena of the physical 
 and individual life of the continents, and their functions 
 in the great whole, flowing from the forms and the rela- 
 tive situation of the great terrestrial masses, placed under 
 the influence of the general forces of nature. 
 
 But, gentlemen, it is not enough to have seized, in this 
 point of view, entirely physical as yet, the functions of 
 the great masses of the continents. They have, others, 
 still more important, which, if rightly understood, ought 
 to be considered as the final end for which they have 
 received their existence. To understand and appreciate 
 them at their full value, to study them in their true point 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 29 
 
 of view, we must rise to a higher position. We must 
 elevate ourselves to the moral world to understand the 
 physical world; the physical world has no meaning 
 except by and for the moral world. 
 ' It is, in fact, the universal law of all that exists in 
 finite nature, not to have, in itself, either the reason ox 
 the entire aim of its own existence. Every being exists, 
 not only for itself, but forms necessarily a portion of a 
 great whole, of which the plan and the idea go infinitely 
 beyond it, and in which it is destined to play a part. 
 Thus inorganic nature exists, not only for itself, but 
 to serve as a basis for the life of the plant and the 
 animal ; and in their service it performs functions of a 
 kind greatly superior to those assigned to it by the laws 
 which are purely physical and chemical. In the same 
 manner, all nature, our globe, admirable as is its arrange- 
 ment, is not the final end of creation ; but it is the 
 condition of the existence of man. It answers as an 
 instrument by which his education is accomplished, and 
 performs, in his service, functions more exalted and more 
 noble than its own nature, and for which it was made. 
 The superior being then solicits, so to speak, the creation 
 of the inferior being, and associates it to his own func- 
 tions; and it is correct to say that inorganic nature is 
 made for organized nature, and the whole globe for man, 
 as both are made for God, the origin and end of all 
 things. 
 
 Science thus comprehends the whole of created things, 
 as a vast harmony, all the parts of which are closely con- 
 nected together, and presuppose each other. 
 
 Considered in this point of view, the earth, and ail it 
 
 3* 
 
30 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 contains, the continents in particular, with the whole of 
 their organized nature, all the forms they present, acquire 
 a new meaning and a new aspect. 
 
 It is as the abode of man, and the theatre for the 
 action of human societies ; it is as the means of the edu- 
 cation of entire humanity, that we shall have to consider 
 them, to appreciate the value of each of the physical 
 characters which distinguish them. 
 
 The first glance we throw upon the two-fold domain 
 of nature and of history, is enough to show that the parts 
 performed by the different countries of the globe, in the 
 progress of civilization, present very great differences. 
 The three continents of the South, Australia, Africa, — I 
 except Egypt, which scarcely belongs to it, — and South 
 America, have not seen the birth of either of the great 
 forms of civilization which have exercised an influence 
 on the progress of the race. Down to times very near 
 our own, the scene of history has hardly passed the 
 boundaries of Asia and of Europe. Upon these two 
 continents of the Ancient World, all the interests of the 
 great drama, in which we are at once actors and spec- 
 tators, is concentrated. Another continent, that of North 
 America, has just been added, and is preparing itself to 
 play a part of the first importance. 
 
 In the earliest ages of the world, Asia shines alone. It 
 is at once the cradle of civilization, and that of the na- 
 tions which are the only representatives of culture, and 
 which are carrying it, in our days, to the extremities of 
 the world. Its gigantic proportions, the almost infinite 
 diversity of its soil, its central situation, would render it 
 suitable to be the continent of the germs, and the root 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 31 
 
 of that immense tree which is now bearing such beau- 
 tiful fruits. 
 
 But Asia has yielded to Europe the sceptre of civili- 
 zation for two thousand years. At the present day, 
 Europe is still unquestionably the first of the civilizing 
 continents. Nowhere on the surface of our planet has 
 the mind of man risen to a sublimer height ; nowhere 
 has man known so well how to subdue nature, and to 
 make her the instrument of intelligence. The nations 
 of Europe, to whom we all belong, represent not only 
 the highest intellectual growth which the human race 
 has attained at any epoch, but they rule already over 
 nearly every part of the globe, and are preparing to push 
 their conquests further still. Here, evidently, is the 
 central point, the focus where all the noblest powers of 
 humanity, in a prodigious activity, are concentrating 
 themselves. This part of the world is, then, the first in 
 power, the luminous side of our planet, the full-grown 
 flower of the terrestrial globe. 
 
 And yet what a contrast between this moral grandeur 
 and the material greatness of this, the smallest of the 
 continents ! Nothing in it strikes us at the first glance. 
 Europe does not astonish us by those vast areas which 
 the neighboring continent of Asia embraces. Its loftiest 
 mountains scarcely reach to half the height of the Hima- 
 laya and the Andes. Its plateaus, those of Bavaria and 
 Spain, hardly deserve the name, by the side of those of 
 Tubet and of Mexico. Its peninsulas, what are they in 
 comparison with India and Arabia, each of which forms 
 a world by itself? Its seas, the Mediterranean and its 
 gulfs, are far from having the proportions of the vast 
 
32 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 ocean which bathes the Asiatic peninsulas. Nowhere 
 those great rivers, those immense streams, that water 
 the boundless plains of Asia and America, and are their 
 pride. Nowhere those virgin forests, which cover im- 
 mense regions, and make them impenetrable to man ; 
 none of those deserts, whose startling and terrible aspect, 
 under other climes, appalls us by their immensity. We 
 see there neither the exuberant fruitfulness of the tropi- 
 cal regions, nor the vast frozen tracts of Siberia ; we feel 
 there neither the overwhelming heats of the equator, nor 
 those extremes of cold which annihilate all organic life. 
 
 In the productions of organized nature, the same mod- 
 esty still. The plants, the trees, do not attain to the 
 height and growth which astonish us in the regions of 
 the tropics. Neither the flowers, nor the insects, nor the 
 birds, show that variety and brilliancy of colors, which 
 distinguish the corolla of the flowers, and the plumage 
 of the birds, bathed incessantly in the waves of light of 
 the equatorial sun. All the tints are softened and tem- 
 pered down. 
 
 How reconcile this apparent inferiority with the bril- 
 liant part Europe has performed among the other con- 
 tinents ? This coincidence between the development of 
 humanity in Europe, and the physical nature of this 
 continent, can it have been only an accident ? Or may 
 this part of the world have concealed, under such modest 
 appearances, some real superiorities, which have ren- 
 dered it more suitable than any other to play so distin- 
 guished a part in the history of the world? This is a 
 problem, stated by the great facts I am pointing out, the 
 solution of which we must seek by study. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 33 
 
 But a third continent, unknown in the history of 
 ancient days, North America, has also entered th^ list, 
 and is advancing with giant steps ; for it has not to re- 
 commence the work of civilization ; civilization is trans- 
 ported thither ready made. The old nations of Europe, 
 exhausted by the difficulties of every kind which oppose 
 their march, turn with hope their wearied eyes towards 
 this new world, for them the land of the future. Men 
 of all languages, of every country, are bringing hither 
 the most various elements, and preparing the germs of 
 the richest growth. The simplicity and the grandeur 
 of its forms, the extent of the spaces over which it rules, 
 seem to have prepared it to become the abode of the 
 most vast and powerful association of men that has ever 
 existed on the surface of the globe. The fertility of its 
 soil ; its position, in the midst of the oceans, between the 
 extremes of Europe and of Asia, facilitating commerce 
 with these two worlds ; the proximity of the rich tropi- 
 cal countries of Central and South America, towards 
 which, as by a natural descent, it is borne by the waters 
 of the majestic Mississippi, and of its thousand tributary 
 streams ; all these advantages seem to promise its labor 
 and activity a prosperity without, example. It belongs 
 not to man to read in the future the decrees of Provi- 
 dence. But science may attempt to comprehend the 
 purposes of God, as to the destinies of nations, by exam- 
 ining with care the theatre, seemingly arranged by Him 
 f >r the realization of the new social order, towards which 
 humanity is tending with hope. For the order of nature 
 is a foreshadowing of that which is to be. 
 
 Such, gentlemen, are the great problems our study 
 
34 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 lays before us. We shall endeavor to solve them by 
 studying, first, the characteristic forms of the continents, 
 the influence of these forms on the physical life of the 
 globe; then, the historical development of humanity. 
 We shall have succeeded, if we may have shown to you, 
 
 1. That the forms, the arrangement, and the distri- 
 bution, of the terrestrial masses on the surface of the 
 globe, accidental in appearance, yet reveal a plan which 
 we are enabled to understand by the evolutions of 
 history. 
 
 2. That the continents are made for human societies, 
 as the body is made for the soul. 
 
 3. That each of the northern or historical continents 
 is peculiarly adapted, by its nature, to perform a special 
 part corresponding to the wants of humanity in one of 
 the great phases of its history. 
 
 Thus, nature and history, the earth and man, stand 
 in the closest relations to each other, and form only one 
 grand harmony. 
 
 Gentlemen, I may treat this beautiful subject inade- 
 quately ; but I have a deep conviction that it is worthy 
 to occupy your leisure, as it will occupy for a long time 
 to come, if I am not mistaken, the most exalted minds, 
 and those most ripened for elevated researches. For 
 him who can embrace with a glance the great harmo- 
 nies of nature and of history, there is here the most 
 admirable plan to study; there are the past and future 
 destinies of the nations to decipher, traced in ineffaceable 
 characters by the finger of Him who governs the world. 
 Admirable order of the Supreme Intelligence and Good- 
 ness, which has arranged all for the great purpose of 
 
FIGURE OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 35 
 
 the education of man, and the realization of the plans 
 of Mercy for his sake ! 
 
 Be pleased always to remember, in my favor more 
 than for yourselves, that the path of science is often diffi- 
 cult and beset with rugged cliffs. The traveller doubt- 
 less gathers many flowers on the way. But the tree of 
 Science, which bears the noblest fruits, is placed high up 
 on precipitous rocks. It holds out to our view these 
 precious fruits from afar. Happy he who by his efforts 
 may pluck ons- of them, even were it the humblest. He 
 values it, then, by what it has cost him. I have made 
 the attempt, and this fruit I offer to you. In default of 
 beauty, may you find therein the savor that I have tasted 
 myself. 
 
 After what we have just said of the importance of the 
 geographical forms of the crust of the globe, you will not 
 be surprised, gentlemen, that these very forms of contour 
 and relief, although so far entirely outside, and the 
 arrangement of the great terrestrial masses, are to be the 
 first subject to occupy our attention. 
 
 Each of these masses is a solid, of which we are not 
 able to ascertain the configuration, except by considering 
 it at once in its horizontal dimensions and in its vertical 
 dimensions ; that is, in its extent and in its contours ; 
 then in the varieties of relief which its surface presents. 
 It is in this twofold point of view, and that of their 
 relative situation, that we must first of all study them. 
 
 The contours of the continents, as they are shown by 
 the maps before your eyes, are nothing else than the 
 delineation of the line of contact between the lands and 
 
36 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 the horizontal surface of the oceans. This line is a true 
 curve of level, the sinuosities of which depend entirely 
 upon the plastic forms of the continent itself. It would 
 change its form completely by the relative depression or 
 elevation of the seas. Such as it is, it presents us an 
 almost infinite variety of bends, in and out, which at the 
 first glance seem perfectly irregular and accidental. Yet 
 a more attentive study, and a comparison of the charac- 
 teristic figures of the continents, enable us to perceive 
 certain features of resemblance and a general disposition 
 of their parts, which seem to indicate, as we shall see 
 by-and-by, the existence of a common law which must 
 have presided over their formation. 
 
 These grand analogies, and these characteristic differ- 
 ences of form and grouping, simple and evident as they 
 appear to us when they have once been pointed out to 
 our attention, have nevertheless been discovered only by 
 degrees, and in succession, by the most eminent minds. 
 
 Lord Bacon, the restorer of the physical sciences, first 
 opened the way by remarking that the southern extremi- 
 ties of the two worlds terminate in a point, turned to- 
 wards the Southern Ocean, while they go on widening 
 towards the north. 
 
 After him, Reinhold Forster, the learned and judicious 
 companion of Captain Cook in his second voyage round 
 the world, took up this observation and developed it to a 
 much greater extent. He points out substantially three 
 analogies, three coincidences in the structure of the 
 continents. 
 
 The first is that the southern points of all the con- 
 tinents are high and rocky, and seem to be the extremi- 
 
FIGURE OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 37 
 
 ties of mountain belts, which come from far in the 
 interior, and break off abruptly, without transition, at 
 the shore of the ocean. Thus America, which terminates 
 in the rocky precipices of Cape Horn, the last represen- 
 tatives of the already broken chain of the Andes ; thus 
 Africa, at the Cape of Good Hope, with its high plateaus 
 and its Table Mountain, which rises from the bosom of 
 the ocean to a height of more than 4,000 feet ; thus Asia, 
 with the peninsula of the Deccan, which sends out the 
 chain of the Ghauts to form the high rocks of Cape 
 Comorin; Australia, lastly, whose southern extremity 
 presents, at Cape Southeast, of Van Diemen's Land, the 
 same abrupt and massive nature. 
 
 A second analogy is, that the continents have, east of 
 the southern points, a large island, or a group of islands 
 more or less considerable. America has the Falkland 
 Islands; Africa, Madagascar and the volcanic islands 
 which surround it ; Asia has Ceylon ; and Australia, the 
 two great islands of New Zealand. 
 
 A third peculiarity of configuration, common to these 
 same parts of the world, is a deep bend of their western 
 side towards the interior of the continent. On this side 
 their flanks are as if hollowed into a vast gulf. In 
 America, the concave summit of this inflection is in- 
 dicated by the position of Arica, at the foot of the high 
 Cordillera of Bolivia. In Africa, the Gulf of Guinea 
 expresses more strongly still this characteristic feature. 
 It is more feebly marked in Asia by the Gulf of Cam- 
 baye, and the Indo-Persian Sea; it reappears fully in 
 Australia, where the Gulf of Nuyts occupies almost the 
 whole southern side. 
 
 4 
 
38 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Forster did not stop here. Seeking to explain to him- 
 self these remarkable coincidences in the structure of 
 the great terrestrial masses, he arrived at the conclusion 
 that they were due to a single cause, and that this cause 
 was a great cataclysm coming from the south-west. 
 The waters of the ocean, dashing violently against 
 the barrier the continents opposed to them, ground 
 away their sides with fury, scooped out the deep gulf 
 open towards the south-west, swept off all the movable 
 earth from the southern side, and left nothing standing 
 but those rocky points, that formed only the skeleton. 
 The islands on the east would be only the accumulated 
 ruins of this great catastrophe, or the pieces of the conti- 
 nent protected from total destruction by the jutting point 
 which received the first shock. 
 
 This hypothesis, bold as it is ingenious, was admitted 
 by several of the most distinguished contemporaries of 
 Forster. Pallas, among others, the celebrated northern 
 traveller, inclines to receive this general cataclysm from 
 the south-west, which seems to him to explain the great 
 geological phenomena he had observed in the north of 
 Asia. He attributes to it the hollowing out of the deep 
 gulfs which cut into the south of Europe and of Asia, 
 and the formation of the great plains on the north, of 
 those of Siberia, in particular. 
 
 The whole ground, according to him, would be com- • 
 posed of earth torn from the southern countries, trans- 
 ported by the waves of the ocean, and by them deposited 
 in these places, after their fury had been spent upon the 
 Himalaya, or the great table land of Asia. It is thus 
 that he explains the presence in Siberia of fossil ek> 
 
FIGURE OF THE CONTINENTS, 
 
 39 
 
 phants and of mammoths, and a multitude of other 
 animals and plants which live at the present day only 
 under the sky of the tropics. He remarked, moreover, 
 in support of this hypothesis, that the disproportion ex- 
 isting between the extent of the part of Asia situated 
 south of the Himalaya, compared with that of the vast 
 plains which flank the north of the central mass of the 
 continent, seems to indicate that a great portion of these 
 southern regions has been carried away by this great 
 flood. Pallas, lastly, applies the same observation to 
 America, the western part of which is reduced to a 
 narrow strip, while the region east of the Andes makes 
 almost the whole of the continent, 
 
 Seductive as this idea is at the first glance, it is 
 scarcely necessary to say that all that modern geology 
 has taught upon the structure of the mountains, their 
 rise, and the composition of the soil, forbid us to adopt 
 it. It dates from a period when the mind, struck for the 
 first time with the revolutions of the globe, of which it 
 saw the traces everywhere, found no force sufficiently 
 powerful to bring them about, and when water, in par- 
 ticular, seemed the only agent that could be resorted 
 to for their explanation. Nevertheless, it has the merit 
 of binding together, and of fixing, in a precise manner, 
 certain great facts, the existence of which is incon- 
 testable. 
 
 At a later period Humboldt also shows that he is 
 watching those general phenomena of the configuration 
 of the continents, seemingly destined to reveal the secret 
 of their formation. He first calls our attention to the 
 singular parallelism existing between the two sides 
 
40 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the Atlantic. The salient angles of the one cor- 
 respond to the reentering angles of the other ; Cape St. 
 Roque in America, to the Gulf of Guinea ; the head-land 
 of Africa, of which Cape Verd is the extreme point, to 
 the Gulf of Mexico, so that this ocean takes the form of 
 a great valley, like those the mountainous countries pre- 
 sent in such numbers. 
 
 Steifens pushed the study of these analogies of the 
 structure of the continents further still, and the picture 
 which he gives us of them opens several new views 
 upon the subject. He remarks, first, that the lands ex- 
 pand and come together towards the north, while they 
 separate and narrow down to points in the south. Now 
 this tendency is marked, not only in the principal masses 
 of the continents, but also in all the important peninsulas 
 which detach themselves from it. Greenland, Cali- 
 fornia, Florida, in America ; Scandinavia, Spain, Italy, 
 and Greece, in Europe; the two Indies, Corea, Kam- 
 tschatka, in Asia, all have their points turned towards 
 the south. 
 
 Passing to the grouping of the continents among 
 themselves, this learned man brings to our view the fact 
 that these great terrestrial masses are grouped two by 
 two, in three double worlds, of which the two component 
 parts are united together by an isthmus, or by a chain 
 of islands ; moreover, on one side of the isthmus is found 
 an archipelago, on the opposite side a peninsula. 
 
 The purest type of this grouping of the continents is 
 America. Its two halves, North America and South 
 America, are nearly equal in size, and similar in form ; 
 they form, so to speak, an equilibrium. The isthmus 
 
FIGURE OF THE CONTINENTS. 41 
 
 which unites them is long and narrow. The archipelago 
 on the east, that of the Antilles, is considerable; the 
 peninsula on the west, California, without being greatly 
 extended, is clearly outlined. 
 
 The two other double worlds are less regular, less 
 " symmetrical. First, the component continents are of 
 unequal size; then the two northern continents are 
 united, and, as it were, joined back to back. Steffens 
 divides them by a line passing through the Caucasus, 
 and coming out upon the Persian Gulf. He thus recom- 
 bines with Europe a part of Western Asia and Arabia, 
 and gives Africa for its corresponding continent. They 
 are united by the Isthmus of Suez, the shortest and most 
 northern of all. The peninsula found on the east is 
 Arabia, which is of considerable size; the archipelago 
 on the west is that of Greece, which is comparatively of 
 small importance. 
 
 This relation is evidently, gentlemen, as you will 
 agree, a forced one. But it seems to me that it would 
 be easy to reestablish the analogy, so far as the irregu- 
 larity of structure in the European continent permits, by 
 considering Italy and Sicily, which almost touch Africa 
 by Cape Bon, as the true isthmus. The archipelago is 
 then found on the east, according to the rule, and the 
 peninsula, Spain, on the west. 
 
 The third double world, Asia- Australia, is more nor- 
 mal ; it approaches nearer the type. The isthmus 
 which unites them is broken, it is true. But that long, 
 continuous chain of islands, stretching without deviation 
 from the peninsula of Malacca, by Sumatra, Java, and 
 the other islands of the Sonde, to New Holland, offers 
 4^ 
 
42 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 so striking an analogy and parallelism to the isthmus 
 which unites the two Americas, that, before Steffens, 
 Ebel and Lamark had already pointed it out. The 
 great archipelago of Borneo, Celebes, and of the Moluc- 
 cas, corresponds to that of the Antilles; the peninsula 
 of India, to California. 
 
 Here the disproportion between the two continents, as 
 to their extent, is pushed to the extreme. Asia-Aus- 
 tralia presents the union of the greatest and the smallest 
 of the terrestrial masses. 
 
 These three double worlds exhaust the possible com- 
 binations of relations between their component conti- 
 nents. In America, that of the north and that of the 
 south are equal in form and in power ; there is a sym- 
 metry. In the two others they are unequal. In Europe- 
 Africa, the northern continent is the smallest. In Asia- 
 Australia, it is the continent of the south. 
 
 These views of Steffens, even without being justified 
 by a physical theory of the phenomena, are not the less 
 of high interest, and lead us to consider the grouping of 
 the continents under a point of view of the application 
 of which we shall by-and-by see the utility. 
 
 But none of the authors who occupied themselves 
 with these questions of configuration and of grouping of 
 the terrestrial spaces, has done so in a manner more 
 happy, and more fruitful in important results, than Carl 
 Hitter. 
 
 This founder of historical geography, in the high sense 
 that should be attached to the word, this learned scholar, 
 who has exalted geography to the rank of a philosophical 
 science, by the spirit he has breathed into it, applied him- 
 
FIGURE OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 43 
 
 self chiefly to investigating what are the fundamental 
 conditions of the form of the surface of the globe most 
 favorable to the progress of man and of human societies. 
 This novel point of view led him to the discovery of 
 relations unperceived unjt.il then. We proceed to take 
 cognizance of the principal of them, but at present in a 
 manner wholly external. The signification of these 
 groupings and of these forms will become manifest in 
 the course of our studies. 
 
 Bitter showed not only that the lands are more numer- 
 ous in the northern portion of the earth than in the 
 southern, but that, if we draw a great circle at once 
 through the coast of Peru and the south of Asia, the 
 
 Land Hemisphere. Water Hemisphere. 
 
 surface of the globe is found to be divided into two 
 hemispheres, the one containing the most extensive 
 terrestrial masses, those nearest together and most im- 
 portant ; while we behold, in the other, only vast oceans, 
 in which float here and there the peninsular extrem- 
 ities of the principal lands, narrowed and dispersed, 
 and Australia, the smallest and most isolated of the con- 
 tinents, One is then the Continental or Land hemi- 
 
44 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 sphere, the other is the Oceanic or Water hemisphere. 
 (See Fig. 1.) 
 
 The second general fact, with regard to the grouping 
 of the lands, is that of their combination in two great 
 masses, the Old World and the New World, the forms 
 and structure of which make a striking contrast, and 
 give them a marked character of originality. 
 
 Thus the direction of their greatest extension is the 
 inverse in the two worlds. The principal mass of the 
 Ancient World, Asia-Europe, stretches from east to 
 west over one half of the circumference of the globe; 
 while its width is vastly less, and occupies, even in Asia, 
 only a part of the space which separates the equator 
 from the pole. In Europe it is not equal to the sixth 
 part of the earth's circumference. In America, on the 
 contrary, the greatest length extends from the north to 
 the south. It embraces more than one third of the 
 circumference of the globe, and its width, which is very 
 variable, never exceeds a fifth of this amount. 
 
 The most remarkable consequence of this arrange- 
 ment, is, that Asia-Europe extends through similai 
 climatic zones, while America traverses nearly all the 
 climatic zones of the earth, and presents in this relation 
 a much greater variety of phenomena. 
 
 The most important of these geographical relations of 
 configuration, that which Hitter was the first to bring 
 prominently forward, and the whole value of which he 
 has explained with rare felicity, is the difference exist- 
 ing between the different continents with regard to the 
 extension of the line of their contours. Some are deeply 
 indented, furnished with peninsulas, gulfs, inland seas. 
 
FIGURE OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 45 
 
 which give to the line of their coasts a great length. 
 Others present a mass more compact, more undivided ; 
 their trunk is, as it were, deprived of members, and the 
 line of the coasts, simple and without numerous inflec- 
 tions, is comparatively much shorter. 
 
 Considered under this aspect, the three principal con- 
 tinents of the Old World form a remarkable contrast. 
 
 Africa is far the most simple in its forms. Its mass, 
 nearly round or ellipsoidal, is concentrated upon itself. 
 It thrusts into the ocean no important peninsula, nor 
 anywhere lets into its bosom the waters of the sea. 
 It seems to close itself against every influence from 
 without. Thus the extension of the line of its coasts 
 is only 14,000 geographical miles, of 60 to the degree, 
 for a surface of 8,720,000 square miles ; so that Africa 
 has only one mile of coast for 623 miles of surface. 
 
 Asia, although bathed on three sides only by the 
 ocean, is rich, especially on its eastern and southern 
 coasts, in large peninsulas, as Arabia and the two Indies, 
 Corea, Kamtschatka. Whole countries push out into 
 the ocean, as Mandchouria and China. Nevertheless, 
 the extent of this continent is such, that, in spite of the 
 depth of the indentations, there yet remains at its centre 
 a greatly preponderating mass of undivided land, which 
 commands the maritime regions as the body commands 
 the limbs. Asia is indebted to this configuration for a 
 line of coast of 30,800 miles ; it is double that of Africa, 
 which is, nevertheless, only one third smaller. Asia, 
 therefore, possesses a mile of coast to 459 square miles 
 of surface. 
 
 Of all the continents, Europe is the one whose forms 
 
46 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 of contour are most varied. Its principal mass is deeply 
 cut in all parts by the ocean and by inland seas, and 
 seems almost on the point of resolving itself into penin- 
 sulas. These peninsulas themselves, as Greece, Scandi- 
 navia, repeat to infinity the phenomena of articulation 
 and indentation of coasts, which are characteristic of the 
 entire continent. The inland seas and the portions of 
 the ocean its outer limits enclose, form nearly half 
 of its surface. The line of its shores is thus carried 
 to the extent of 17,200 miles, an enormous proportion 
 compared with its small size; for it is 3,200 miles more 
 than Africa, which is nevertheless three times greater. 
 Europe enjoys one mile of coast for every 156 square 
 miles of surface. Thus it is the continent most open to 
 the sea, for foreign connections, at the same time that it 
 is the most individualized, and the richest in local and 
 independent districts. 
 
 In this regard there is, as we see, a sensible gradation 
 between the three principal continents of the Old World. 
 Africa is the most simple ; it is a body without mem- 
 bers, a tree without branches. Asia is a mighty trunk, 
 the numerous members of which, however, make only a 
 fifth of its mass. In Europe, the members overrule the 
 principal body, the branches cover the trunk ; the pen- 
 insulas form almost a third of its entire surface. Africa 
 is closed to the ocean; Asia opens only its margins; 
 Europe surrenders to it entirely, and is the most acces- 
 sible of all the continents. 
 
 America repeats the same contrasts, although in a less 
 decided manner. North America, like Europe, is more 
 indented than South America, the configuration of 
 
FIGURE OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 47 
 
 which, in the exterior at least, reminds us of the forms 
 of Africa, and the uniformity of its contours. The two 
 continents of the New World are more alike. Never- 
 theless, the line of the shores is much more extended in 
 North than in South America. It is 24,000 miles in the 
 former, or one mile of coast to 228 square miles of sur- 
 face ; in the latter, it is 13,600 miles, or a mile of coast 
 for 376 miles of surface. 
 
 The following table represents these differences of 
 configuration of the continents by numerical propor- 
 tions. The mile here employed is the geographical 
 mile, of 60 to the degree. It is the only one we shall 
 make use of in the course of these lectures. 
 
 Countries. 
 
 Surface in square 
 miles of GO to a 
 degree. 
 
 Length of line 
 of shores. 
 
 Square miles 
 for 1 mile of 
 coast. 
 
 
 2,688,000 
 
 17,200 
 
 156 
 
 
 14,128,000 
 
 30,800 
 
 459 
 
 
 8,720,000 
 
 14,000 
 
 623 
 
 Australia, ...» 
 
 2,208,000 
 
 7,600 
 
 290 
 
 North. America, . . 
 
 5,472,000 
 
 24,000 
 
 228 
 
 South America, . . 
 
 5,136,000 
 
 13,600 
 
 376 
 
 It is to Ritter, moreover, as well as to Humboldt, that 
 science is indebted for the appreciation of the value of 
 the relations of size, of relative position of each of the 
 continents, the influence of which, in nature and in 
 history, will appear constantly greater the further we 
 advance in our inquiries. 
 
 The exposition we have just made has shown us at 
 once differences and analogies in the forms and dis 
 
48 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 position of the continental or land masses. The differ- 
 ences prove that each continent, or each group of con- 
 tinents, has a character peculiar to itself, and in some 
 sort individual. The analogies lead us to suspect the 
 existence of a general law ; they disclose an arrange- 
 ment which cannot be without a purpose; now, this 
 purpose it will be our duty to seek to comprehend, if 
 we would attain to the true understanding of this part 
 of Creation. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 Recapitulation — Vertical dimensions or forms of relief — Difficulties 
 presented by their study — Usefulness of profiles — Great influence 
 of differences of height — Elevations in mass, and linear elevations — 
 Importance of the former — Labors of Humboldt and Bitter on this 
 subject — Examination of the general features of relief of the con- 
 tinents — A great common law embracing them all. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 The conclusion of the preceding lecture was devoted 
 to a simple examination of the most prominent forms 
 which the continents present to us, and such as the line 
 of contact of the lands with the horizontal surface of the 
 oceans exhibits to the eye. In this first review, we have 
 followed, step by step, in their discoveries, the men of 
 science who were the first to point them out. We 
 have recognized, with Lord Bacon and Forster, the 
 tapering form of the southern points of the continents, 
 their gulfs on the west, and their islands on the east ; 
 with Pallas, the situation of the great plains in the north 
 of the Old World, and the east of the New ; with Hum- 
 boldt, the winding forms and parallel shores of the 
 great oceanic valley bearing the name of the Adantic ; 
 with Steffens, the enlargement of all the lands towards 
 the north, and the characteristic grouping of the con- 
 tinents in three double worlds. Hitter, finally, has 
 shown us how almost all the lands are combined in one 
 hemisphere, which may be contrasted as a continental 
 5 
 
50 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY* 
 
 hemisphere with the other, which is almost entirely- 
 covered with water ; how the lands, in their turn, are 
 grouped in two principal masses, in two worlds, the Old 
 and the New, differing in extent, in forms of contour, 
 in structure, and in direction. This learned man, above 
 all, teaches us to consider the forms of the continents in 
 a light entirely new, by drawing our attention to one of 
 the most characteristic features, and, as we shall see, 
 one of the most important, which had escaped all the 
 geographers before him; and that is the considerable 
 difference the various continents present with regard to 
 the greater or smaller number of indentations of their 
 coasts, and of the lesser or greater extent of the line of 
 their shores, of their more or less gradual contact with 
 the waters of the seas and of the oceans. 
 
 All these characteristic differences, their gradation, 
 and, above all, the numerous analogies the forms and 
 the grouping of the great terrestrial masses present, have 
 appeared to disclose a symmetrical arrangement, and, 
 as it were, an organization of the continental masses, 
 owing, doubtless, to a physical law, none the less real 
 on account of its being as yet unknown to science. 
 
 We shall have occasion hereafter to estimate the value 
 and the influence of these relations, which we have 
 merely stated. But to complete our preparatory study, 
 it is not enough to have taken cognizance of these 
 horizontal forms. We must further make ourselves 
 acquainted with the vertical configuration of the surface, 
 also, of the continents bathed by the atmosphere ; that is 
 to say, it is necessary to grasp the most essential features 
 of their relief, so intimately combined with the varieties 
 
RELIEF OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 51 
 
 of their horizontal forms, and moulding in such various 
 manners the different countries of the globe. It is only- 
 after having considered the continents under this second 
 point of view, that we shall have the elements neces- 
 sary to understand the great phenomena of the life of 
 the globe. 
 
 But a great difficulty of this study is, that the eye 
 cannot distinguish the elevations on the maps, as well 
 as the contours ; besides, physical maps are still want- 
 ing for a great part of the earth, and have only been 
 made by nations the most advanced in civilization. In 
 this regard, America deserves to have one of her own, 
 and every friend of science should lend the aid of his 
 good wishes to the accomplishment of so desirable a 
 result. 
 
 To remedy these difficulties, we must avail ourselves 
 of profiles. You will easily understand what a profile 
 is, by casting a glance at the plaster model before you, 
 representing one of the most rugged and broken parts 
 of the Swiss Jura. If, cutting it perpendicularly in its 
 length, you place yourselves in front of the section, the 
 line formed by the edge of the surface will present you 
 a profile of the kind which we shall make use of. It 
 would be of the highest interest to preserve, in these 
 sections, the true proportion between the heights and the 
 horizontal extent, such as it is in nature ; but it is not 
 possible to do so without making use of drawings on a 
 very large scale, and when it is intended to represent 
 only a very small portion of the terrestrial surface. If, 
 however, we were to make transverse sections of an 
 entire continent, the extent of the horizontal dimensions, 
 
52 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 compared with that of the vertical dimensions, would be 
 so great that the latter would become imperceptible to the 
 eye. We are, therefore, obliged to enlarge the scale of 
 heights a certain number of times, in order to render 
 them sufficiently distinct; and this has been done in 
 the numerous profiles that are here exhibited. (See 
 plates ii. and m.) You will understand the necessity 
 of this disproportion, if you consider the fact that the 
 loftiest mountain of the globe is only six miles high, 
 while the diameter of the earth is nearly eight thousand 
 miles ; so that, representing it in its true proportions, the 
 Dhavalagiri, with its 28,000 feet, would be raised only a 
 twelfth of an inch on a globe ten feet in diameter. 
 
 Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to draw from this 
 fact the conclusion that the knowledge and study of these 
 forms, so insignificant in appearance, have but a slight 
 importance. This element, on the contrary, is so essen- 
 tial, that an elevation of level of 350 feet, for example, 
 which is only that of many of our public edifices, is 
 sufficient to diminish the mean temperature of a place 
 by one degree of Fahrenheit ; that is to say, the effect 
 is the same as if the place were situated sixty miles 
 further south. A few thousand feet of height, which 
 are nothing to the mass of the globe, change entirely the 
 aspect and the character of a country. The excellent 
 vineyards bordering the banks of the Swiss lakes 
 become impossible at 1,000 feet, at 500 even, above their 
 present level; and the tillage, the occupations of the 
 inhabitants, take here a quite different character. A 
 thousand feet higher still, and the rigor of the climate no 
 longer permits the fruit trees to flourish ; the pastures 
 
RELIEF OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 53 
 
 are the only wealth of the mountaineer, for whom indus- 
 try ceases to be a resource. Higher still, vegetation 
 disappears, with it the animals, and soon, instead of the 
 smiling pictures of the plain and the lower valleys, suc- 
 ceeds the spectacle of the majestic but desolated regions 
 of eternal ice and snow, where the sound and animation 
 of life give place to the silence of death. 
 
 In truth, all the life of the globe is spread on the sur- 
 face, and the whole space comprised between the bed of 
 the oceans and the regions of the atmosphere, habitable 
 for organized beings, forms only a thin pellicle round the 
 enormous mass of our planet. 
 
 The physical position of a place, as I would call its 
 altitude, or its elevation in the atmosphere above the 
 level of the seas, is, then, the necessary complement of» 
 its geographical position. In considering only places 
 situated in a region of small extent, this element is even 
 far the most important to know. 
 
 Although the forms of relief are infinitely varied, it 
 seems to me that we may refer them to two great classes, 
 admitting of numerous modifications. 
 
 1. The elevations in mass, and by great surfaces, 
 which are called plains, or lowlands, when they are ele- 
 vated only a little above the level of the oceans, and 
 plateaus, or table lands, when their elevation is more 
 considerable, and presents a solid platform, a basis of 
 great thickness. 
 
 2. The linear elevations and the chains of mountains, 
 which are distributed over the surface and on the bor- 
 ders of the plains and of the table lands, or more rarely 
 scattered in isolated groups. 
 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Of these three forms, those which strike us most at 
 the first glance, are the mountains ; and so the geogra- 
 phers have occupied themselves with these in the first 
 place. Buache, of the French Academy, in the middle 
 of the last century, was the first who attempted to com- 
 prise in a systematic order the whole of the mountains of 
 the earth ; but he was too often obliged to supply by imag- 
 ination the want of positive knowledge ; and I mention 
 here his essay on the connection of the mountains of the 
 globe, only to point out the first step that was taken in 
 this path. After him, Buffon made the important observa- 
 tion, that the principal mountain chains of the Old World 
 follow the direction of the parallels, and those of the 
 New World, the direction of the meridians ; and that 
 the secondary chains follow the inverse in both. 
 
 This predilection for the mountains lasted a long time ; 
 we may say that it still prevails in geology. Although 
 the upheaval of the great surfaces, horizontal or slightly 
 inclined, the elevation of entire continents, may be per- 
 haps a more essential fact in the physical history of our 
 globe, than that of a chain of mountains ; nevertheless, 
 geology has scarcely occupied itself except with the 
 latter, and seems almost ready to admit that the upheaval 
 of mountain chains is the principal fact, and that of the 
 large surfaces and of the plateaus the accompaniment. 
 This is not the place to discuss this great question, but 
 we are bound to say, that, at all events, in physical 
 geography we cannot be of this opinion. 
 
 Although the word plateau was introduced into science 
 by Buache, the importance of these elevations in mass 
 in physical geography was not recognized in reality 
 before the time of Alexander Humboldt He was the 
 
RELIEF OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 55 
 
 first to bring prominently out, by his barometrical sec- 
 tions, the remarkable forms of the plateau of Mexico, 
 and of the high valleys of the Andes. No one of the 
 great physical consequences connected with this struc- 
 ture escaped his penetrating sagacity. After him it 
 was not allowed to neglect the important element of 
 the altitudes, and this great truth remained an acqui- 
 sition to science. 
 
 Carl Ritter soon after applied these principles to the 
 study of all the continents. Drawing from the treasures 
 of his vast erudition, he availed himself of all the docu- 
 ments scattered over thousands of volumes, to give us a 
 true image of the structure of the continents. He distin- 
 guished with greater precision the high plateaus of Cen- 
 tral Asia and of Western Asia from the low lands which 
 surround them; he exhibited the contrast between the 
 high lands of Southern Africa, and the low plains of the 
 Nile and of Sahara. Each of the countries of the Old 
 World under this new light appeared to our eyes for the 
 first time in its true form, as those of the New World 
 had been revealed by Humboldt. 
 
 For a long time still we shall have to persevere in this 
 path which genius has opened, in order to complete by 
 observation the work so happily begun. But have we 
 not another step to take? Shall we not find here, in 
 the midst of this infinite variety of forms of relief, some 
 of those grand analogies which have struck us in the 
 study of the horizontal forms, some of those general 
 facts which authorize us to admit for the elevations, 
 also, some great common law around which the partic- 
 ular facts arrange themselves 1 
 
 We shall endeavor to solve this important question, 
 
56 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 not, gentlemen, by any hypothesis, but by the combina- 
 tion and exposition of the facts recognized in science. 
 For this purpose I may often be obliged to quote figures ; 
 but even figures have their eloquence. These-, for greater 
 convenience, I shall express in round numbers, as it will 
 sufficiently answer the end I propose. 
 
 The examination of the general reliefs of the great 
 masses of dry land on the surface of the globe, leads us, 
 in fact, to the recognition of certain great analogies, 
 certain great laws of relief, which apply, whether to cer- 
 tain groups of continents, or to all the continents taken 
 together, or to the whole earth. I shall point out, one 
 after another, these general facts, supporting them by 
 examples; and, with the aid of the profiles you have 
 before you, I hope to make clear to you the general law 
 which appears to me to follow from them. 
 
 1. All the continents rise gradually from the shores of 
 the se_as towards the interior, to a line of highest eleva- 
 tion of the masses, and of the peaks surmounting them, 
 to a maximum of swell. 
 
 This fact appears trivial in the stating, because it 
 seems so much according to the nature of things. But 
 it is not so for him who knows the geological history of 
 our continents and the revolutions their surface has 
 undergone. The question is asked, why we should 
 not have, in the interior of vast continents like Asia or 
 America, some great depression, the bed of which should 
 be sunk below the surface of the oceans. And in fact 
 this circumstance is not absolutely wanting to our con- 
 tinents ; we may cite, as a case of the kind, the great 
 hollow, the bottom of which is occupied by the Caspian 
 Sea. It is known that the surface of this sea, and even of 
 
RELIEF OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 57 
 
 a great part of the surrounding countries, is below the 
 common level of the oceans ; further, its basis presents 
 in its southern parts considerable depths. The valley 
 of the Jordan and Dead Sea, together with its lakes and 
 the river, is almost entirely below the level of the Medi- 
 terranean. The recent measurements of Bertou, of 
 Russegger, and of several others, among whom I will 
 mention, as the most recent of these bold explorers, an 
 American, Lieut. Lynch, have proved that the level of 
 the Dead Sea is about 1,300 feet below the level of the 
 oceans, and that its depth descends at least as much 
 more. What masks these depressions, moreover, is the 
 water filling them, the surface of which must be 
 considered as forming a part of that of the continents. 
 Besides the three largest of the lakes of Canada, several 
 of the lakes of the Italian Alps, the bed of which sinks 
 below the level of the sea, would appear as similar 
 excavations. We may say the same of the midland 
 seas bordering the European continent on the north and 
 on the south. 
 
 2. In all the continents, the line of greatest elevation 
 in the summit of ascent is placed out of the centre, on 
 one of the sides, at an unequal distance from the shores 
 of the seas. From this fact result two slopes, unequal in 
 length and in inclination. This is analogous to what, 
 in mountains, is called the slope and the counter slope. 
 
 The length of these two inclined planes, estimated 
 approximately and in round numbers, is nearly as fol- 
 lows, in the different transverse sections of the continents 
 represented by the profiles which we have before, us. 
 (See plates n. and in.) 
 
COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGPvAPHY. 
 
 The first column indicates the length, in geographical 
 miles, of the long slope ; the second, that of the short one. 
 
 OLD WORLD. — North to South. 
 
 
 Length in Miles. 
 
 
 Northern 
 Slope. 
 
 Southern 
 Slope. 
 
 1. — Eastern Asia. 
 The section begins at the Frozen Ocean, at 
 the mouth of the Jenisei, and terminates in 
 the plains of the Ganges. The culminating 
 region is that of the table lands of Tubet 
 and of the Dhavalagiri, which divides this 
 
 2,600 
 
 400 
 
 2. — Western Asia. 
 From Lake Aral and the plains of the Caspian 
 Sea to the Persian Gulf ; culminating point, 
 the coast chain of the Persian Gulf, . . . 
 
 900 
 
 100 
 
 3. — Western Asia. 
 From the plains of Georgia to those of the 
 Euphrates j culminating point, the high 
 
 260 
 
 80 
 
 4. — Asia Minor. 
 From the northern to the southern coast, nearly 
 on the meridian of Cyprus ; culminating 
 
 OUU 
 
 
 5. — Central Europe. 
 From the shores of the Baltic to the plains of 
 Lombardy ; culminating point, the Tyrolian 
 
 450 
 
 100 
 
 6. — Africa. 
 | From the mouth of the Nile to the Cape of 
 Good Hope ; culminating point, probably 
 the high plateaus between the sources of 
 the Zambeze and of the Orange river, . . 
 
 3,300 
 
 600 
 
RELIEF OF THE CONTINENTS. 63 
 
 NEW WORLD. 
 
 
 Length in Miles. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Slope. 
 
 1. — North America. ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 From Washington to the Bay of St. Francisco ; 
 
 
 
 culminating point, the central chain of the 
 
 
 
 
 1,600 
 
 800 
 
 2. — Central America. . 
 
 
 
 From Porto Rico, through Mexico, to the Pa- 
 
 
 
 cific Ocean — the line slightly broken to 
 
 
 
 take in the Great Antilles ; culminating 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 2,000 
 
 300 
 
 3. — South America. 
 
 
 
 From the mouth of the Amazon, through the 
 
 
 
 table land of Peru, to the Pacific Ocean ) 
 
 
 
 culminating point, the Chimborago, . . . 
 
 1,850 
 
 70 
 
 4. — South America. 
 
 
 
 From the coasts of Brazil, north to Rio Janei- 
 
 
 
 ro, through the Lake of Titicaca, to the Pa- 
 
 
 
 cific ; culminating point, the Nevado de 
 
 
 
 
 1,600 
 
 200 
 
 We see, by this table, that one of the general slopes 
 of the continents is always, if Ave take the mean, at 
 least four or five times as large as the other. 
 
 3. This law of increase of reliefs is common to the 
 mass elevations, and to the linear elevations; that is, 
 the height of the low lands and of the table lands 
 increases at the same time with the absolute elevation 
 of the mountains. There is a proportional gradation. 
 
 This law is exhibited by the following table, con- 
 taining the principal elements I have used in construct- 
 ing the profiles. As they are intended to set in a clear 
 
64 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 light the most general features of the relief of the con- 
 tinents, these profiles do not always follow an exactly- 
 straight line, but they sometimes embrace rather a 
 transverse zone. For the same reason I merely indi- 
 cate, without taking them into the view, several lofty 
 volcanic peaks, isolated like the Ararat, the Erdshish of 
 Asia Minor, which, considered in relation to the general 
 relief of the countries where they are found, are but 
 accidents, and cause only a local modification. They 
 are marked in the tables by an asterisk. 
 
 The first column contains the height of the plateaus, 
 the second that of the loftiest corresponding peaks, J>oth 
 in English feet. In plates n. and m. they are both indi- 
 cated by their initials. 
 
 OLD WORLD. — North to South. 
 
 
 Low l'ds and 
 
 Highest • 
 
 1. — Eastern Asia. 
 
 Table lands. 
 
 Mountains. 
 
 Coast of the Frozen Ocean, mouth of the Je- 
 
 
 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 Plains of Siberia, Barnaul, foot of the Altai 
 
 
 
 
 380 
 
 
 
 
 11,000 
 
 
 1,300 
 
 
 
 
 18,000 
 
 
 2,000? 
 
 
 
 5,000? 
 
 
 
 
 21,000? 
 
 
 11,000 
 
 
 
 14,000 
 
 
 
 
 28,070 
 
 
 250 
 
 
 2. — Western Asia. 
 
 
 
 Lake Aral, plains of the Caspian Sea, . . . 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 
 500? 
 
 
RELIEF OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 2. Western .Asia. 
 
 Low l'ds and 
 Table lands. 
 
 Highest 
 Mountains. 
 
 
 4 
 
 ,500 
 
 
 2,000 
 
 
 
 
 4,400 
 
 
 
 
 4,500 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 ,000 
 
 
 0 
 
 
 0 
 
 3. TVestern Asia. 
 
 
 
 
 Tiflis plains of Georgia 
 
 1,160 
 
 
 
 Pambak, chain, 
 
 
 7 
 
 000 
 
 Ararat the plain around . . . . . 
 
 2,800 
 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 000 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 000 
 
 
 5,400 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 000 
 
 
 350 
 
 
 
 
 200? 
 
 
 
 4. Asia JMjnor. 
 
 
 
 
 Krimea Tchatur Dagh . . . . . 
 
 
 5 
 
 000 
 
 Black Sea 
 
 
 
 0 
 
 Chains along the coast of Asia IMinor, ... 
 
 
 5, 
 
 000 
 
 
 1,200 
 
 
 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 13, 
 
 000 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 000 
 
 
 0 
 
 
 0 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 000 
 
 5. Central Europe. 
 
 
 
 
 The coast of the Baltic Sea . 
 
 o 
 
 
 0 
 
 Plains of North Germany Berlin ... 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 Thp TTnT"7 "Rrni^lrpn 
 
 
 3, 
 
 700 
 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 
 
 
 500 
 
 
 800 
 
 
 
 Table land of Bavaria, foot of the Alps, . . . 
 
 2,100 
 
 
 
 
 
 12, 
 
 800 
 
 
 200 
 
 
 
 6* 
 
66 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 
 Low l'ds and 
 
 Highest 
 
 (3. Africa. 
 
 Table lands. 
 
 Mountains. 
 
 Mediterranean Sea, mouth of the Nile, . . . 
 
 n 
 u 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 1 JL,UUU i 
 
 
 
 9,000 
 
 
 2,700 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 The same law exists in the great peninsulas of Asia, 
 whose basis is a table land, and which are almost small 
 continents, as India and Arabia. In those of Europe, 
 which are smaller and more irregular, the law is not 
 expressed; yet the Taygetus in Greece, the Sierra 
 Nevada in Spain, — I should add Etna in Sicily, were it 
 not an isolated volcano, — belong to the highest summits 
 of the three peninsulas. 
 
 
 Low l'ds and 
 
 Highest 
 
 7. — India-Deccan. 
 
 Table lands. 
 
 Mountains. 
 
 
 800 
 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 1,800 
 
 
 
 2,700 
 
 
 
 
 8,800 
 
 
 
 7,500 
 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 
 500 
 
 8. AEA13IA. 
 
 
 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 Inner Arabia, Nedjed, table land, 
 
 2,000? 
 
 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 6,600 
 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
RELIEF OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 NEW WORLD. — East to West. 
 
 67 
 
 
 Low l'ds and 
 
 Highest 
 
 1 INTht? ttt Atytftjtpa 
 
 Table lands. 
 
 Mountains. 
 
 Wnsnino'tnTi 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 TVip d-vpnt Vallpir nf* Vircrinin 
 
 300 
 
 
 A Tin 1 n pVii n n IX'TniTntnino; 
 
 
 6,000 
 
 TVTi^^i ^sititii "Vnllpv Sst TiP-ni*? 
 
 500 
 
 
 TVTnntli nf flip T<Tn"n<snQ 
 
 800 
 
 
 Pont nf* trip "Rnplrv TVTnnTitnin<3 "P 1 Wnin 
 
 5,000 
 
 
 
 
 12,000 
 
 
 6,000 
 
 
 
 
 13,500 
 
 
 4,300 
 
 
 Sierra Nevada of California, Shastl Peak, . . 
 
 
 14,000 
 
 
 
 17,800 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 2. — Central America. 
 
 
 
 Porto Rico 
 
 
 3,500? 
 
 Haiti 
 
 
 5,000? 
 
 
 
 7,000 
 
 
 
 7,500 
 
 
 7,500 
 
 
 
 
 13,000 
 
 
 
 19,000 
 
 
 3,000 
 
 
 
 
 9,000 
 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 3, South America. 
 
 
 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 
 
 4,000 
 
 
 
 8,400 
 
 
 1,000? 
 
 
 
 
 19,500 
 
 
 9,000 
 
 
 
 
 21,300 
 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
08 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 4. — South America. 
 
 Low l'ds and 
 Table lands. 
 
 Hig-hest 
 Mountains. 
 
 Coast of Brazil, 
 
 Table land of Brazil, . . . . 
 Itambe, Sierra de Espinha^o, 
 Sta Cruz de Rio Grande, . . 
 
 Nevado de Sorata, 
 
 Lake of Titicaca, 
 
 Volcano of Arequipa, . . . . 
 Coast of the Pacific. . . . . 
 
 12,800 
 
 0 
 
 2,000 
 
 1,000? 
 
 0 
 
 25,300 
 
 18,300 
 0 
 
 6,000 
 
 0 
 
 The simultaneous increase of the plateaus and of the 
 higher peaks cannot, then, be doubted, and the preced- 
 ing figures make all comments unnecessary. The 
 inspection of the profiles permits us also to deduce the 
 following general facts : 
 
 4. In the Old World, the long slopes are turned 
 towards the north, and the short slopes towards the 
 south. In the New World, the gentle slopes descend 
 towards the east, and the short and rapid slopes towards 
 the west. Thus, in this respect, each of the two worlds 
 has a law peculiar to itself. 
 
 5. In each of the two worlds, the two laws exert their 
 influence. In the Old World, though the principal slope 
 is towards the north, we observe still a gradual decrease* 
 of the reliefs from east to west ; in the same manner, in 
 the New World, the principal slope is from the west to 
 the east, but it may be seen that the reliefs go on gradu- 
 ally increasing from north to south, as in the Old World. 
 In these two secondary directions of the reliefs, we 
 discover the law of the unequal slopes ; in the Old World, 
 
RELIEF OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 the long slope descends to the west, the short slope to 
 the east ; in the New World, the long slope is to the 
 north, the short to the south. 
 
 1. — Asia - Europe — from East to West. 
 
 Low l'ds and 
 Table lands. 
 
 Highest 
 Mountains. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 28; 
 
 000 
 
 Table lands of Tubet ; 
 
 14; 
 
 000 
 
 
 
 TT ' J T7" 1 
 
 
 
 20, 
 
 000 
 
 Plateau of Caboul and. Kelat 
 
 
 000 
 
 
 
 Plateau of Persia, . . 
 
 4, 
 
 000 
 
 
 
 Caucasus Elbrus 
 
 
 
 
 800 
 
 Asia Minor plateau 
 
 3, 
 
 000 
 
 
 
 Taurus 
 
 
 
 1 n 
 
 nnn 
 
 Alps Mt Blanc 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 800 
 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 200 
 
 
 2 
 
 ,300 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ,700 
 
 
 
 2. — Africa — from East to West. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Abyssinia, Samen Mountains, 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 000 
 
 Plateau of G-ondar, ............ 
 
 7 
 
 ,000 
 
 
 
 Plateau of Mandara, ••«. 
 
 4 
 
 ,000? 
 
 
 
 Camerun Mountains, 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 000 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 000 
 
 Table land of the Mandingoes . . 
 
 o 
 «c 
 
 nnn ? 
 
 ,UUU f 
 
 
 
 3. — America — from North to South. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 500 
 
 
 6 
 
 ,000 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 17; 
 
 000 
 
 
 7 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 400 
 
 
 12 
 
 800 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 25; 
 
 300 
 
70 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 6. Generally speaking, the reliefs go on increasing 
 from the poles to the tropical regions. The highest 
 elevations, however, are not placed at the equator, but 
 in the neighborhood of the Tropic of Cancer, in the Old 
 World, (Himalaya, 27° north lat.,) and near the Tropic 
 of Capricorn, in the New World, (Nevado de Sorata, 
 18° south lat.) 
 
 I notice here one of the great compensations, one of 
 the great harmonies, of nature. The effect of this law 
 of arrangement is, to temper the burning heats of these 
 regions, and to give them such a variety of climate as 
 seems not to belong to these countries of the globe. If 
 this order were reversed, and the elevation of the lands 
 went on increasing towards the north, the most civilized 
 half of the globe, at the present day, would be a frozen 
 and uninhabited desert. 
 
 7. In fine, a common law combines in a single great 
 fact all we have just said upon the general reliefs of the 
 continent ; it may be thus expressed : — 
 
 All the long and gentle -slopes descend towards the 
 Atlantic and towards the Frozen Ocean, which is only a 
 dependence of it; all the short and rapid slopes, or 
 counter-slopes, are directed towards the Pacific Ocean 
 and towards the Indian Ocean, which is its continuation. 
 
 In this point of view, these two great oceans appear 
 as two basins of different geological character. 
 
 The Pacific Ocean seems an immense basin which 
 has sunk down, and whose high and ragged edges pre- 
 sent on all sides the abrupt terminations of the conti- 
 nents. It is on this great line of fractures, on the borders 
 and all round this ocean, as has been pointed out by Mr. 
 von Buch and other scientific men, that we behold the 
 
RELIEF OF THE CONTINENTS. 
 
 71 
 
 great majority of the active volcanoes of our globe, 
 arranged like an immense burning crown. If we add to 
 this feature the multitude of volcanic islands scattered 
 over the ocean, we comprehend the idea, expressed by 
 Steffens, that the vast basin occupies the place of a con- 
 tinent of the early ages, uniting the two worlds, but sunk 
 and submerged at present under the deep waters of the 
 ocean, in consequence of one of the latest great revolu- 
 tions of our globe. 
 
 The Atlantic Ocean, on the contrary, would be a 
 simple depression, somewhat in the form of a trough, 
 owing, perhaps, to a lateral pressure, and partly to the 
 tilting motion which lifted up the lands in the neighbor- 
 hood of the Pacific. Hence, its narrower breadth, the 
 valley form, the absence of numerous islands in the 
 interior of its basin, and the descent of all the neighbor- 
 ing continents by gentle slopes. Nevertheless, if we 
 suppose the lateral force that pressed it in to have been 
 very strong, we may conceive that this valley has a 
 great depth. 
 
 Thus, then, gentlemen, a great law, a general law, 
 unites all the various systems of mountains and of 
 plateaus that cover the surface of our globe, and 
 arranges them in a vast and regular system of slopes . 
 and counter-slopes. Considered with reference to the 
 present state of geology, this result is astonishing. The 
 study of the relative ages of the different systems of 
 elevations, teaches us that each of them has existed a 
 long time separately. One appeared in one country at a 
 given epoch, another in another. The continents are 
 only formed, so to speak, by piecemeal, in the train of 
 the geological epochs; and, nevertheless, the definitive 
 
72 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 result makes a whole, composed of parts subordinated to 
 each other in a certain system, which might be called 
 an organism in this order of things. 
 
 This is not the moment to press the consequences of 
 so remarkable a fact. It is enough for me to have 
 pointed it out to your attention. 
 
 I will add only, that the geological researches place 
 beyond a doubt the existence of an Ultimate relation 
 between the height of the mountains and of the plateaus, 
 and the epoch of their appearance above the surface of 
 the oceans. The most ancient chains of mountains are 
 the least elevated ; while the colossal grandeurs of the 
 Andes and the Himalaya bear the traces of an upheaval 
 comparatively very recent. In America, from the coasts 
 of Brazil to the high table lands of Bolivia, and from the 
 Atlantic shores to the Rocky Mountains; in Europe, 
 from the mountains of Scandinavia to the summit of the 
 Alps, we meet with upheavings successively less ancient. 
 In the two worlds the continental masses have then 
 become greater in the lapse of the ages, not by chance, 
 but in two determinate directions; that is, in a geo- 
 graphical order, from the north to the south of the Old 
 World, and from the east to the west in the New ; and 
 I think we may hence infer, that from the moment when 
 the oldest lands we know emerged, the continents have 
 had a tendency to form themselves on the spot where 
 they now are. 
 
 We see that here, as elsewhere, all is done with order 
 and measure, and according to a plan which we shall 
 have a right to believe was foreseen and intended, when 
 we shall have studied all the consequences of this 
 arrangement of the continental masses. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 Distribution of the table lands, the mountains, and the plains in the 
 different continents; the Old World that of plateaus, the New 
 World that of jfyins — The basin of the oceans ; this inquiry com- 
 pletes the study of the plastic forms of the earth's crust — Division 
 and characteristics of the oceans ; their contours and their depth — 
 Comparison of the latter with the mean elevation of the continents — 
 Conclusions — Necessity of considering the physiology of the conti- 
 nental forms — Point of view which should be taken — Law of the 
 development of life. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 In our last lecture we carried our examination into 
 the general forms of relief of the continents. Our inves- 
 tigation has permitted us to establish the existence of 
 a great common law of slopes and counter-slopes, of 
 increase and decrease of reliefs. The entire continents, 
 as well as the mountains, have two principal unequal 
 slopes ; the long and gentle slopes descend towards the 
 Atlantic and Frozen Ocean, the short and steep slopes 
 towards the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 To finish this subject, it remains to say a word upon 
 the distribution of the table lands, of the mountains, and 
 of the plains in the different continents. 
 
 The distribution of these three great forms of relief — 
 is it uniform or not ? Or are there not some character- 
 istic differences, to be pointed out in this regaid, between 
 the continents ? Does not the form of the elevated table 
 lands prevail in one part of the world, the form of the 
 7 
 
74 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 plains in another, the form of the mountains, finally, in 
 yet a third ? If we call to mind the important influence 
 each of these forms exerts on the climate, the produc- 
 tions, and on the conditions of existence, and growth 
 of the nations, we shall regard this question as one of 
 those which most concern our subject. 
 
 Considered in this point of view, the continents pre- 
 sent, in reality, remarkable differences. • 
 
 The Old World, as we have learned from the study 
 of its reliefs, is that of table lands and mountains. No 
 continent exhibits plateaus so elevated, so numerous, so 
 extensive, as Asia and Africa. Instead of one or two 
 chains of mountains, like the Andes, Central Asia is 
 traversed by four immense chains, supporting vast table 
 lands of from 5,000 to 14,000 feet in elevation, and the 
 loftiest mountains of the globe. 
 
 The extent of this elevated region is more than 2,400 
 miles long, by 1,500 miles broad. The principal mass 
 of Western Asia is nothing but a plateau, from three to 
 six thousand feet in height. Africa, south of Sahara, 
 seems to be only an enormous pile of uplifted lands. It 
 has been calculated that the mountains and plateaus of 
 Asia cover five sevenths of its surface, while the plains 
 occupy only two sevenths. In Africa, the high regions 
 form two thirds of the continent, the plains only one third. 
 
 If I call the Old World the world of plateaus, it is 
 not because great plains are wanting there. The whole 
 north of Europe and of Asia is merely a boundless plain, 
 and from the shores of Holland, through Germany, 
 Russia, the Steppes of the Caspian and Siberia, the 
 raveller may cross the Ancient World from the Atlan- 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF PLASTIC FORMS. 
 
 75 
 
 tic to the Pacific Ocean, for a distance of more than six 
 thousand miles, without encountering an eminence of 
 more than a few hundred feet in height. In Africa, 
 also, the plains of Sahara extend 2,500 miles in length, 
 by 1,000 in breadth. But the situation of these plains 
 of the Old World under the frozen sky of the north, and 
 under the fires of the tropics, together with the nature 
 of their soil, takes from them all their importance. The 
 one is a frozen waste, a Siberia; the other a burning 
 desert; and neither the one nor the other is called to 
 play an essential part, nor do they impress upon their 
 respective continents their essential character. 
 
 The New World, on the other hand, is the world of 
 plains. They form two thirds of its surface ; the pla- 
 teaus and the mountains, only one third. The high 
 lands form only a narrow band, crowded upon the west- 
 ern coast of the two continents. Almost the whole East 
 runs into immense plains, covering it, one might say, 
 from pole to pole. From the Frozen Ocean to the Gulf 
 of Mexico, over an extent of nearly 2,400 miles, we 
 cross only insignificant heights. From the llanos of the 
 Orinoco to the banks of La Plata, we traverse more than 
 three thousand miles of low plains, slightly interrupted 
 by the somewhat more elevated regions of western Bra- 
 zil; they are prolonged even to the Pampas of Pata- 
 gonia, 600 miles further south, to the southern extrem- 
 ity of America. The length of the rich plains watered 
 by the Marafion, in the direction of the current, is nearly 
 1,600 miles ; and what are the plains of the Amazon and 
 the Mississippi, compared with those of Siberia and 
 Sahara ? A happy climate, a rich and fertile soil, a 
 
76 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 wonderful vegetation, prodigious resources — they have 
 all that makes the prosperity of a country ; who does 
 not see that here is the character of America, here lies 
 the future of the New World, while the countries of 
 mountains and plateaus seem destined to play only a 
 secondary part ? 
 
 Even in this regard the two worlds have each its own 
 character, and form a great contrast ; m that we may 
 say that, in one of the hemispheres, the plateaus and 
 the mountains predominate, while, in the other, the 
 plains give the important and essential feature of relief. 
 
 Finally, if we were seeking for a continent where the 
 form of mountains, without plateaus at their base, should 
 be the characteristic feature, it would be necessary to 
 name Europe, comprehending in it only Western Europe 
 without Russia; that is, historical Europe, the true 
 Europe after all. This continent, with Russia, has 
 three fourths of plains to one fourth of mountainous 
 country ; but, leaving out Russia, it is quite otherwise. 
 Traverse Europe from one end to the other, whether over 
 its central mass or its peninsulas, you will find every- 
 where its soil modified, cut in all directions by chains 
 of mountains intersecting each other. In all this part 
 of the continent, the largest existing plain, that of 
 Northern Germany and Poland, is only six hundred 
 miles long by two hundred broad. It is the extremity 
 of the great Asiatic plains in the north. The other 
 plains, as those of France, of Hungary, of Lombardy, 
 are smaller in extent, and do not deprive this part of the 
 continent of the mountainous character essentially be- 
 longing to it. 
 
THE OCEANS. 
 
 77 
 
 We have now considered the configuration of the 
 general forms of the continents ; let us not forget that 
 this is only one half of the plastic forms of the earth's 
 crust. There is another, which, though hidden from 
 our sight, is none the less entitled to our interest. It is 
 the basin of the oceans. 
 
 The positive forms of the lands which we have 
 studied determine negatively for the oceans, whether 
 horizontally or vertically, certain forms no less char- 
 acteristic. We ought, then, to examine the character 
 of the ocean basins, in the two-fold relation of the forms 
 and the indentations of their shores, and of their 
 depth. But the time presses, and I must be brief ; lim- 
 iting myself to the essential facts, I shall omit all that 
 does not touch directly upon my subject. 
 
 The continents determine the general outlines of the 
 great ocean basins. The indentations of their coasts 
 give the articulation of the shores of the oceans; the 
 islands, by their disposition, by their less or greater fre- 
 quency, furnish what else is wanting to complete their 
 character ; the one is the counterpart of the other ; they 
 are the same forms, but in an inverse order. 
 
 Two great oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic, cor- 
 responding to the two worlds, surround, on almost all 
 sides, the principal terrestrial masses. We may detach 
 from the Pacific, the Indian. Ocean, which, though 
 belonging to it, has some special characteristics ; and 
 separate from the Atlantic, the Northern Frozen Ocean, 
 the position of which gives it a particular physiognomy. 
 
 As to the great Southern Sea, we may consider it less 
 as an ocean by itself than as a common reservoir, whence 
 
78 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 issue, so to speak, all the seas of the globe, to make 
 their way into the lands. 
 
 The Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, corre- 
 spond to the three double worlds which we have distin- 
 guished, following StefFens, and separate them from one 
 another. Each of them, also, is divided into a northern 
 and a southern basin, except the Indian Ocean, which, 
 on this account, is only a half ocean. 
 
 The general forms of the contours of these three 
 oceans have, as a common feature, a wide opening to- 
 wards the south, and are narrowed to a point on the 
 north, just the reverse of the continents. Each of these 
 has, meantime, a form peculiar to itself. The Pacific 
 Ocean is an oval, wide open on the south, the sides 
 coming nearer and nearer together towards the north, 
 so as to leave, between America and Asia, only the 
 narrow passage of Behrings' Straits, by which it com- 
 municates with the Frozen Ocean. 
 
 The Indian Ocean has the form of a triangle, with 
 the vertex turned to the north; the Atlantic that of a 
 valley with nearly parallel sides, which, narrowed for 
 a moment, then broadens into the Frozen Ocean. 
 
 The oceans differ, moreover, in the mode of articu- 
 lation of their shores. These indentations have very 
 various forms, which I will classify, for the moment, 
 under three species : the gulfs, like that of Bengal ; the 
 land-locked seas, isolated from the rest of the ocean by 
 peninsulas and chains of islands, like the Sea of Japan, 
 the Sea of Okhotsk ; the inland seas, surrounded on all 
 sides by the land, in a continuous manner, like the Med- 
 iterranean and the Baltic, 
 
THE OCEANS. 
 
 79 
 
 Considered with reference to the indentations, the 
 three oceans have their own respective characters, and 
 we find that in each, one of these three forms predom- 
 inates. 
 
 The Pacific Ocean is that of the land-locked or closed 
 seas ; for there are no less than five of considerable size 
 along the coast of Asia : the Sea of Behring, closed in 
 by the peninsula of Aljaska, and the chain of the 
 Aleutian Islands; the Sea of Okhotsk, enclosed by the 
 peninsula of Kamtschatka, and the series of the Kurile 
 Islands ; the Sea of Japan, shut in by the island chain 
 of this name ; the northern Chinese Sea, locked by the 
 islands of Lieu-Khieu and Formosa; the Southern Sea 
 of China, locked by the Philippines, Borneo, and the 
 peninsula of Indo-China. We may almost call the 
 Vermilion Sea, or Gulf of California, an inland sea, it 
 being the only indentation of this ocean somewhat 
 marked, on the American coast. 
 
 The Indian Ocean is that of gulfs ; for the two great 
 Gulfs of Bengal and the Persian Sea impress upon it its 
 character. It pushes, besides, into the interior two mid- 
 land seas, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, which detach 
 the peninsula of Arabia from the rest of the continent. 
 
 The Atlantic Ocean is that of inland seas. No- one 
 advances further into the lands, piercing into the very 
 heart of the Old World and the New. There are, at 
 least, four mediterraneans, without taking into the 
 account the Polar seas ; two on the European side, the 
 Mediterranean, properly so called, divided into three 
 great basins ; the Eastern, the Western, the Black Sea, 
 not to mention several others of small size, and the 
 
80 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Baltic ; two on the coasts of the New World, the Gulf 
 of Mexico and Hudson's Bay. Neither is the form of 
 land-locked seas wanting here also ; the Northern Ocean, 
 on the coasts of the Old World, the Caribbean Sea in 
 Central America, closed by the peninsula of Yucatan 
 and the chain of the greater and lesser Antilles; the 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence, locked by the peninsula of Nova 
 Scotia and Newfoundland, are the proof. The great 
 gulfs are represented by those of Guinea and of Biscay. 
 The Atlantic Ocean is, then, the most articulated, the 
 most indented of the oceans, and that which, by its 
 blending with the lands, approaches the nearest to the 
 character of the inland seas. It is, if I may venture to 
 say so, the most maritime of the oceans, as the Pacific 
 is the most truly oceanic. 
 
 The islands, finally, are one of the most interesting 
 characteristics of the oceans. There are two species to 
 be distinguished: the continental islands, which their 
 proximity, their size, their geographical character, their 
 forming a line with the mountain chains of the firm 
 land, prove to be a dependence of the continents; and 
 the pelagic , or oceanic islands, dispersed singly, or in 
 groups, at a distance from the lands, over the vast sur- 
 face of the ocean, of small dimensions, and always of 
 a volcanic or coralline character. 
 
 The Pacific Ocean is far the richest in islands, whether 
 continental or pelagic. The Indian archipelago and 
 that of New Holland is the largest continental archi- 
 pelago existing on the surface of the globe ; and the 
 thousands of pelagic islands with which the centre of 
 this ocean is studded, have nowhere else their parallel. 
 
THE OCEANS. 
 
 81 
 
 The Atlantic Ocean possesses still, in the group of the 
 Antilles, the British Isles, and those of the Mediter- 
 ranean, continental archipelagos of great importance ; 
 but the pelagic islands are poorly represented there by 
 the groups of the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, Cape 
 Verd, St. Helena, and some other small islands lost in 
 the midst of the ocean. 
 
 The Indian Ocean is scanty in both. Madagascar and 
 Ceylon, one by a main-land, represent the continental 
 islands. Here and there a few volcanic islands, as 
 Mauritius and Bourbon, represent the pelagic. 
 
 Each ocean, therefore, differs from the others, in some 
 peculiarities of character ; and we readily conceive how 
 these circumstances may modify their importance, with 
 regard to the facility or the difficulty they may bring 
 into the relations of exchange which commerce estab- 
 lishes among all the nations of the world. 
 
 Let us now see what is known of the vertical dimen- 
 sions, or of the configuration of their basin. 
 
 The basin of the oceans is depressed below the face 
 of their waters, as the continents are elevated in the 
 atmosphere above the same surface level. It may, then, 
 be said, that we know not one half of the reliefs of the 
 solid crust of our globe, for more than two thirds are 
 concealed fr&m our observation by the seas that cover 
 them. It would, nevertheless, be of the highest interest 
 for geology, as well as for the physics of the globe, to 
 ascertain the forms, the depth, and the nature of the 
 bottom of the oceans. But though we have numerous 
 soundings, executed in the neighborhood of the shores, to 
 
82- 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 meet the wants of navigation, we have only a very few 
 in the interior, and in the deepest parts of the oceans. 
 These operations require a consumption of time, and an 
 amount of labor, which will always render them rare. 
 Recourse has been had to hypotheses, while waiting for 
 positive information on the subject. 
 
 In the neighborhood of the continents, the seas are 
 often shallow, and their bottom seems to be only the 
 continuation, by gentle slopes, of the relief of the con- 
 tinents that border them. Thus the Baltic Sea has 
 a depth of only 120 feet between the coasts of Germany 
 and those of Sweden ; scarcely a twentieth part of that 
 of Lago Maggiore, in the Italian Alps; further north, it 
 becomes deeper. The Adriatic, between Venice and 
 Trieste, has a depth of only 130 feet. In these two 
 cases, we see that the bed is only the continuation of 
 the gentle inclination of the plains of Northern Germany 
 and of Friuli. It is the same with the Northern Sea, 
 and with those which wash the British Islands. Here is 
 found a submarine plateau, which serves as a common 
 basis for the coasts of France and the British Islands ; 
 nowhere does it sink lower than 600 feet, and frequently 
 it rises much higher. Between France and England, 
 the greatest depth does not exceed 300 feet ; but at the 
 edge of the plateau, south-west of Ireland, for example, 
 the depth suddenly sinks to more than 2JQ00 feet ; we 
 may say that here the basin of the Atlantic really 
 begins. 
 
 The soas in the south of Europe are distinguished 
 from the preceding by their much greater depths. The 
 basin of the Mediterranean may be called a basin broken 
 
THE OCEANS. 
 
 83 
 
 through, and fallen in, resembling on a small scale what 
 the Pacific Ocean is on a large one. All the short and 
 abrupt slopes of the lands surrounding it fall rapidly 
 towards the interior. The western basin, in particular, 
 seems to be very deep ; it is isolated from the Atlantic, 
 by a submarine ridge or neck, which, in the narrowest 
 part of the Strait of Gibraltar, is not more than 1,000 
 feet below the surface. But a little further towards the 
 east, the depth falls suddenly to 3,000 feet; and at the 
 south of the coast of Spain, and of the Sierra Nevada, 
 a depth of nearly 6,000 has been ascertained by Captain 
 Smith. Captain Berard indicates still greater depths 
 on the coast of Algeria. If we may believe Marsigli, 
 and if he has not made some mistake in the statement, 
 there has been found in the prolongation of the Pyre- 
 nees, the enormous depth of 9,000 feet. Not far from 
 Cape Asmara, on the north-west of Sardinia, the plum- 
 met has been sunk, without touching bottom, at a depth 
 of nearly 5,000 feet. 
 
 Between Sicily and the coast of Africa, at Cape Bon, 
 a second neck, from 50 to 500 feet in depth, separates 
 the western from the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. 
 The latter seems to be less deep than the former ; never- 
 theless, depths of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet have been 
 determined in the neighborhood of the Ionian Islands, 
 * and the soutlrern coast of Asia Minor. 
 
 The Black Sea seems to partake of the character of 
 a sunk basin. The Russian maps give it more than 
 3,000 feet south of the Crimea, and 2,500 on the coast 
 of Abkhasie. The Caspian Sea, placed on the limits 
 of the northern plains, and of the table land of Persia, 
 
 ■ 
 
84 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 is composed of two basins. The northern part, as far 
 as the Caucasus, is shallow ; it is the continuation of 
 the low plains of the Volga, and of the Oural. This limit 
 passed, the depth rapidly increases towards the basis of 
 the high chain of the Demavend. 
 
 Thus, in the European seas, the depth increases with 
 the elevation of the surrounding lands. 
 
 The line of the islands and the peninsulas forming 
 along the eastern coast of Asia the numerous locked 
 seas we have already named, seems to indicate the 
 ancient border of a continent. Within this line these 
 seas have only an inconsiderable depth. The seas 
 which bathe the archipelago of the Sunda Islands, and 
 of Southern China, scarcely anywhere reach the depth 
 of 300 feet. Further north, we find scarcely four or 
 five hundred feet, even at a distance of more than 100 
 miles from the coasts. The deeps of the ocean begin 
 only outside of the line of the islands. 
 
 Since Dampier, it has often been said that the sea is 
 always deep at the foot of high and steep shores, and 
 shallow at the edge of low coasts. The facts just 
 cited prove that this observation, correct in many 
 cases, has only a relative value, and does not hold 
 good universally. Those shallow seas of Eastern Asia 
 are edged in great part by very highlands. The 
 massive point of the south of Africa ends with abrupt 
 coasts, and yet it is necessary to go out more than 100 
 miles before finding 600 feet of water. According to 
 this rule, we should expect to find no greater depth of 
 sea than at the western foot of the lofty Andes, the 
 declivities of which sweep down so suddenly into the 
 
THE OCEANS. 
 
 85 
 
 Pacific Ocean ; and nevertheless, under the parallel of 
 Lima, this ocean has only 600 feet, more than forty miles 
 from the coast. On the other hand, the low plains of 
 the Landes of Bordeaux, on the coast of France, lying 
 along the Gulf of Biscay, look out upon a sea, the bottom 
 of which, at a short distance, sinks already lower than 
 a thousand feet. 
 
 In Central America, the Gulf of Mexico, 300 miles 
 from the coast of the United States, and 100 miles north 
 of Yucatan, has a depth of only 600 feet ; it is, perhaps, 
 a submarine continuation of the plains of Mississippi. 
 Beyond the line of the Antilles, on the contrary, in the vol- 
 canic basin of the Caribbean Sea, Captain Sabine indi- 
 cates a temperature taken at 6,000 feet below the surface. 
 
 With regard to the depths of the open sea, they are 
 still but little known ; we have, however, some very 
 interesting measurements in the Atlantic Ocean. I cite 
 the most remarkable : 
 
 Captains Scoresby and Parry found the basin of the 
 Polar seas very deep, but unequal. Scoresby did not 
 touch bottom, at the 76 th degree of north latitude, with a 
 sounding line of 7,200 feet in length. Captain J. Ross 
 went beyond 6,000, in Baffin's Bay. Science is indebted 
 to the skilful direction of the United States Coast Survey, 
 for a great number of very instructive soundings on the 
 "American side of the middle part of the Atlantic. One 
 of the ablest of those engaged in this service, Captain 
 Charles H. Davis, U. S. N., whose labors have contrib- 
 uted so much to a better knowledge of the true conforma- 
 tion of the submarine portion of the United States coasts, 
 dropped the lead 7,800 feet, about 250 miles south of 
 8 
 
SB 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Nantucket ; Lieutenant G. Bache, 13,000 feet, 34° N. L. 
 The report of Professor A. D. Bache, Superintendent of 
 the Survey, mentions, among the operations of 1848, a 
 thermometrical sounding, taken by the late Lieutenant 
 R. Bache, off Cape Hatteras, giving a depth of 3,300 
 fathoms, or 19,800 feet, without reaching the bottom. 
 This depth, which left far behind all hitherto ascertained 
 in these quarters, has very recently been surpassed by a 
 sounding executed by Lieutenant Walsh, U. S. N., under 
 the direction of Lieutenant M. F. Maury, * director of the 
 Observatory at Washington. On the 15th of November, 
 1849, east of the Bermudas, 31° 59' north latitude, and 
 58° 43' 25" west longitude from Greenwich, in the 
 immediate neighborhood of the position assigned to the 
 rocks called the False Bermudas, the weather being calm 
 and beautiful, Lieutenant Walsh, U. S. N., sunk the lead 
 to the depth of 5,700 fathoms, or 34,200 feet, without 
 touching bottom. The breaking of the line alone pre- 
 vented him from reaching a greater depth still, for all 
 the circumstances seemed eminently favorable. This 
 depth, which exceeds by 6,600 feet the deepest of 
 the celebrated measurements of Captain J. C. Ross, 
 is the greatest ever ascertained, and reveals, beneath 
 the tranquil surface of the ocean, abysms which we 
 hardly ventured to suspect. The southern basin of the 
 Atlantic seems to have its share of these immense depths, 
 although some indications have given rise to the belief 
 
 # For the opportunity of making known this remarkable fact, I am 
 indebted to the kindness of this scientific gentleman, whose zeal for the 
 study of the phenomena of the sea, and the services he has rendered to 
 navigation, by the study of the winds and currents, are universally 
 known. 
 
THE OCEANS. 
 
 87 
 
 in the existence of high bottoms, separating this basin 
 from that of the north. Captain J. C. Ross found 16,000 
 feet in depth, west of Cape of Good Hope, and 27,600, 
 without touching bottom, west of St. Helena. The first 
 of these measurements equals the height of Mt. Blanc, 
 and the second almost reaches that of the Dhavala-Giri ; 
 but it would be necessary to add Mt. Washington, with its 
 6,000 feet, to the height of this giant of terrestrial sum- 
 mits, to attain a height equal to the sounding of Lieut. 
 Walsh. Thus the greatest known sea depth, added to 
 the elevation of the highest mountain of the globe, gives 
 us over 62,000 feet for the thickness of the layer of our 
 globe, upon which our investigations have supplied some 
 information. 
 
 Dr. Young, relying upon deductions drawn chiefly 
 from the theory of the tides, thought himself justified in 
 assigning about 15,000 feet to the Atlantic, and about 
 20,000 feet to the Pacific. D'Aubuisson believes them 
 not to exceed from 9,000 to 12,000 feet. Now we see 
 that the actual measurements leave these estimates far 
 behind. 
 
 Laplace, guided by theoretical considerations with 
 regard to the general form of the globe, admitted that 
 the mean depth of the seas is a quantity of the same 
 order with the mean elevation of the continents ; which, 
 he says, does not surpass a thousand metres, or 3,000 
 feet. But the beautiful researches of Humboldt have 
 proved that this estimate of the mean relief of the con- 
 tinents is far too high. He has sought to determine its 
 true value, and has found, as the most probable result, 
 the following numbers for the different continents : 
 
ss 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Mean elevation. 
 
 Europe, . . 
 Asia, . . . 
 North America. 
 South America, 
 
 671 feet. 
 1,151 " 
 
 748 " 
 1,132 " 
 
 He consequently places the mean elevation of the con- 
 tinental lands at 1,008 feet above the level of the ocean. 
 
 Now this number is evidently too low to express the 
 mean depth of the oceans. 
 
 It has seemed to me that it would not be uninteresting 
 to compare the depths observed in the Southern Atlantic, 
 with what would be found by supposing that the general 
 planes of inclination of the opposite continents of Africa 
 and America were prolonged until they met under the 
 surface of the ocean. Professor B. Peirce has had the 
 kindness to make the calculation, which gives the follow- 
 ing result. Taking as points of departure for Africa, the 
 table lands of Southern Africa, at the foot of the Lupata, 
 and estimating their height at 5,000 feet ; and for Amer- 
 ica, the table lands of Bolivia, estimated at 12,000 : the 
 planes which pass through the respective coasts of these 
 continents intersect each other at a distance of nearly a 
 thousand miles from the coast of America; that is, a 
 third of the way across the Atlantic, and 7,600 feet 
 below the surface of the oceans. If the points of de- 
 parture were taken at the summit of the Lupata, at 
 J .,000 feet, and of the Andes, at 24,000, the depth would 
 be about 15,000 feet, which perhaps is not far from the 
 mean depth of this part of the great oceanic valley. But 
 we see that other causes depress the level, in some parts, 
 to depths twice as great. The basins are not, therefore, 
 mere continuations of the general relief of the continents, 
 
THE OCEANS. 
 
 89 
 
 and this is otherwise shown by their conformation. On 
 leaving the greater part of the shores, the submarine 
 ground descends slowly, in a proportion sufficiently 
 analogous to the general slopes presented by the ground 
 above water on the continents. But^ at a point more or 
 less distant from the shore, the slopes abruptly change, 
 the depths suddenly increase, and often become ten times 
 as great at a short distance. I will cite, as examples, the 
 very exact lines of soundings traced perpendicularly to 
 the coast, at several points, between New Jersey and Block 
 Island, at the eastern extremity of Long Island, under 
 the direction of Professor A. D. Bache, for which I am 
 indebted to his kindness. In all the sections, we see the 
 ground descend slowly, gradually, and without great 
 variations, to the distance of 80 or 100 miles from the 
 shore, where the depth scarcely reaches from four to five 
 hundred feet. Beyond this distance, the depth invari- 
 ably increases so rapidly, that it is sufficient to proceed 
 ten miles further to find three' or four thousand feet. 
 The first part is about five feet a mile; the second, 
 more than four hundred. 
 
 It is the same with nearly all the grand banks, or high 
 bottoms under water. That of Newfoundland, that of 
 Las Lagullas, at the southern point of Africa, all termi- 
 nate, towards the depths of the ocean, in abrupt descents, 
 along a great part of their extent. The bottom of the 
 sea, near the coast, and the great banks, present them- 
 selves as high plateaus, compared with the bottom of the 
 oceans. But differences of level, amounting to 10,000 
 feet over a horizontal space of ten miles ; of 20,000 feet, 
 as between the sea of Cape Hatteras and the shore ; of 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 34,000 feet, as between the sea of Bermudas and the 
 neighboring continent, reveal to us forms«of relief of such 
 a magnitude that we seek in vain for their parallel in 
 the most elevated terrestrial masses. Neither the broad 
 table lands of Mexico, or of California, nor those of 
 Bolivia, or of the Himalaya, which after all are only 
 local swellings, offer proportions approaching those we 
 have just stated in the submarine relief of the basin of the 
 oceans. I must here stop from pursuing this interesting 
 question of comparative physical geography, which at 
 present I barely touch upon. We must wait for still 
 more numerous facts, in order to attempt its complete 
 solution. Let me add, that it would be worthy of an 
 enlightened government, like that of the United States, 
 to bestow on science a regular section across the middle 
 regions of the northern Atlantic basin, — that grand 
 highway of the nations, travelled by thousands of ships. 
 Three or four hundred soundings, penetrating to the 
 bottom of its abysses, would be enough to give us a 
 tolerable idea of the forms of this basin, and would, 
 doubtless, correct many false ideas imposed upon us by 
 the limited views of geology we have gained upon our 
 continents. Many of the scientific expeditions of modern 
 times have had an aim, and have accomplished results 
 less useful to science, and have cost sums vastly greater, 
 than would be necessary to furnish science with such 
 important information. 
 
 What the measurements above indicated have settled, 
 may be thus summed up : — 
 
 The seas in the neighborhood of the continents are 
 ordinarily of but little depth, and seem to indicate aeon- 
 
THE OCEANS. 
 
 91 
 
 tinuation of the relief of the continents. But at a certain 
 distance from the shores, the sounding gives suddenly 
 great depths, and this abrupt transition seems to indicate 
 the submarine border of the proper basin of the oceans. 
 
 Certain interior seas, like the Mediterranean and 
 Caribbean, are deeper than would be expected from 
 their proximity to the lands, and seem to be sunken 
 basins, the form of which is connected with the vol- 
 canic phenomena often displayed over their whole ex- 
 tent, but chiefly on their margins; that is, on the 
 principal line of fractures. 
 
 The interior of the basin of the oceans is unequal, 
 generally deeper than towards the borders. The greatest 
 observed depths are found in the middle region of the 
 Atlantic. They equal, or surpass, by several thousand 
 feet, the elevation of the highest mountains of the globe, 
 and are found, like them, in the neighborhood of both 
 tropics. 
 
 The mean depth of the basin, of the ocean seems to be 
 much more considerable than the mean elevation of the 
 continents above their surface, and appears to increase 
 with the relief of the neighboring continents. 
 
 We have thus finished our survey of the great forms 
 of the terrestrial surface. We have examined them as 
 the anatomist would examine the body of an animal. 
 This was the first step "to take, the necessary condition 
 of our study. But this knowledge cannot be sufficient. 
 We must now see these great organs in operation; we 
 must see them in life, acting and reacting upon each 
 other ; we must commence the physiology of the conti- 
 nental forms, 
 
92 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 But we will not plunge into the infinite details that 
 might be embraced in our subject. We shall continue 
 to study the great features, the prominent traits, which 
 will offer themselves to our notice. 
 
 After having recognized great terrestrial individuals, 
 presenting, by their forms and their disposition, an 
 assemblage of characters peculiar to them alone, we have 
 to inquire if, in virtue of these forms themselves, and of 
 this particular position, each of these individuals has not 
 a peculiar physical life, manifesting itself, in the main, 
 by a climate, a vegetation, an animal world, and, rela- 
 tively to human societies, by special functions which 
 belong to no other. We shall endeavor to discover if 
 there is not here, also, a general law, which gives us the 
 key to all these partial phenomena, helping to group 
 them, and to grasp, in the true point of view, the col- 
 lective manifestations of the life of our planet, whether 
 in nature, or in the history of man. 
 
 But to this end, gentlemen, in order to place you in 
 the point of view from which I would have you con- 
 sider with me the phenomena of the life of the globe, I 
 cannot avoid the necessity of carrying you for a moment 
 into a world somewhat different from the world of 
 forms wherein we have thus far moved, and to appeal 
 to the eyes of your mind, rather than to those which 
 have, up to the present moment* been fixed upon these 
 maps. 
 
 In fact, nothing less is necessary than to say to you, 
 in as few WQrds as possible, — to prove to you, if it can be 
 done, — that there is a law of life and of growth, which, 
 if taken in its most general formula, in its rhythm, is 
 
THE LAW OF LIFE. 
 
 93 
 
 applicable to all that undergoes the process of develop- 
 ment. 
 
 All life, as we have said, gentlemen, in its most sim- 
 ple formula, may be defined as a mutual exchange of 
 relations. 
 
 An exchange supposes at least two elements, two 
 bodies, two individuals, a duality and a difference, an 
 inequality between them, in virtue of which the ex- 
 change is established. 
 
 There is, then, at the foundation of all the phenom- 
 ena of life, a difference between two or more individ- 
 uals, calling out an action and reaction of one upon 
 the other, the incessant alternation of which constitutes 
 the movement we call life, and which gives birth 
 to all the phenomena we consider as its manifesta- 
 tion. 
 
 Let us endeavor, first, to detect this law in inorganic 
 nature. 
 
 This lamp that gives us light, the gas that burns 
 before our eyes, what else is it than one of those phe- 
 nomena of inorganic life, the result of the mutual 
 and repeated action of two heterogeneous bodies upon 
 each other? We have, on the one side, the hydro- 
 gen gas, conducted by this pipe, and brought into the 
 presence of oxygen contained in the air. These are two 
 bodies considered as simple, but having different prop- 
 erties. Place them in contact, under suitable condition? 
 of temperature, and the mutual action immediately 
 commences; they combine with an activity which be- 
 comes visible to the senses by the rapid development of 
 heat and light ; and in this continuous, vital movement 
 
94 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 their differences are extinguished, or rather combine and 
 harmonize in a new body, a product, the end of all 
 this activity, in which the antagonism of the primitive 
 elements has ceased. This new body is water; it 
 is a liquid, and no longer a gas ; it is a body, all the 
 physical properties of which are different from those 
 that compose it, which, as you know, play very differ- 
 ent parts throughout nature. This same gas that serves 
 to light us, contains also carbon; this also combines 
 with oxygen to form a new body of carbonic acid gas, 
 the properties of which are all special in it. 
 
 Each of these new products may, in turn, enter into 
 relations of exchange with others, and pass as an ele- 
 mentary body into a new combination, the result of 
 which will be a body composed of four simple elements, 
 but endowed, as such, with entirely different qualities, 
 belonging to it alone. It may, in turn, become one of the 
 elements composing a multitude of bodies ; and it is thus 
 that the sixty elements our chemical means have not 
 enabled us to decompose, which chemists call simple 
 bodies, supply nature with materials sufficient for the 
 immeasurable variety of all the compound bodies that 
 exist. 
 
 What do we see, finally, in all this physical and 
 chemical process ? A primitive difference between two 
 substances, an action and reaction of one upon the other, 
 and their combination in a new body, which may, in its 
 turn, perform the same part. I mark, gentlemen, these 
 phases of the phenomenon going on. at the present 
 moment, under our eyes. 
 
 Without coming into combination, a difference between 
 
THE LAW OF LIFE. 
 
 95 
 
 two bodies excites none the less a vital movement. 
 Place near each other a plate of zinc and a plate of cop- 
 per; these two enter immediately into an interchange 
 of positive and negative electricity, and give birth to 
 those powerful electrical and magnetic currents which 
 modern industry puts to such admirable use. I say, 
 further, place side by side two plates of the same metal, 
 but unequally heated, and there is established between 
 them an interchange of temperature, and of electrical 
 currents of the same nature. Thus everywhere a simple 
 difference, be it of matter, be it of condition, be it of 
 position, excites a manifestation of vital forces, a mutual 
 exchange between the bodies, each giving to the other 
 what the other does not possess. To multiply these 
 differences, to increase their variety, is to render the 
 actions and reactions more frequent, is to extend and to 
 intensify life. 
 
 But let us pass to organized nature. It would be 
 easy to demonstrate, gentlemen, that -the law we have 
 just recognized is also that which governs the growth 
 of the vegetable; but I would rather trace it in 
 the animal world, wherein it is expressed still more 
 clearly. 
 
 Let us see, first, how nature proceeds in the forma- 
 tion of the organic individual, the animal. No one has 
 shown it better than my learned friend,^ whom I need 
 not name in this place. Thanks to him, these facts 
 have become familiar to you ; I shall need only to recall 
 them to your minds. 
 
 I begin with the animal considered in itself as an 
 
 * Professor Agassiz. 
 
96 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 individual. In a liquid animal matter, without precise 
 form, homogeneous, at least in appearance, a mass is 
 outlined which takes determinate contours, and is distin- 
 guished from the rest ; it is the egg. Soon, in the inte- 
 rior of the egg, the elements separate, diverging tenden- 
 cies are established ; the matter accumulates and con- 
 centrates itself upon certain points; these accumulations 
 assume more distinct forms and more specific charac- 
 ters ; we see organs traced, a head, an eye, a heart, an 
 alimentary canal. But this diversification does not go 
 on indefinitely. Under the influence of a special force, 
 all these diverse tendencies are drawn together towards a 
 single end ; these distinct organs are united and coordi- 
 nated in one whole, and perform their functions in the 
 interest and for the service of the individual command- 
 ing them. 
 
 What, then, has been the course pursued here by 
 nature ? 
 
 The point of departure is a unit, but a homogeneous 
 unit, without internal differences; a chaotic unit, if I 
 may venture to say so ; for what is a chaos but this 
 absence of organization in a mass, all the parts of which 
 are alike ? 
 
 The progress ; it is diversity, the establishment of dif- 
 ferences, the giving to forms and functions their special 
 characters. 
 
 The end ; it is a new unit, the organic or harmonic 
 unit, if you please; for all the individual organs are not 
 fortuitously assembled, but have each of them their 
 place and their functions marked out. 
 
 The totality of these evolutions is what is ordinarily 
 called development '. 
 
THE LAW OF LIFE. 
 
 97 
 
 The progress, we say, is diversification ; it is the vari- 
 ety of organs and of functions. What, then, is the con- 
 dition of a greater amount of life, of a richer life, of a 
 completer growth for the animal % Is it not the multi- 
 plicity and the variety of the special organs, which are 
 so many different means whereby the individual may 
 place himself in relation with the external world, may 
 receive the most varied impressions from it, and, so to 
 speak, may taste it in all its forms, and may act upon it 
 in turn % What an immense distance between the life 
 of the polype, which is only a digestive tube, and that 
 of the superior animals; above all, of man, endowed 
 with so many exquisite senses, for whom the world of 
 nature, as well as the world of ideas, is open on all 
 sides, awakening and drawing forth, in a thousand 
 various ways, all the living forces wherewith God has 
 endowed him ! 
 
 And what we here say of organic individuals — is it 
 not true of societies of individuals, and particularly of 
 human societies ? Is it not evident that the same law 
 of development is applicable to them ? Here, again, 
 homogeneousness, uniformity, is the elementary state, 
 the savage state. Diversity, variety of elements, which 
 call for and multiply exchanges ; the almost infinite 
 specialization of the functions corresponding to the 
 various talents bestowed on every man by Providence, 
 and only called into action and brought to light by 
 the thousand wants of a society as complicated as ours, 
 — these have, in all times, been the sign of a social 
 state arrived at a high degree of improvement. 
 
 Could we, indeed, conceive the possibility of this mul- 
 9 
 
98 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 titude of industrial talents that have their birth in the 
 wants of luxury, and are revealed by the thousand ele- 
 gant nothings displayed in our drawing-rooms, among 
 the Indians of the Rocky Mountains, sheltered by the 
 few branches which form their wretched huts? The 
 commercial life, which creates the prosperity of the 
 foremost nations of the globe, — is it possible among a 
 people whose ambition is limited to hunting in the neigh- 
 boring wild the animal that is to furnish food for the 
 day ? Could we hope to see the wonders of architecture 
 unfolded among a people who have no public edifices 
 but the overhanging foliage of their forests ? Had Ra- 
 phael been born among them, would he ever have given 
 his admirable masterpieces to the world? And the 
 precious treasures of intelligence and of lofty thoughts 
 contained in our libraries, — where would they be, if 
 human societies had preserved the simplicity a false 
 philosophy has called the simplicity of nature, but in 
 reality the most opposed to the true nature of man ? 
 
 No, gentlemen, it is the exchange of products by the 
 commerce of the world, that makes the material life 
 and prosperity of the nations. It is the exchange of 
 thoughts, by the pen and by speech, that sets in mo- 
 tion the progress of intelligence. It is the interchange 
 of the sentiments and affections, that makes the moral 
 life and secures the happiness of man. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, all life is mutual, is exchange. In 
 individuals, as well as in societies, that which excites 
 life, that which is the condition of life, is difference. 
 The progress of development is diversity; the end is 
 the harmonious unity allowing all differences, all indi- 
 
THE LAW OF LIFE. 
 
 99 
 
 vidualities to exist, but coordinating and subjecting them 
 to a superior aim. 
 
 Every being, every individual, necessarily forms a 
 part of a greater organism than itself, out of which we 
 cannot conceive its existence, and in which it has a 
 special part to act. By performing these functions, it 
 rises to the highest degree of perfection its own nature 
 is capable of attaining. Unhappy he who isolates him- 
 self, and refuses to enter into those relations of inter- 
 course with others which assure to him a superior life. 
 He deprives himself voluntarily of the nutritive sap 
 intended to give him vigor, and, like a branch torn from 
 the vine, dries up and perishes in his egoism. 
 
 All is order, all is harmony in the universe, because 
 -the whole universe is a thought of God ; and it appears 
 as a combination of organisms, each of which is only an 
 integral part of one still more sublime. God alone con- 
 tains them all, without making a part of any. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 Recapitulation — Is the law of development applicable to the whole 
 globe , considered as an individual ? — Origin of the Earth according 
 to the hypothesis of Laplace and Herschell — Gradual formation of 
 the continents — Europe at the Silurian epoch — North America at the 
 Carboniferous epoch — Character of inferiority of the organized 
 beings which correspond to these ancient formations — Europe at the 
 Tertiary epoch — Greater diversity and perfection of the organized 
 beings — Distinction of the three epochs ; the insular, the maritime, 
 and the continental — The formula of development the same for the 
 entire globe and for the organized beings — Consequences — The law 
 of differences and the law of contrasts — The three grand terrestrial 
 contrasts. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 We have recognized, in the life of all that develops 
 itself, three successive states, three grand phases, three 
 evolutions, identically repeated in every order of exist- 
 ence; a chaos, where all is confounded together; a 
 development, where all is separating; a unity, where 
 all is binding itself together and organizing. We have 
 observed that here is the law of phenomenal life, the 
 formula, of development, whether in inorganic nature or 
 in organized nature. 
 
 The differences are the condition of development ; the 
 mutual exchanges, which are the consequence of these 
 differences, waken and manifest life. 
 
 The greater the diversity of organs, the more 
 
ORIGIN OF THE GLOBE. 
 
 101 
 
 active and the superior in its nature is the life of the 
 individual. 
 
 The greater the variety of individualities and relations 
 in a society of individuals, the greater also is the sum of 
 life, the more universal is the development, the more 
 complete, and of a more elevated order. 
 
 But it is necessary, not only that life should unfold 
 itself in all its richness by diversity, but that it exhibit 
 itself in its utility, in its beauty, in its goodness, by 
 harmony. 
 
 Thus we recognize the proof of the old proverb, 
 (l variety in unity is perfection." * 
 
 If such is the law of life in all beings, it ought 
 equally to be the law of life of our entire globe, collec- 
 tively considered, as a single individual. It is the inves- 
 tigation of this question I am going to attempt this 
 evening. 
 
 The investigation, in order to be complete, would pre- 
 suppose a perfect knowledge of the origin of our globe. 
 But who is ignorant that in this respect we are yet in 
 the world of suppositions? Nevertheless, the brilliant 
 hypotheses of Laplace and Herschell on the primi- 
 tive formation of our planet, and the results, better 
 founded, perhaps, geology gives us, upon the history 
 of the successive changes the surface has undergone, 
 permit us, if I do not deceive myself, to detect with 
 certainty the great phases of development we wish 
 to ascertain. I am aware of the objections that may 
 be made to both the one and the other ; but it seems 
 to me that they bear more upon the details, than upon 
 the fundamental facts, and that in astronomy, as in 
 9* 
 
102 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 geology, certain great truths are none the less gained 
 for our knowledge. Now it is precisely these general 
 facts that proclaim, in a language perfectly clear, the 
 reality of the law of development we have endeav- 
 ored to illustrate by the preceding examples. 
 
 Laplace, Herschell, and most other modern astrono- 
 mers agree in considering the assemblage of stars that 
 form, at present, our solar system, as having been at 
 the first confounded in one celestial body, resembling 
 one of those mysterious nebulae we see floating in the 
 celestial spaces. This nebula would have a solid and 
 luminous nucleus <5r core, if we ascend no further 
 in this history than the point to which we are led by 
 the hypothesis of Laplace. But if, by the help of the 
 analogies drawn from the celestial bodies collectively, we 
 scale still higher, with Herschell, towards the probable 
 origin of the world, we shall be able to conceive it as 
 being entirely gaseous, and even as forming a part of 
 the general matter, spread uniformly throughout space. 
 A gaseous mass, uniform, or rather formless — for the 
 property of gas is indefinite expansion — an obscure 
 mass, where nothing is determined, this is chaos, this is 
 the inorganic state, here is the point of departure. 
 
 But soon the development begins. A principle of 
 concentration, — gravitation, — counterbalances the un- 
 limited expansion of the gaseous matter, brings the 
 molecules nearer together, and groups them in a sphe- 
 roidal mass. This approximation allows the molecules, 
 different in nature, to act upon each other according to 
 their chemical affinities ; the process of life commences, 
 and its earliest manifestation is light and heat, The 
 
ORIGIN OF THE GLOBE. 
 
 103 
 
 nebula is detached from the general mass under the 
 form of a luminous spheroid, traced in the obscurity 
 of the heavens. This is the first step in the process 
 of formation. 
 
 This gaseous spheroid then resolves itself into local 
 agglomerations, which, while concentrating each in 
 itself, under the influence of gravitation and chemical 
 combinations, separate from each other in distinct 
 spheres. Whether this phenomenon is effected, as 
 Laplace imagines, by the successive separation and 
 agglomeration of concentric layers of the solar atmos- 
 phere, or in virtue of some organic -law, still unknown, 
 is of little importance here. The fact of the separation 
 of the different bodies of our solar system into a number 
 of spheres, planets, and satellites, is not less certain, and 
 constitutes one of the essential and incontestable phases 
 of its development. 
 
 Let us leave the other stars, elder and younger brothers 
 of the earth, and follow henceforth the .ulterior changes 
 our own globe undergoes. 
 
 The gradual concentration, and perhaps certain 
 changes of temperature, permit successively the com- 
 bination of a multitude of different bodies: and the 
 result, as far as regards the general forms, of all this 
 mighty chemical and physical life, is to present matter, 
 no more under a single form, gas, but under the three 
 forms of gaseous, liquid, and solid matter. These three 
 elements ranging themselves in the order of their den- 
 sity, the globe is composed of a solid mass at the 
 centre, enveloped first by a liquid, and secondly by a 
 
104 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 gaseous covering — the ocean, and the primeval atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 At the surface, meantime — and it is the history of 
 this surface which it concerns us most to know for our 
 study — two elements only are in contact, the air and 
 water. The winds and the marine currents, owing to 
 the unequal distribution of the solar heat, doubtless 
 exist ; but the differences of temperature being very 
 inconsiderable between one place and another, they 
 must be languid, and, besides, they are perfectly regular 
 and uniform ; for no land disturbs the equilibrium of 
 the temperature of the atmosphere due to this general 
 cause, or interrupts or breaks the course of the currents. 
 On account of a density of the atmosphere probably 
 greater, and perhaps of a higher degree of heat in the 
 globe itself, the temperature is more uniform from one 
 end of the globe to the other. The rains, if the state of 
 the atmosphere permits their existence, are useless, for 
 there is no land to receive them, and to render them 
 subservient to life. In this state of things, organic life 
 is nevertheless possible. Plants and animals live in the 
 bosom of the ocean ; but the earliest fossiliferous strata, 
 which doubtless represent this epoch, contain none of 
 either, except a few types but little varied, and all be- 
 longing to the lowest grade in the scale of organized 
 beings. It is the dawn of life, the infancy of the vege- 
 table and animal kingdom. 
 
 A new difference is now added, and marks a new 
 progress. In the train of internal movements, or rather, 
 by the effect of a simple cooling of the globe, the third 
 
GRADUAL FORMATION OF THE CONTINENTS. 105 
 
 element, the solid, the earth, quitting the place its 
 weight had assigned to it, rises from the bed of this 
 boundless ocean ; it lifts itself above the level of the 
 waters, cuts the surface, puts itself in contact with the 
 atmosphere, from which it had been separated by the 
 whole thickness of the primeval ocean, and warms 
 itself in the life-giving rays of the sun. 
 
 This fact of the appearance of the firm earth above 
 the waters of the oceans, is an immense step in the rise 
 and growth of the life of the globe. The three forms 
 of matter react henceforth upon each other; the atmos- 
 phere, the seas, and the lands, absorbing the solar heat 
 in an unequal manner, the ancient equilibrium is de- 
 stroyed; the winds, the currents, are modified in their 
 march ; the climates are more varied ; the rains become 
 useful, and henceforth water and fertilize the land. 
 Finally, a new element renders the appearance of a 
 greatly superior organic life possible, and becomes the 
 seat of a vegetation, and an animal world of a very 
 different degree of perfection from that which existed 
 before. It is a victory gained by higher life over matter, 
 which it compels to serve a more exalted end. 
 
 But geology demonstrates that in the earliest ages of 
 the epoch of organic life on the earth, the organic epoch, 
 as I would fain call it, the firm lands are reduced to 
 a few islands only, scattered over the bosom of the 
 oceans. 
 
 u Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto." 
 
 Everywhere the beginnings are modest. The place 
 of the future continents is not yet marked, except by 
 
106 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 a few scattered stripes, forming here and there a few 
 archipelagos. It is the insular epoch comprising all the 
 earliest ages of geology. You will see this by the two 
 maps before you ; the one represents Europe at the 
 Silurian epoch, the most ancient of the fossiliferous 
 strata, and the other, North America at the Coal epoch, 
 which, although a little more recent, belongs almost to 
 the same age. (See Figs. 2 and 3.) 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 Europe at the Silurian Epoch. 
 
 It is doubtless hardly necessary to state that such 
 maps can only be approximations. They indicate sub- 
 
GRADUAL FORMATION OF THE CONTINENTS. 107 
 
 stantially those of the present dry lands which already 
 existed at that time, and which have not been covered 
 by the waters of the ocean since those ancient epochs, 
 except, perhaps, in the diluvian. But imperfect as are 
 the data of geology, in this regard, the fact of the gradual 
 increase of the dry lands is none the less placed beyond a 
 doubt. 
 
 The largest domain, then, above the surface of the 
 water, in the regions of the future continent of Europe, 
 was Scandinavia, and a part of Russia. England and 
 Scotland are only marked by a few islands along the 
 existing western coast ; Ireland, by a few others, placed 
 at the corners of the present island. All France is repre- 
 sented merely by an island, corresponding to the central 
 table land of Auvergne, and by some strips of land in 
 Vendee, in Brittany, and in Calvados. In Germany, 
 Bohemia forming a great island, the Harz, and the 
 plateau of the Lower Rhine ; small portions of the 
 Vosges, and of the Black Forest, and some low lands on 
 the spot occupied by the Alps, between Toulon, Milan 
 and Tyrol, compose an archipelago which is to become 
 the centre of the continent. All the regions of the South, 
 except ; perhaps, a few small portions of Spain and of 
 Turkey, do not yet exist. 
 
 North America, at the epoch when the coal deposits 
 are formed, is, in like manner, made up of a few islands 
 only, analogous to Scandinavia, but less numerous, less 
 parcelled out than we find them in Europe at the same 
 period. A large island occupies all the present north- 
 east of the continent, with the region of the Alleghanies 
 and the Apalachian, and all the region north-west of the 
 
108 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Valley of the Mississippi, and forms a species of small 
 continent, in the interior of which are three large inland 
 seas, or three large swamps, where the plants are vege- 
 tating that compose the great coal deposits of the present 
 day. A similar sea doubtless lay between Nova Scotia 
 and Newfoundland, bordered, perhaps, by lands which 
 have disappeared beneath the waves. All the great belt 
 of low lands along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of 
 Mexico, including Florida, did not exist ; the ocean 
 formed a deep gulf, running up the Valley of the Missis- 
 sippi one half its length. 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 America at the Coal Epoch. 
 
 The vast plains west of the Mississippi, the Rocky 
 
GRADUAL FORMATION OF THE CONTINENTS. 109 
 
 Mountains, the table lands and the high snow-capped 
 chains from California to the Frozen Ocean, were still 
 at the bottom of the sea. 
 
 This augmentation of the number of the islands, their 
 clustering in archipelagos, is certainly a progress ; there 
 is still, however, but little variety ; the mountains are 
 few in number, and slightly elevated ; the valleys traced 
 but indistinctly or not at all; the slopes imperfectly 
 determined ; extensive low and swampy regions indicate 
 still the preponderance of the watery element. A thicker 
 and denser atmosphere equalizes the temperatures. One 
 species of climate alone, the maritime or insular climate, 
 moist, without extremes, reigns over land and sea. No 
 great continents, none of those elevated masses which 
 give to climate extreme and variable temperatures, and 
 the character of dryness ; none of all those varied forms 
 of vegetation which show themselves later under its 
 influences. 
 
 The organized beings corresponding to this physical 
 condition of the surface of the globe, show with the 
 utmost clearness this character of uniformity and inferi- 
 ority. From one extremity of the earth to the other, the 
 Trilobites of the Silurian epoch are found identical in 
 their species, at once in America, in Europe, in Africa, 
 and in New Holland. The vegetables, accumulated in 
 the coal beds, are the same at the poles and the equator. 
 The types of organized beings are not only few in 
 number, but they all still belong to those which mark 
 the inferior degrees of animal life ; and in each class, 
 from the radiates to the fishes, the highest beings of 
 this primitive creation, the prevailing forms are those 
 10 
 
110 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 that characterize the embryo in the early periods of its 
 development. Such are the numerous Crinoids, the 
 Brachiopods, the Trilobites ; and, in the fishes, the 
 Ganoids of the Silurian epoch. Such are still the great 
 Entomostraca of the carboniferous epoch, and in the 
 vegetables the gigantic ferns, the horse-tails, (Equise- 
 tacese,) the palm trees, and the coniferous trees, the 
 accumulated remains of which compose the immense 
 beds of coal, provident nature has deposited for the 
 present and future wants of human industry. The 
 two first of these vegetable types belong to the inferior 
 order of the cryptogamous plants ; the third to that of the 
 monocotyledons; the fourth, the coniferous, is scarcely 
 placed higher. 
 
 We must abstain from pursuing here in its details the 
 admirable history of the surface of our earth, and of 
 the new beings which successively appear ; this is the 
 business of geology. Let us say, only, that one of the 
 most beautiful of these results is the demonstration that 
 the diversity of terrestrial forms, the variety of the types 
 and species of organized beings, become always greater 
 and greater. Every new revolution is a new progress ; 
 we see one elevation added to another ; one surface after 
 another emerging to increase the existing dry lands : one 
 chain of mountains after another appearing and binding 
 together the hitherto separate islands. The terrestrial 
 masses enlarge in number and size ; their contours are 
 more varied, their surfaces more broken up. 
 
 Let us cast our eyes upon this chart, representing 
 Europe at the commencement of the Tertiary epoch. 
 Comparing it with the map of the Silurian epoch, we 
 
GRADUAL FORMATION OF THE CONTINENTS. Ill 
 
 shall be able to form an idea of the change that has been 
 wrought. (See Fig. 4.) 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 
 Europe at the Tertiary Epoch. 
 
 Not only the number of the lands has been multiplied, 
 but everywhere the primitive islands have been enlarged 
 and consolidated. The centre of the continent, Germany 
 and France, constitutes already a considerable collective 
 region, unbroken save by a few interior basins. The 
 British Isles form already two or three large islands, 
 and the eastern part of England only is wanting. The 
 three peninsulas of the south are clearly traced ; Italy 
 
112 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 only is still exposed along its coast to the encroachments 
 of the sea ; Scandinavia continues to form a large soli- 
 tary island ; the mountains are more elevated ; the Pyre- 
 nees, the Appenines, a small part of the Alps, already 
 mark out the great features of relief which characterize 
 the continent. 
 
 During the tertiary epoch, the variety of physical cir- 
 cumstances is still increasing; a multitude of isolated 
 basins, like those of Paris, of London, of Oeningen, 
 assume a special physiognomy, and have their separate 
 faunas. The natural physical regions are determined, 
 and take their distinctive character. The climates are 
 diversified with all the physical circumstances of a 
 country, and are reflected in the ever-increasing diver- 
 sity of animal and vegetable genera and species. 
 
 Meantime, this movement of specialization is not going 
 to extremes. The masses of earth, while becoming more 
 numerous, more various, more diversified in shape, are 
 grouping themselves more and more; the contours of 
 the continents are getting better defined; the tertiary 
 basins are filling and drying up. The water of the seas 
 disappearing from the interior, the atmospheric waters, 
 which run on the surface, supply their place, scoop out 
 their valleys, make the slopes regular, equalize the soil 
 by spreading over it their precious alluvium. The dilu- 
 vial torrents and the immense glaciers, contemporaneous 
 with this epoch, complete the shaping of the soil and the 
 preparing of this fertile loam, which will richly repay 
 the toil of the laborer. The earth is ready to receive its 
 lord. 
 
 It is thus, by a process of admirable simplicity, this 
 
GRADUAL FORMATION OF THE CONTINENTS. 113 
 
 diversity of successive elevations is combined into a few 
 great units, a few continents ; these in turn are grouped 
 in two worlds and form an organism, with some of the 
 features of which we have already become acquainted. 
 
 This same progress is confirmed by palaeontology, 
 through all the successive ages of nature. The variety 
 and the perfection of the types and species keep pace 
 with the increasing diversity of the lands and the seas, 
 and all the physical circumstances which serve as the 
 basis and the condition for the life of plant and animal. 
 In the insular or oceanic epoch, that of the palaeozoic 
 strata, we have seen animals entirely marine prevailing, 
 and forming the inferior and embryonic types of the four 
 divisions of the animal kingdom; it is the reign of the 
 fishes, if we take the vertebrates as the type of develop- 
 ment. During the formation of the secondary strata, 
 which I would call the maritime epoch, on account 
 of the great land-locked seas that characterize it, the 
 huge reptiles, the monstrous Saurians of the Jurassic 
 waters, are the prevailing form, and by their amphibious 
 habits mark at once their more elevated position in the 
 animal scale, and the increasing force of the land 
 element. The numbers of living genera and species are 
 much greater than at the palaeozoic epoch, but the same 
 types are still uniformly spread over vast spaces. 
 
 The tertiary epoch, which I would call the continental 
 epoch, beholds the appearance of the superior animals, 
 the mammifers, the life of which is almost exclusively 
 attached to the solid land. The continental element 
 triumphs ; all the faunas become localized ; each country 
 of the globe has its appropriate animals ; the variety of 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 animal and vegetable species grows almost to infinity. 
 But the unity reappears with the creation of man, who 
 combines in his physical nature all the perfections of the 
 animal, and who is the end of all this long progression 
 of organized beings. 
 
 If we cast a glance back upon the way we have 
 just passed over, do we not, gentlemen, recognize a 
 striking analogy between this successive formation, first 
 of our solar system, then of the continents and the 
 beings inhabiting them, and the formation of the ani- 
 mal in the egg ? Is there not here the same law that 
 we have recognized everywhere else ? Do we not see, 
 first, a homogeneous fluid, then the appearance of ele- 
 mentary organs at several points ; finally, their definitive 
 combination in an organic whole? Yes, gentlemen, 
 there is between the two series of facts all the difference 
 of organic and inorganic nature ; but the formula of 
 development is the same. 
 
 The consequences of this fact are numerous ; let us 
 point out the most important, those which are chiefly 
 useful for our subject. 
 
 1. The law of development is applicable to the land, 
 and to the continental forms. 
 
 2. In this order of facts, as elsewhere, the condition 
 of a more active life is a greater variety of forms of 
 nature, of relative situations ; in a word, of more varied 
 contrasts. 
 
 3. Then, other things being equal, we may consider, 
 ill advance, those continents as the best endowed, the 
 best organized, the best prepared for the development of 
 human societies, which present the most varied contours, 
 
THE LAW OF CONTRASTS. 
 
 115 
 
 the most diversified forms, the most numerous contrasts, 
 and the best characterized natural regions. There is 
 here the same relation as between the inferior animal 
 without special organs, and the superior animal richly- 
 furnished with special organs. 
 
 4. The result of all these differences of forms, of 
 climate, of vegetation, of all the internal and external 
 contrasts, considered in each of the great terrestrial 
 masses, in each continent, is to impress upon every one 
 a special character, a peculiar life, so that they appear 
 as so many individuals, differing from each other, and 
 designed to enter into relations of intercourse and of 
 reciprocal influence. 
 
 5. Considered under various aspects, in the point of 
 view of their analogies and their differences, the great 
 terrestrial masses are combined in groups of continents, 
 according to characteristics of the same nature. Now 
 these groups, compared together, present an assemblage 
 of distinct and opposite characters, and seem to form 
 great contrasts, two by two. Thus the two continents 
 of America have, notwithstanding the immense differ- 
 ences between them, certain common characters, bind- 
 ing them into a natural group, distinguished, as such, 
 from the Old World, with its three or four continents. 
 It is the same with the three continents of the north, 
 compared with the three continents of the south. 
 
 Terrestrial life, if I may say so, is then developed 
 under the influence of a law which we might name the 
 law of differences ; and in the general phenomena of the 
 life of the globe, all partial differences being combined 
 
116 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 into grand differences, opposed two to two, we may call 
 it the law of contrasts. 
 
 It is, then, under the form of great contrasts, the sources 
 of a multitude of vital actions, that we shall henceforth 
 consider the continental masses. Now, let us point out 
 the three most important of them. 
 
 1. The contrast of the continental hemisphere, and the 
 oceanic hemisphere, or land and water. 
 
 2. Of the Old World and of the New World. 
 
 3. Of the three northern continents and the three 
 southern continents. 
 
 In studying the globe in this point of view, we shall 
 see it under a new light. I know I am stepping a little 
 out of the beaten paths. This is not, believe me, gentle- 
 men, the result of a passing momentary glance, but of 
 patient studies in detail, in the realm of nature and of 
 history. We shall have the pledge that it is not without 
 value, when we trace in each of these contrasts all 
 the great analogies and differences we have thus far 
 shown, each in its place, in its true light, and with the 
 just portion of influence they are respectively entitled* 
 to have. 
 
 But in setting forth these contrasts, this antagonism 
 of one half the globe against the other, let us hasten to 
 say that there is nothing hostile in the conflict ; for it 
 tends to life, not to death. True victory is not to crush 
 an opponent, but to make him a friend. We suspect 
 then in advance, — the law of life declares it, — we sus- 
 pect, in advance, that all these oppositions resolve them- 
 selves into a grand harmony, wherein each continent 
 has its part to perform, while all live at the same time a 
 
THE LAW OF CONTRASTS. 
 
 117 
 
 common life. But to arrive at this final result, nature 
 alone is not sufficient ; there is needed something more 
 than a physical tie between all these parts of the world ; 
 there is needed a moral bond ; a soul is wanting to this 
 body, to set its organs in action. Now, it is man, it 
 is human societies, that alone can animate the great 
 frame, bind together all the parts, and render perfect 
 that organism which is the end and aim of the long 
 procession of existence upon this earth. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 The north-east or continental hemisphere, and the south-west or 
 oceanic hemisphere — Land and water — Differences in the forms 
 of their surfaces — Continental climate . and sea climate — . Their 
 different influences upon the vegetation and organized beings — 
 The oceanic the inferior element : the terrestrial element the superior 
 — Blending of the two natures — Transportation of the waters of 
 the ocean into the continents — The atmosphere the mediator betiueen 
 them. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 We have explained the reasons that have led us to 
 conceive the general phenomena of the life of the globe 
 as taking their source in certain great contrasts, of 
 which we have especially distinguished three : the con- 
 tinental hemisphere opposed to the oceanic ; the Old 
 World to the New ; the three northern continents to the 
 three southern. 
 
 We shall this evening commence the investigation of 
 the first, comparing the terrestrial element with the 
 oceanic element, in order to ascertain the special charac- 
 ter of both. We shall then inquire by what means, and 
 to what extent, they enter into relations combining and 
 modifying reciprocally their nature. We shall see, 
 finally, but only by-and-by, the happy and important 
 effects of the contact and blending of the land and the 
 water. 
 
LAND AND WATER. 
 
 119 
 
 In speaking of the distribution of the lands on the 
 surface of the globe, we have already said that the most 
 characteristic and general trait in this respect is their 
 prevailing concentration in one hemisphere alone, so that 
 the whole world is divided into two great regions; one 
 over which the ocean reigns, the other which the terres- 
 trial masses command by their number, their size, and 
 their connection. Now, the equator divides the globe 
 into a northern and a southern hemisphere, very differ- 
 ent, in this respect, from each other. But if, with Ritter, 
 we draw a great circle, passing at once over the western 
 coast of Peru and the peninsula of Malacca, at the south- 
 ern extremity of Asia, the contrast is more complete still, 
 (See Fig. 1,) and the globe is cut into a north-eastern 
 hemisphere, (if we take the Old World for the eastern,) 
 comprising five of the continents, and the largest ; and 
 a south-western hemisphere, where we see hardly any- 
 thing but oceans, and, in the midst, floating solitary, 
 the most insular of the continents, Australia. The 
 southern point of America and the islands of the Pacific 
 Ocean are the only lands which, with this continent, 
 represent the continental element in this oceanic world. 
 Thus, one of the sides of our planet is the humid, aque- 
 ous side ; the other is the terrestrial side. 
 
 Let us trace, meantime, the characters which distin- 
 guish these two elements, in the point of view of phys- 
 ical geography, beginning with the exterior forms. 
 
 By its very nature, the liquid element has no form 
 peculiar to itself, except the spherical form of the drop 
 of water. Upon a globe like the earth, the waters of 
 the ocean appear to our eye as a plain uniform surface, 
 
120 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 which we are even accustomed to consider a constant 
 level, to which we may refer, as to a fixed plane, all the 
 elevations of the firm earth. Their movable molecules 
 undergo all the forms that are impressed upon them by 
 the solid forms with which they come in contact, not 
 preserving any shape after the contact has ceased. All 
 the indentations of the shores of the oceans belong, as 
 we have said, to the continents which they bathe with 
 their waters. On the surface, none of those diversities 
 of relief, enlivening and varying, to infinity, the aspects 
 and the physiognomy of the continents; none of those 
 high mountain ridges, from the summit of which the 
 eye embraces at a glance a portion of our globe as 
 vast as the range of vision. We speak of the senti- 
 ment of the infinite- which the ocean awakens in the 
 soul of the voyager ; but the infinite, it must be con- 
 fessed, exists only in our imagination, for it is limited 
 to a circular surface of twenty or thirty miles radius. 
 In spite of the proverbial inconstancy and mobility of 
 this element, in spite of the varied movements of its bil- 
 lows, originating in the conflict with the atmosphere, we 
 must acknowledge, gentlemen, that the strongest and 
 most universal sentiment which, on the whole, it in- 
 spires in the man who trusts himself to the waves, is 
 that of a despairing monotony. I wish for no other 
 proof of this than the feverish impatience that seizes 
 upon even the mariner himself in the midst of a long 
 calm, and the thrill of joy the first cry of land, raised 
 by the sailor on the watch at the mast-head, excites 
 in the hearts of all. Thus the life of the seaman, so 
 poetically sung, has it not one aspect alone, which is 
 
LAND AND WATER. 
 
 121 
 
 nearly the same, over and over again, from one end 
 of the world to the other ? 
 
 A difference no less important, between the seas and 
 the lands, is that of the climate. It is owing substan- 
 tially to the peculiar physical properties of the water 
 and the soil of the continents. Water has a great 
 capacity for heat, but a feeble conducting power ; it 
 grows warm but slowly in the rays of the sun. The 
 evaporation being considerable, produces a cooling, which 
 tempers further the heat received at the surface. Finally, 
 the cooler particles of the lower layers, set in motion by 
 the waves and the currents, incessantly fill the place of 
 those of the superficial layer, and prevent it from rising 
 to a high temperature. 
 
 It is the same with the cooling. The superficial layer 
 growing cool, whether by the absence of the sun, or by 
 contact with a colder atmosphere, the cooled molecules 
 become more heavy, fall lower, and give way to the 
 warmer molecules of the inferior strata. This motion is 
 incessantly repeated, and singularly retards the process 
 of cooling. 
 
 Thus the heating and cooling are less sensible and 
 more slow, and do not reach the extremes. The air 
 itself, by its perpetual contact, shares in the uniformity 
 of temperature which belongs to the surface of the 
 waters, and which, combined with the abundance of 
 vapors that saturate the atmosphere, gives to the sea 
 climate its true character. 
 
 It is quite different with the surface of the soil, whose 
 particles are fixed. The soil rapidly absorbs the solar 
 rays; the surface layer is the more heated, since it 
 11 
 
122 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 cannot be displaced, as in the water, by another, and it 
 soon attains an elevated temperature. But, for the same 
 reason, the ground easily loses heat by radiation, whether 
 during the nights or the clear days ; and the loss is so 
 much the greater, as the radiation is favored by the 
 inequality of the surface, and the transparency of an 
 atmosphere more dry and less charged with clouds. 
 The lands removed from the influence of the oceans 
 have, then, a climate characterized by the extremes of 
 cold and heat, by more violent changes, and a drier 
 atmosphere. These are the essential features of the 
 continental climate. If the former is constant^ the latter 
 is excessive. 
 
 If we now observe the manner in which sea and 
 land are affected with regard to their temperature, when 
 near each other, and receiving the same quantity of 
 heat from the sun, we notice that the sea is colder than 
 the land during the day, and warmer during the night. 
 In the same way, taking the different seasons of the 
 year, in summer the sea is colder than the land, in win- 
 ter it is warmer. It preserves the mean temperatures, 
 while the land experiences the extremes. It tends to 
 soften all the differences, to establish uniformity of cli- 
 mate. 
 
 A comparison by examples, as far as possible, of the 
 climate of the pelagic islands, subjected to the influence 
 of the surrounding ocean, with the climate of places in 
 the interior of the lands, will bring this difference prom- 
 inently out. I purposely choose places situated, two by 
 two, in similar latitudes, and successively in latitudes 
 more and more near to the tropics. I ask your per- 
 
LAND AND SEA CLIMATE. 
 
 123 
 
 mission to cite the numbers in degrees of the centigrade 
 scale, which it would be very desirable to adopt uni- 
 formly, at least in matters of science, if not in the com- 
 mon usage of daily life. Nevertheless, for the sake of 
 clearness, I will add the corresponding value in degrees 
 of Fahrenheit. The differences, which are here the im- 
 portant thing, are found in two separate columns. 
 
 Let us first compare the climate of the Faroe islands, 
 situated in the midst of the Atlantic, with that of Peters- 
 burg, and, if you please, of Yakutsk, in the depths of 
 Siberia ; and, to form an idea of the extent of the ther- 
 mometrical variations each of these climates under- 
 goes, let us establish the difference between the mean 
 temperature of summer and winter, in each of them. 
 These three localities are situated in the high lati- 
 tudes, between 60° and 62° north lat. 
 
 
 
 Winter. 
 
 Summer. 
 
 Difference 
 deg-. Cent. 
 
 Difference, 
 deg. Fah. 
 
 Faroe, . . . j 
 
 Cent. 
 Fahr: 
 
 3.6 
 38.5 
 
 12.2 
 54.0 
 
 8.6 
 
 15.5 
 
 Petersburg, j 
 
 Cent. 
 Fahr. 
 
 -8.7 
 16.3 
 
 16.0 
 60.8 
 
 24.7 
 
 44.5 
 
 Yakutsk, . j 
 
 Cent. 
 Fahr. 
 
 -38.9 
 -38.0 
 
 17.2 
 63.0 
 
 56.1 
 
 101.0 
 
 We see, by the rapid increase of the differences, how 
 the variations augment, in proportion as we advance 
 into the interior of the continents. 
 
 If we compare the mean of the coldest with that of 
 the hottest month in the same places, the proportion 
 becomes still more sensible. 
 
124 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 
 Coldest Month. 
 
 Hottest Month. 
 
 Difference, 
 de?-. Cent. 
 
 Difference, 
 
 ( Cent. 
 
 Faroe. . . < 
 
 ( Fahr. 
 
 2.7 
 36.8 
 
 12.8 
 55 
 
 10.1 
 
 18.2 
 
 C Cent. 
 
 Petersburg. < 
 
 / Fahr. 
 
 -10.3 
 13.5 
 
 16.9 
 62.4 
 
 27.2 
 
 48.9 
 
 C Cent. 
 
 Yakutsk, . < 
 
 ( Fahr. 
 
 -40.5 
 -40.9 
 
 20.3 
 68.5 
 
 60.8 
 
 108.5 
 
 The extremes of temperature differ even more, just 
 as was to be expected. The highest degree of heat 
 observed at Faroe is only 13.5 Cent., or 56.3 Fahr., 
 and it freezes but little there, while the meteorologi- 
 cal annals of Petersburg indicate heats of 33.4. and 
 cold of -34.0; that is, extremes 67.4 Cent, or 121 Fahr. 
 apart. It is at once the cold of the poles, and the heat 
 of the tropics. At Yakutsk the mercury remains frozen 
 often for whole weeks, implying a continued cold of at 
 least 40° Fahr. below zero. 
 
 Finally, the variations in the same day follow the 
 same relative course ; while at Faroe they are scarcely a 
 few degrees, it is not unusal to see, at Petersburg, vio- 
 lent changes of from 30° to 40° Fahr. in the same day. 
 
 In the lat. of 50° to 52° N., we find, at Penzance, on 
 the south-west coast of England, and Barnaul, at the 
 foot of the Altai, in Siberia, the following temperatures : 
 
 
 Winter. 
 
 Summer. 
 
 Difference, 
 deg-. Cent. 
 
 Difference, 
 deg. Fahr. 
 
 Penzance, . < 
 
 ( Fahr. 
 
 7.0 
 44.6 
 
 15.8 
 60.4 
 
 8.8 
 
 15.8 
 
 C Cent. 
 
 Barnaul, . < 
 
 ( Fahr. 
 
 -14.1 
 6.6 
 
 16.6 
 61.9 
 
 30.7 
 
 55.3 
 
LAND AND SEA CLIMATE. 
 
 125 
 
 The differences, as we see, are still considerable, but 
 less than between Faroe and Yakutsk. 
 
 Nearer the tropics, the climate of Madeira, compared 
 with that of Cairo, in lat. 32° and 30° N., indicates a 
 similar proportion. 
 
 
 
 Winter. 
 
 Summer. 
 
 Difference, 
 deg. Cent. 
 
 Difference, 
 deg-. Fahr. 
 
 Madeira, . 
 
 r Cent. 
 ^ Fahr. 
 
 16.3 
 61.3 
 
 21.1 
 70.0 
 
 4.8 
 
 8.7 
 
 Cairo, . . 
 
 r Cent. 
 ) Fahr. 
 
 14.7 
 
 58.5 
 
 29.2 
 84.6 
 
 14.5 
 
 26.1 
 
 The differences between the seasons become less in the 
 two localities respectively ; but the influence of the ocean 
 and the continent is always very marked. The differ- 
 ence between the extreme temperature, at Madeira only 
 from 12° to 15° C. or 20° to 27° F., is in Egypt 31° C. 
 or 56° F. 
 
 In the Sahara, ice has been known to form by the 
 intensity of the radiation, and the heat to rise, by the 
 wind of the desert, to the enormous height of 118° F., or 
 48° C. 
 
 I will only cite one example more, and it shall be 
 taken from the coasts of America, between 31° and 32° 
 N. latitude. 
 
 
 
 Winter. 
 
 Summer. 
 
 Difference, 
 deg. Cent. 
 
 Difference, 
 deg. Fahr. 
 
 Bermudas, 
 
 \ Cent 
 
 15.1 
 
 24.0 
 
 8.9 
 
 16.0 
 
 I Fahr., 
 
 59.2 
 
 75.2 
 
 
 Natchez, . 
 
 C Cent. 
 
 10.0 
 
 25.4 
 
 15.4 
 
 27.7 
 
 ( Fahr. 
 
 50.0 
 
 77.7 
 
 
 11* 
 
126 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 If the climate of Natchez is less extreme, it is because 
 this place is too near the ocean. 
 
 We see, by these tables, how great is the influence of 
 the sea upon the distribution of the temperature in the 
 different seasons of the year, and in the course of the 
 day. It tends to bring the extremes together, and to 
 maintain at all times an equality of temperature. 
 
 The sea climate is then equal, uniform, moist ; the sky 
 often cloudy and rainy in the high latitudes. The land 
 climate is excessive, unequal, with violent changes, dry ; 
 the sky is usually clear. 
 
 The astronomical climate, caused by the latitude, is 
 then greatly modified by the presence or absence of the 
 seas ; and the distribution of heat through the year, for 
 any place whatever, depends essentially on its proximity 
 to, or distance from, the oceans, and the relative fre- 
 quency of the winds that blow from them. 
 
 Who does not see the powerful influence such dif- 
 ferences in the climatic conditions must exercise on 
 all organized beings, and on vegetation in particular ? 
 While, in green Ireland, the myrtle grows in the open air, 
 as in Portugal, without having to dread the cold of win- 
 ter, the summer sun of this same climate does not suc- 
 ceed in perfectly ripening the plums and the pears, 
 which grow very well in the same latitude on the conti- 
 nent. On the coasts of Cornwall, shrubs as delicate as the 
 laurel or the camelia, are green through the whole year 
 in the gardens, in a latitude at which, in the interior of 
 the continents, trees the most tenacious of life can alone 
 brave the rigor of the winters. But, on the other hand, the 
 mild climate of England cannot ripen the grape, almost 
 
LAND AND SEA CLIMATE. 
 
 127 
 
 under the same parallel where grow still the delicious 
 wines of the Rhine. At Astracan, on the northern 
 shore of the Caspian, Humboldt says, the grapes and 
 fruits of every kind are as beautiful and luscious as in 
 the Canaries and in Italy ; the wines have all the 
 fire of those of the South of Europe, while in the same 
 latitude, at the mouth of the Loire, the vine hardly 
 flourishes at all. And yet, to a summer capable of ripen- 
 ing the southern fruits, succeeds a winter so severe, that 
 the vine-dresser must bury the stock of his vines several 
 feet beneath the earth, if he would not see them killed 
 every year by the cold. Who does not remember that a 
 part of the Russian army, despatched for the conquest 
 of Khovaresmia, perished under the snows, and by the 
 colds of 20° below zero of Fahrenheit, in a country 
 situated under the same parallel as the Azores, where 
 reigns a perpetual spring, and where, in the midst of 
 winter, the vegetation and the flowers display their most 
 brilliant colors? It is there that the camel, the inhabit- 
 ant of burning deserts, and the reindeer of the frozen 
 regions, meet together, and nature seems to have com- 
 bined the contrasts of the climate of the poles and of 
 the tropics. 
 
 The oceanic climate, considered in the islands truly 
 pelagic, favors the growth of an abundant vegetation, 
 with large and numerous leaves, but little varied. The 
 flora of the oceanic islands, whether from this cause or 
 others pertaining to the mode of dissemination of the 
 plants, is scanty in species. The animal world is still 
 more limited; all the large animals, the lion, the ele- 
 phant, the rhinoceros, are wanting; the continental 
 
128 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 islands form an exception, we conceive, because they are 
 much more closely united to the continent than to the 
 ocean. 
 
 On man himself the influence of this moist and soft 
 climate makes itself felt, by a relaxation of the tissues, 
 by a want of tonic excitement. The insular Polyne- 
 sians, as those of Tahiti and others, always exhibit the 
 mild, facile and careless character which seems to be 
 necessarily the result of such a climate. 
 
 The continental climate does not give to the vegeta- 
 tion an appearance of such exuberance, but the variety 
 of the soil, the frequency of alternations of plains, of 
 table lands, of mountains, of valleys, of different ex- 
 posures, secures to it an almost infinite variety of differ- 
 ent species and forms. The dryer and warmer air 
 concentrates the vegetable saps, elaborates them better, 
 so to speak, and gives them that strong and aromatic 
 character which the plants of the oceanic islands rarely 
 possess. The animal is more vigorous and larger there, 
 the species more numerous, the types more varied. The 
 lion, the tiger, the elephant, all the kings of the brute 
 creation, have never lived elsewhere than under the sky 
 of the continents, or of the continental islands. Man 
 himself is more animated, more active, more intelligent, 
 endowed with a stronger will ; in a word, life is more 
 intense, and raised to a higher degree, by the variety and 
 the movement impressed upon it by the contrasts that 
 form the very esssence of the nature of this climate. 
 
 Thus we have two opposite worlds revealed to us, 
 different in their form, their climate, and the organized 
 beings belonging to them. The one, in the main, tends 
 
LAND AND WATER. 
 
 129 
 
 to uniformity, the other to variety. But please to remark, 
 gentlemen, they are not only different from each other, 
 but they stand, moreover, in the relation of superior 
 and inferior. 
 
 The terrestrial element has for its portion an infinite 
 variety of the forms of relief, of climate ; it is the seat 
 of a more varied life ; the birthplace and the habitual 
 abode of all the superior beings, from the vegetable up to 
 man. The ocean has uniformity for its characteristic ; 
 it is the domain of the inferior beings, from the polype 
 to the fish and the amphibious animal. Thus we have 
 seen, in the geological development of the surface of our 
 globe, the oceanic element first prevailing, as the less 
 perfect. The oceanic epoch is the embryonic epoch ; the 
 insular epoch, analogous to the present oceanic world 
 and its climate, is the second step in the physical life of 
 the globe; the continental epoch, or the present epoch, 
 alone carries it to the highest degree of development. 
 
 And yet the ocean much surpasses the continents in 
 extent ; it occupies more than two thirds of the surface 
 of the globe. But this even is a sign of inferiority ; for 
 mass and number, as Ave see in all the kingdoms of 
 nature, never belong to the superior being. 
 
 At present, gentlemen, we know, in their characters 
 and in their contrast, the continental hemisphere and the 
 oceanic hemisphere; the land and the water. Two 
 different elements are confronted ; they cannot remain 
 indifferent; they must act and react, and impart their 
 wealth to each other. We are so much in the habit 
 of seeing these two elements, the dry and the moist, 
 pervading and penetrating one another, that we have 
 
130 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 some difficulty in figuring to ourselves a state of things 
 wherein the two spheres would be total strangers. We 
 forget that it is to the ocean we owe those beneficent 
 rains, which refresh and vivify all nature ; those springs, 
 which quench our thirst; those streams and rivers, 
 which fertilize our valleys and our plains, and serve 
 as highways for the commerce of the nations; those 
 lakes, which spread so many charms over the countries 
 encompassing their borders ; we scarcely dream that if 
 the ocean ceased to send to the continents the supply of 
 water necessary to their daily life, the parched and arid 
 earth would soon see all the organized beings that live 
 upon its surface perish in pain and anguish. Desert and 
 death would succeed to life, and at a single stroke the 
 globe would return to the embryonic state of the tril- 
 obites, by the extinction of the superior classes of beings. 
 
 In fact, all the continental waters come to us from 
 the ocean. If they are fresh and sweet, it is because 
 they have passed through the great laboratory of nature, 
 by a simple process of distillation, which is the first fact 
 that we ought to point out. 
 
 The sun, the great awakener of life, the king of 
 nature, shoots his burning rays every day athwart the 
 face of the waters. He causes the invisible vapors to 
 rise, which, lighter than the air itself, unceasingly tend 
 to soar into the atmosphere, filling it and constituting 
 within it another aqueous atmosphere. In their ascend- 
 ing movement, they encounter the colder layers of the 
 higher regions of the atmosphere, which perform the part 
 of coolers. They are condensed in vesicles, that be- 
 come visible under the form of clouds and fogs. Then, 
 
THE ATMOSPHERE THE MEDIATOR. 
 
 131 
 
 borne along by the winds, whether invisible still, or in 
 the state of clouds, th!?y spread themselves over the con- 
 tinents, and fall in abundant rains upon the ground 
 which they fertilize. All the portion of the atmospheric 
 waters not expended for the benefit of the plants and of 
 the animals, nor carried off anew into the atmosphere 
 by evaporation, returns by the springs and rivers to the 
 ocean, whence it came. 
 
 Thus the waters of the ocean, by this ever renewed 
 rotation, spread themselves over the lands; the two 
 elements combine, and become a source of life, far richer 
 and much superior to what either could have produced 
 by its own forces alone. 
 
 But we see the earth and the water, the continents 
 and the oceans, touch each other only at their margins 
 A more intimate action upon each other is not possible, 
 except by means of the most mobile of the elements, 
 the atmosphere, performing, in nature, the part of medi- 
 ator. The winds are the instruments of this impor- 
 tant work, the bearers of this wondrous water which 
 renovates unceasingly the face of the main-lands, and 
 sustains their beauty. Unhappy the countries to which 
 they cannot come, still charged with some parts of their 
 precious burthen. The inhabitants of the desert can 
 alone tell us what price we should set upon the smallest 
 portion of this treasure. 
 
 To study the distribution of the rains and of the 
 moisture on the surface of the globe, is to &>tudy the 
 course of the winds which are their carriers ; to this sub- 
 ject, then, we shall turn our attention. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 The study of the distribution of the rains supposes that of the winds — 
 Difference of temperature the principal cause of the winds — Theory 
 of the general winds — The winds of the tropical regions — Trade 
 wind of the Pacific Ocean — Trade wind of the Atlantic — The 
 monsoons of the Indian seas — The winds of the temperate regions — 
 Two general currents; the return trade wind, or equatorial wind, 
 and the polar currents — The conflicts of the two, and the variable 
 winds — Lateral displacement of the currents, and their influence upon 
 the temperature, the productions of the soil, and commerce — The law 
 of the rotation of the winds — The atmospheric ivater falling back in 
 rain — Circumstances favorable to the precipitation of vapors — The 
 rains of the tropical zone — The rains in the region of the monsoons — 
 Annual quantity of the rain water under the tropics — Distribution 
 and annual quantity of the rain in the temperate regions. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 After having ascertained the characters of the two 
 hemispheres, the oceanic and continental, we have asked 
 ourselves how they acted upon each other, how the 
 moisture of the oceanic climate spread over the conti- 
 nents to fertilize them. We have seen that the atmos- 
 phere alone could perform this part of mediator, and 
 that the vapors fly on the wings of the winds to the 
 very heart of the continents. To study the distribution 
 of the rain waters as one of the most essential features 
 of the climate of continents is, as we said, to engage in 
 studying first the movements of the atmosphere, and the 
 
THE WINDS. 
 
 133 
 
 general system of the winds. This double study will 
 be the more important, as it is intimately connected 
 with the variations of the temperature, so that it will be 
 almost sufficient to give us an idea of the principal kinds 
 of climates presented by the different countries of the 
 globe. 
 
 If we knew only the winds that blow in our tem- 
 perate regions, we should almost despair of arriving at 
 the knowledge of any law regulating their course. 
 What is more fickle, more capricious, than the winds, 
 which suddenly change their direction, their force and 
 temperature, without apparent cause, and inaccessible 
 to our means of observation ? They are the symbols of 
 changeableness itself. But it is not so when we enter 
 upon the equatorial seas, where, from one end of the 
 year to the other, a gentle and regular wind blows from 
 the east to the west with great constancy, and carries 
 slowly and without violence the ships from the coasts of 
 the Old World to those of the New ; these are the trade 
 winds. We know the astonishment and alarm of the 
 companions of Columbus on noticing these winds, the 
 constant direction of which towards the west seemed to 
 render their return impossible. In the East Indian seas, 
 the winds blow six months from the north-east, and six 
 months from the south-west. These are the monsoons. 
 This regularity of the tropical winds indicates the ex- 
 istence of permanent causes, of which it is, perhaps, 
 possible to give some account. At any rate, the phe- 
 nomenon takes a certain course, annually repeated, of 
 which we ought to take cognizance; for, in case of 
 need, the knowledge of the flow of the atmospheric 
 12 
 
134 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 currents, independently of their causes, may be sufficient 
 for our purpose. 
 
 The winds are the cop sequence of a disturbance of 
 equilibrium in the layers of the atmosphere ; and the 
 tendency of their motion *is to restore the equilibrium 
 Y/hich has been destroyed ; as soon as that is accom- 
 plished the movement ceases, and everything settles into 
 a calm. 
 
 The more we study the causes of these disturbances 
 of the atmospherical equilibrium, and of the winds, the 
 more we see that they are reduced, essentially, almost 
 entirely, to difference of temperature between neighbor- 
 ing places. Here, again, the law of differences is the 
 principle of movement, the condition of life. 
 
 One of the chief conditions of the equilibrium of 
 the atmosphere is, that any level layer of the atmosphere 
 should have the same density at all points. If this 
 condition is not fulfilled, the denser portions flow under 
 the less dense, while the lighter rise to the top. Now, 
 this takes place when the different parts of the layer are 
 unequally heated. At the point of greater warmth the 
 air expands, becomes lighter; then, pressed by the 
 neighboring layers, which have remained colder and 
 heavier, it rises into the higher. The result of this 
 process is an ascending current, and lateral currents 
 rushing from all sides towards the spot where the tem- 
 perature is more elevated. Let us take an example in 
 nature, and see what passes on an island alone in the 
 midst of the ocean. 
 
 Let us remember that the land is heated more readily 
 han the sea. In proportion as the sun rises above the 
 
THE WINDS. 
 
 135 
 
 horizon, the island becomes warmer than the neighbor- 
 ing sea. Their respective atmospheres participate in 
 these unequal temperatures, the fresh air of the sea 
 rushes from all directions under the form of a sea 
 breeze, which makes itself felt along the whole coast, 
 and the warmer and lighter air of the island will ascend 
 into the atmosphere. During the night, it is the reverse. 
 The island loses heat by radiation, and cools quicker 
 than the sea. Its atmosphere, having become heavier, 
 runs into that of the sea, under the form of a land 
 breeze, and this interchange lasts until the temperature, 
 and consequently the density, of the two atmospheres 
 have again become the same. This is the phenomenon 
 observed almost daily on nearly all the seaboards. 
 
 What takes place here on a small scale in the space 
 of a day, passes on a great scale between an entire con- 
 tinent and the ocean from one season to another, be- 
 tween the tropical regions and the temperate and polar 
 regions in a permanent manner. Southern Africa is 
 fiercely heated by the rays of a summer sun, while the 
 seas of India and Asia experience the low temperature 
 of the winter. The temperature of the tropics is almost 
 always the same, and constantly higher than that of the 
 rest of the globe. To each of these differences of tem- 
 perature, unequal in duration and amount, particular 
 atmospheric currents, which are their consequence, 
 correspond; to the difference of temperature between 
 day and night, the diurnal breezes, whether along the 
 coasts or in the interior of the continents, at the foot of 
 the mountains ; to the difference of temperature between 
 the extreme seasons, the monsoons, which one might 
 
136 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 call the season breezes ; to the difference of temperature 
 between the tropics and the poles, the trade winds, 
 which are the great annual breeze, and the constancy 
 of which is only the expression of the permanent 
 inequality of the distribution of solar heat between the 
 great atmospherical regions of our globe. 
 
 A moment's reflection will enable us to see that these 
 differences of temperature, setting the whole atmos- 
 phere in motion, at last connect themselves essentially 
 with the geographical forms of our globe. It is the 
 spherical form which causes the unequal distribution 
 of the rays of the sun, and gives us the great zones of 
 temperature of the astronomical climate, the torrid, 
 temperate, and frozen zones. All the modifications 
 of the solar climate must be referred principally to the 
 geographical forms of the surface, to the distribution 
 and to the relative situation of the continents and the 
 seas. 
 
 The general or trade winds are the consequence of 
 the general form of the globe; and their direction, as 
 we shall see by-and-by, is given by its rotatory motion. 
 The monsoons and the breezes depend on the form and 
 the relative situation of the lands and the seas, which 
 govern their intensity and direction. The variable 
 winds are due to the same causes, and to the conflict 
 between the general currents. The primary importance 
 of the geographical forms, which is here revealed at the 
 first glance, will become still more evident in the course 
 of our study. 
 
 We shall commence our investigation with the trade 
 
TRADE WINDS. 
 
 137 
 
 winds, which may be called primitive, of first importance, 
 and which embrace, so to speak, the entire atmosphere. 
 In order to unfold this subject, I shall present the theory 
 generally received by the most eminent meteorologists ; 
 that proposed by Halley and Hadley. Not that it is 
 perhaps unassailable in the details, for we encounter 
 many difficulties when we undertake to account by 
 physical laws for the manner in which these great 
 compensations are effected ; but the foundations of the 
 hypothesis seem beyond a doubt, and the course of the 
 phenomenon it teaches us to understand is here of the 
 greatest importance. 
 
 Let us consider the entire atmosphere as only one of 
 those horizontal layers of air of which we have recently 
 spoken. We see that one of the principal conditions of 
 equilibrium of the molecules does not exist, since the 
 different parts of it are unequally heated. The regions 
 near the equator have a high temperature, and the heat 
 goes on gradually diminishing in proportion as we 
 advance towards the poles. The atmosphere of the 
 tropical zone is more dilated, and consequently lighter, 
 than those of the temperate and polar regions. The 
 height of the barometer at the level of the ocean, which 
 measures the weight of the atmosphere, is in fact less at 
 the equator than in the temperate regions. We have 
 noticed with surprise that the column of mercury, cor- 
 rected for the effect of the gravity, keeps at a mean 
 of 758 millimetres in the tropics, while it is 761 in the 
 middle latitudes. This difference of three millimetres 
 seems to give the measure of the force which incessantly 
 12* 
 
138 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 impels the air of the temperate regions towards the region 
 of the equator. 
 
 What is the consequence of this dynamic state of the 
 atmosphere ? The denser air of the colder regions presses 
 that of the hot on two sides, the north and the south ; 
 the tropical atmosphere rises, and here two lower cur- 
 rents are established, from the poles to the equator, and 
 two superior currents, which conduct the air of the 
 equator towards the poles, to commence again the same 
 rotation. We ought, then, to find, in the northern hem- 
 isphere, a general wind coming from the north, and in 
 the southern hemisphere, a wind coming from the south. 
 But the motion of the rotation of the earth from the west 
 to the east exercises an influence upon the direction 
 of these currents, causing them to deviate from their 
 original direction. The speed of rotation, almost 
 nothing in the neighborhood of the poles, becomes 
 greater for any place in proportion to its proximity to 
 the equator. The masses of air rushing towards the 
 equator have then an acquired speed less than that of 
 the regions towards which they are directing themselves. 
 At each step they are obliged to assume a greater rapidity 
 of rotation ; but as, in virtue of the law of inertia, a 
 certain time is necessary for this to take place, they find 
 themselves at every step a little behindhand, that is, they 
 are a little further towards the west than would be the 
 case without this circumstance. These successive re- 
 tardations, accumulating, change little by little the direc- 
 tion of the current from north to south of the northern 
 hemisphere, into a south-west direction ; and the direction 
 of the current from south to north of the southern hemi- 
 
TRADE WINDS. 
 
 139 
 
 sphere, into a north-west current. These two general 
 currents, of north-east and south-east, to call them, 
 according to the usage, by the places whence they 
 come, encountering each other in the tropical zone, com- 
 bine together, and there results a general current from 
 east to west, the great trade wind. The region where 
 the two currents meet is in a kind of equilibrium, and it 
 is marked by a zone of calms. 
 
 The same cause makes the upper currents, setting 
 from the equator towards the poles, swerve, but in the 
 opposite way. They arrive successively in the higher 
 latitudes, with a velocity of rotation greater than 
 they find there, and are always a little in advance 
 of the earth's motion in each place; that is, they swerve 
 always more and more to the east. There will then 
 result a current bearing to the north-east, or a south-west 
 wind, in the northern hemisphere, and a current bearing 
 to the south-east, or a north-west wind, in the southern 
 hemisphere. 
 
 The general course of the winds would doubtless show 
 itself in all its regularity if the surface of the globe pre- 
 sented only the uniform surface of the oceans. But the 
 presence of the continents and their disposition modify 
 the trade winds in many ways, and make the question 
 very complicated. Let us examine the principal of these 
 modifications, beginning with the trade wind of the 
 tropical regions. In this zone the regularity is greater 
 and the disturbing causes are easier to detect. 
 
 The winds of the tropical regions might be reduced to 
 the great equatorial trade wind, blowing regularly from 
 east to west all round the globe, if the continents did 
 
140 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 not bar its passage and disturb its course at numerous 
 points. The continental lands impede its march, and 
 cut it, so to speak, into several pieces. The trade 
 wind of the Pacific Ocean is arrested by Australia ; that 
 of the Lidian Ocean by Africa ; that of the Atlantic is 
 stopped by America. We shall then rapidly examine 
 the courses of the trade wind in each of these oceans ; 
 for it is essentially at the surface of the ocean, where it 
 reigns supreme, that we can learn its true character. 
 
 The trade wind of the Pacific begins to make itself felt 
 at a certain distance from the western coasts of America, 
 and blows almost without interruption as far as the 
 coasts of Australia. The north-east current is regular 
 between 2° and 25° north latitude, which may be con- 
 sidered as the southern and northern limits. But in the 
 summer it rises a little further towards the north. It 
 was this constant and gentle wind that carried the first 
 navigator, Magalhaens, whose ship made the voyage 
 round the world, across this vast ocean, and that gave 
 it the name of Pacific, which has been preserved to the 
 present day. It is by this line still, that the Spanish 
 galleons, laden with the gold of the New World, accom- 
 plished, during more than two centuries, their peaceful 
 voyages from Acapulco to Manilla, sheltered at once 
 from the tempests and from the attacks of the nations 
 envious of so much wealth. The south-east current is 
 as regular south of the equator, but the limits are less 
 known; it is found as far as the 21° of south latitude. 
 
 The region of calms is found in the space comprised 
 between the 2° north latitude and the 2° south, between 
 the two currents at their meeting. Here the ascending 
 
TRADE WINDS. 
 
 141 
 
 current seems to neutralize the horizontal; the air is 
 in a sort of factitious equilibrium, that the least acci- 
 dent violently disturbs. Thus, to a dead calm, suc- 
 ceed those sudden tempests, those violent squalls, those 
 whirlwinds, those tornadoes, as the Spaniards call them, 
 which are the terror of navigators. Thunder storms, 
 accompanied by showers, are of almost daily occurrence. 
 
 The trade wind of the Atlantic is already modified by 
 the position of this ocean lying between continents nearer 
 to each other. It is, as it were, transported bodily several 
 degrees towards the north. The northern limit of the 
 north-east current is precisely fixed by the numerous nav- 
 igators who traverse these seas ; it commences between 
 2S° and 30° north latitude. Its southern limit is about 
 8° north latitude. The region of calms occupies, on 
 the average, the space comprised between the 3° and 
 8° of north latitude ; but its position varies with the 
 seasons ; in August it extends from 3° to 13° north lati- 
 tude ; in February, from 1° to 6° north latitude. The 
 south-east current always blows, then, beyond the equa- 
 tor to the north. 
 
 Humboldt attributes, apparently with reason, this 
 anomaly, on the one hand, to the direction of the coasts 
 of South America, which favors the extension of the 
 south-east trade wind, and of the warm waters of the 
 great equatorial current towards the north ; and, on the 
 other, to the cooling influence of the high mountains of 
 the continent, in the regions of the equator. The first 
 of these causes tends to heat the sea of the Antilles ; the 
 second, to lower the temperature of the southern continent. 
 The result of this difference must be to determine a cur- 
 
142 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 rent of air from the south, removing the limit of the 
 north-east trade wind further north. The thermal equa- 
 tor, or the line of the greatest mean heat, passes, in fact, 
 through the south of the sea of the Antilles. 
 
 The existence of the upper trade wind, coming from 
 the west, or of the return trade wind, which has often 
 been doubted, seems to be proved in this ocean by two 
 facts, often cited and very conclusive. The volcano of 
 the island of St. Vincent, belonging to the lesser Antilles, 
 in one of its eruptions hurled a column of volcanic cinders 
 to a great height in the atmosphere ; the inhabitants of 
 the Barbadoes, situated east of St. Vincent, saw, with 
 astonishment, the cinders falling in abundance upon 
 their island. The 25th of February, 1835, the volcano 
 of Cosignina, in Guatemala, threw into the air such a 
 quantity of cinders, that the light of the sun was dark- 
 ened during five days ; a few days after, they were seen 
 to cover the streets of Kingston, in Jamaica, situated 
 north-east of Guatemala. In these two cases it is evi- 
 dent that the cinders had reached the region of the upper 
 trade wind, and had been carried by it from west to east, 
 in the opposite direction to the lower trade wind. At 
 the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe, most travellers have 
 found a west wind, even when the north-east trade wind 
 prevailed on the seaboard. 
 
 The winds of the Indian Ocean experience still greater 
 perturbations than those of the other two oceans of the 
 tropics. If I have elsewhere called the Pacific the most 
 oceanic of the oceans, the Atlantic the most maritime, I 
 will call the Indian Ocean the most mediterranean. It 
 
THE MONSOONS. 
 
 143 
 
 is, in reality, only a half ocean, a great gulf, surrounded 
 on the sides by huge continental masses ; the mighty 
 Asia, with its peninsulas and its table lands, on the 
 north, Africa on the west, Australia on the east. Asia 
 prevents the oceanic trade wind of the north-east from 
 arriving there, and the influence of the lands and of the 
 vast plateaus remains greatly preponderant. Thus the 
 movements of the atmosphere depend upon the unequal 
 heating of the neighboring, continents during the extreme 
 seasons of summer and winter, which are opposite in the 
 continents situated in the north and in the south. The 
 eastern trade wind in this way changes into a sort of 
 double semi-annual breeze, blowing regularly six months 
 in one direction, and six months in another ; this is called 
 monsoon, from the Arabic word moussin, signifying sea- 
 son. It will be easy to understand this effect, if you call 
 to mind what we have said of the land and sea breezes, 
 that spring up on the islands and along the sea-shores. 
 
 While Africa, south of the equator, receives the ver- 
 tical rays of the southern summer sun in December, 
 January, and February, Southern Asia on the north of 
 the equator, and the neighboring seas, are feeling the 
 low temperatures of winter. The air rushes in from the 
 colder regions of the Indies and of Upper Asia towards 
 the warmer regions of Southern Africa, and the trade 
 wind is transformed into a north-easter, which blows as 
 long as this difference of temperature lasts. It is for 
 India the winter or north-east monsoon. The reverse 
 takes place when India and Asia are heated by the 
 burning sun of the northern summer, and when Africa 
 is cooled by the southern winter. The air blows towards 
 
144 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 the places where the temperature is more elevated ; it 
 is for India the summer or south-west monsoon. 
 
 Hence, in place of a constant current setting from 
 east to west, the relative position of the lands, combined 
 with the action of the earth's rotation, gives occasion to 
 two periodical winds ; the monsoon of the south-west, 
 blowing from April to October, during the northern sum- 
 mer, and the north-east monsoon, blowing from October 
 to April, during the southern, summer. In the southern 
 part of the Indian Ocean, which is not under the influ- 
 ence of the lands, the south-east trade wind blows quite 
 regularly through the whole year. 
 
 The transition from one monsoon to another, depend- 
 ing upon the course of the sun, does not occur at the 
 same period in places situated under different latitudes ; 
 but the approach of this critical season is always 
 heralded by variable winds, succeeded by intervals of 
 calm, and by furious tempests and whirlwinds, proving 
 a general disturbance of the atmosphere. 
 
 The phenomenon of the monsoon, or the change of 
 winds according to the seasons, takes place in like man- 
 ner between the Indies and New Holland. But it is 
 less regular and less marked than the Indo-African 
 system we have just described. The seas of Southern 
 China and the great archipelago of Sunda and of the 
 Moluccas, by their position feeling at the same time the 
 influence of the trade wind of the great ocean, and of 
 the double system of the monsoons of the Indies and 
 Australia, it is easily conceived that we must seek in this 
 circumstance the cause of the tempests and typhoons 
 which desolate this sea more than any other upon the 
 surface of the globe. 
 
WINDS OF THE TEMPERATE REGIONS. 
 
 145 
 
 We see that the great trade wind does not exhibit its 
 normal manner, except in the Pacific Ocean, far from the 
 land. It is driven towards the north in the valley of the 
 Atlantic, or is entirely broken up in the Indian Ocean. 
 The influence of the lands cannot be mistaken. 
 
 Let us pass to the winds of the temperate regions and 
 of the middle latitudes. 
 
 Here, as we have said, the regularity disappears by 
 degrees ; the secondary influence assumes more impor- 
 tance still ; it is the theatre of the incessant conflict 
 between the polar winds and those of the tropics. They 
 blow alternately, without any well established rule, and 
 pass, often abruptly and without transition, from one 
 point of the horizon to another. If the equatorial 
 regions are those of the constant and perio ileal winds, 
 the temperate regions are those of the variable winds. 
 
 Nevertheless, when we compare the number of times 
 the winds blow from each quarter of the horizon 
 during the course of a year, we discover that in the 
 northern hemisphere two directions tend to prevail over 
 all the others, and those are the winds from the west 
 and south-west, and from the east and south-east. It 
 is known that in the northern Atlantic the west winds 
 prevail to such a degree that the average passage of the 
 packet ships from America to Europe is only from 
 twenty to twenty-three days, while from Europe to 
 America it is from thirty-five to forty. 
 
 • It is generally agreed to consider these winds from the 
 south-west as having their origin in the return of the air 
 of the tropics. The upper trade wind cools in the high 
 13 
 
146 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 regions of the atmosphere, and descends again to the sur- 
 face, reaching it about 30° N. latitude, or even still further 
 north, during the summer. In winter, the limit where 
 the winds from the north-east and south-west change 
 place, is marked by variable winds and calms, which 
 the navigators, coming from the north, ordinarily en- 
 counter before entering the region of the trade winds. 
 The long Atlantic valley is the grand route of the winds 
 of the equator ; they spread themselves there without 
 obstacle, beyond the influence of the lands ; and the line 
 of the coasts of America, as the direction of the ocean 
 itself, coincides with that impressed on them by the 
 earth's rotation. They advance as far as the high lati- 
 tudes of Norway, near the polar regions, and bathe all 
 the western coasts of Europe in their soft and humid air. 
 
 The northward inflection of the lines of mean equal 
 heat, or of the isothermal lines, which you see traced 
 on the map before you, (See plate i.,) shows us at a 
 glance the considerable influence of the winds upon the 
 temperature of the Atlantic, and of the western coasts 
 of the Old World. It is such, that in Europe some of 
 the cereal grains grow even at Cape North in the lati- 
 tude of Boothia Felix, about the coldest point ascertained 
 on the globe ; and that the brilliant cities of Stockholm 
 and of Petersburg flourish under the parallel of the 
 regions of eternal ice in Northern Labrador. 
 
 What I have just said of the return of the trade wind 
 in the Atlantic, is true again for the Pacific Ocean. The 
 winds of the west and south-west prevail in the middle 
 latitudes; they strike the western coasts of North Amer- 
 ica and carry thither the soft temperature belonging 
 
WINDS OF THE TEMPERATE REGIONS. 
 
 147 
 
 to them. Sitka, in Russian America, at 57° N. lat, has 
 the same average temperature with the shores of Lake 
 Ontario, 44° N. lat, but much milder winters ; the valley 
 of the Columbia, in Oregon, already displays the most 
 verdant prairies ; while, under the same latitude, Lake 
 Superior presents only snow and ice, and the whole 
 desolate aspect of an arctic region. 
 
 It is, then, to the normal direction of the return trade 
 wind that we must refer the well-known phenomenon of 
 the higher temperature of the western shoies of the con- 
 tinents of the two worlds, compared to that of their 
 eastern sea-boards. But, for the same reason, this dif- 
 ference, though very great in the high latitudes, disap- 
 pears by degrees as we approach the tropics. 
 
 But the air of the polar countries, tending continually 
 to flow towards the warmer regions, gives birth to cur- 
 rents, the normal direction of which is from north-east to 
 south-west, from the cause we have already explained. 
 These north-easterly currents follow, by preference, the 
 path of the continents, as the currents of the equator 
 follow that of the ocean. They have the cold tempera- 
 ture of the places whence they come, and unless high 
 mountains interpose an obstacle, they refresh the conti- 
 nental regions for a great distance. Cast a glance upon 
 this map of Europe, where the lines of equal mean tem- 
 perature are traced, (See plate i.,) and you will see them 
 strongly bending towards the south opposite to the broad 
 passage opened to the polar winds between the Caucasus 
 and the mountains of Transylvania; that is, all the 
 borders of the Black Sea, the northern coast of Asia 
 Minor, the eastern coast of Greece, owe to them a lower 
 
148 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 temperature than that found at the same latitude in the 
 neighboring countries, sheltered against the attacks of 
 this icy Boreas, by high chains of mountains. 
 
 The polar winds play equally a very important part 
 in the climate of North America. No other continent 
 offers them a more open path from one end to the other 
 of its extent. From the borders of the Frozen Ocean, 
 to the subtropical regions as far as the Gulf of Mexico, 
 no chain of mountains opposes their unobstructed 
 sweep ; for they are all directed from the north to the 
 south. Almost no spot is sheltered from their sudden 
 and cold attacks. Nevertheless, owing to the disposi- 
 tion of the Atlantic coasts, retreating on the north-east, 
 and the south-west direction taken by all the cur- 
 rents of the north, the west and the south-west bear 
 the first shock. These polar winds, it seems, strike 
 obliquely against the mass of the Rocky Mountains, run 
 along their slopes, and, being guided and reflected by 
 this high chain, descend under the form of a north-west 
 wind into the valley of the Mississippi, accompanied by 
 cold and storms, and advance towards the Atlantic 
 coast. In this route they encounter the return trade 
 wind, the south-west current, which they take in flank ; 
 and I incline to think, that to this conflict are owing 
 some of those tempestuous storms, revolving from east 
 to west, the course of which has been so well described 
 by Mr. Redfield. Others, as the same learned man has 
 triumphantly demonstrated, have their origin in the 
 tropical seas. 
 
 If this conflict of the two currents of air often com- 
 mences at the south of the continent, and seems to ad- 
 
WINDS OF THE TEMPERATE REGIOxNS. 149 
 
 vance towards the north, it is by reason of its form and 
 of the disposition of its shores, approaching each other 
 towards the south and greatly diverging towards the 
 north. The western coast and the Rocky Mountains 
 trend thus to the north-west; the Atlantic coast to the 
 north-east. Now, supposing the mass of air, turned 
 aside by the Rocky Mountains, to advance from west 
 to east on a line nearly parallel to this chain, it first 
 strikes the Atlantic region in the south, then suc- 
 cessively reaches points more and more towards the 
 north. 
 
 This conflict of polar and equatorial winds, opposite 
 in character and direction, gives to our climate one 
 of its most characteristic features, that changeableness, 
 that extreme variety of temperature, of dryness, and of 
 moisture, of fair weather and of foul ; that uncertainty 
 of the seasons which always keeps the merchant and 
 the farmer in anxious suspense, between the hope of a 
 good harvest and the fear of a dearth. 
 
 Not only are the variations in the same year consider- 
 able, but they are still more so from one year to another. 
 Tlie system of these currents oscillates from east to 
 west, and changes place. The polar winds will prevail 
 in a country, and will endanger the crops by the pro- 
 longed dryness of their atmosphere ; while further east 
 or west the trade wind will spread fertility by its benefi- 
 cent rains. Or the opposite : the south winds acquire 
 such a preponderance, that the harvests perish by the 
 moisture, while at a somewhat greater distance, on the 
 limit of the same wind, nature lavishes all her treasures 
 upon the laborer. It has been remarked that a mild 
 13* 
 
150 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 winter in Europe corresponds frequently to a severe 
 winter in America and Asia : while the mildness of the 
 winter in America affords a presumption of a colder 
 winter on the other side of the Atlantic. The years 
 1816 and 1817 were marked, as is known, in the history 
 of Europe, by a general famine and distress. The wet 
 was such that the harvests failed entirely. But the 
 south-west wind, which blew without cessation over 
 the western part of the continent, and drenched it in 
 its vapors, did not extend beyond Poland ; and it was 
 the South of Russia whose corn supported famished 
 Europe for many long months. Then was revealed 
 the commercial importance of these countries, hitherto 
 unknown, and constantly increasing since. Who does 
 not still remember the immense impulse given to the 
 commerce between Europe and America, by the drought 
 of 1846, which damaged the corn crop in Europe, 
 while America had an abundant harvest? These 
 examples alone tell us the important part played in the 
 life of the nations by those variations of the atmospheric 
 currents belonging to our temperate countries. 
 
 In the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere, 
 there are, properly speaking, only two normal winds, 
 that of the north-east and that of the south-west. The 
 winds blowing in other directions, are local winds, or 
 transition winds, from one of the general currents to the 
 other. Professor Dove has shown, that, in Europe at 
 least, these winds succeed each other in an order always 
 the same, which he has called the law of rotation of 
 the winds. This will be easily understood if we 
 -emember that, in advancing along their course, the 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE RAINS. 
 
 151 
 
 south-west wind tends always to become more west, 
 and the north-east more and more east; we shall see 
 that the result of this disposition ought to be, wherevei 
 they meet each other and change places, a rotation 
 from west by north to east, and from east by south to 
 west. In the place of the conflict of the two currents, 
 the wind will then blow successively from these differ- 
 ent regions, and in this order, until it is established 
 in the direction of that one of the currents which has 
 overpowered the other. But no one of these transition 
 winds blows for any great length of time. In the 
 southern hemisphere the order of succession is the 
 reverse. 
 
 The course of the winds being explained, it will be 
 easy to understand the distribution of the rains on the 
 surface of the globe. 
 
 The winds sweep in all directions, as we have just 
 seen ; they carry with them into the places where they 
 go, the temperature and the moisture of the places 
 whence they come. A sea breeze will be always moist 
 and relatively temperate ; a land wind, dry and extreme, 
 whether in cold or in heat. The first, ordinarily, is the 
 herald of rain; the second, fair weather. It is the 
 atmosphere that brings into connection the most dis- 
 tant countries of the globe, with regard to temperature 
 and humidity, and softens all the differences by blending 
 opposite and extreme characters. 
 
 We have seen how the atmosphere is charged with 
 the vapors of the ocean, but Ave have not stated how it 
 happens that these vapors are condensed anew, to fall 
 
152 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. * 
 
 again in rain. This depends chiefly on a property of 
 the air, of which we must say a word. 
 
 A determinate volume of air, a cubic foot, for ex- 
 ample, at a given temperature, has the property of 
 receiving a certain quantity of vapor, of water in an 
 invisible state, or, as we call it, humidity. When it 
 contains all the humidity it is capable of receiving, it is 
 £aid to be saturated. If you increase the temperature, 
 it will be able to hold more; if, on the contrary, you 
 lower the temperature, you diminish its capacity for 
 vapor, and, in the given case, a part of the vapor would 
 be condensed and deposited in small drops of rain along 
 the outside of the yessel. The moist air here is like a 
 sponge filled with water ; reduce its volume by pressure, 
 there will run out a certain quantity of water ; in the 
 air laden with moisture the diminution of the tempera- 
 ture takes the place of pressure. 
 
 We can easily conceive the application of this prin- 
 ciple in meteorology. 
 
 A warm and moist wind, the south-west of the 
 Atlantic, for example, setting from the tropics, comes 
 in contact with the colder air of the temperate regions ; 
 its temperature is lowered ; it can no longer contain as 
 great a quantity of vapor. A portion of its humidity 
 is immediately condensed into clouds, then falls in rain. 
 
 Or the opposite ; a wind charged with clouds arrives 
 in a warmer and dryer air; comes, for example, from 
 the Mediterranean to the Sahara, as is the case during 
 three fourths of the year ; the burning air of the desert, 
 having a much greater capacity for vapor, dissipates 
 instantly all these clouds, that break up, vanish, and 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE RAINS. 
 
 153 
 
 disappoint the excited expectation of the traveller, who 
 hoped for refreshing rains. 
 
 Do the moist winds encounter an elevated obstacle, a 
 high chain of mountains, a plateau ? Forced to ascend 
 their slopes, high into the atmosphere, they find there a 
 colder air, which condenses their vapors, and the rain 
 flows down along the sides. The wind passes over to 
 the other side of the chain ; it arrives dry and cold, 
 deprived of all its moisture, without clouds. The same 
 wind thus brings rain on one side, and fair weather on 
 the other. This is what happens every day on the two 
 sides of the Scandinavian mountains. 
 
 It is even possible that an ascending current, if very 
 violent, may hurry the abundant vapors of the lower 
 layers to the more elevated layers of the atmosphere. 
 The vapors are afterwards condensed there, and fall 
 back in torrents of rain. Such at least is the explanation 
 Humboldt gives of the rains of the tropics. 
 
 Aided by these preliminary remarks, we are enabled 
 to account for the general phenomena regarding the 
 distribution of rains, which I desire to explain to you. 
 We will therefore devote the remainder of our time this 
 evening to following out the general march of this 
 phenomenon in the tropical regions and the temperate 
 zones. 
 
 The temperature, the winds, and the rain, having an 
 intimate connection each with the others, and playing 
 alternately the part of cause and effect, the earth, in the 
 point of view now under consideration, is divided, as in 
 the point of view of temperature and winds, into two 
 great zones — the one, that of periodical rains, or of the 
 
154 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 tropical regions ; — the other, that of continuous rains, or 
 of the temperate regions. 
 
 In the equatorial regions, where the course of tempera- 
 tures and winds is regular, that of the rains is equally 
 so; and instead of seasons of temperature, which are 
 there unknown, the inhabitants draw the distinguishing 
 line between the dry and the rainy season. 
 
 Whenever the trade wind blows with its wonted regu- 
 larity, the sky preserves a constant serenity, and a deep 
 azure blue, especially when the sun is in the opposite 
 hemisphere ; the air is dry, and the atmosphere cloudless. 
 But in proportion as the sun approaches the zenith, the 
 trade wind grows irregular, the sky assumes a whitish 
 tint, it becomes overcast, clouds appear, sudden showers, 
 accompanied with fierce storms, ensue. They occur' 
 more and more frequently, and turn at length into floods 
 of rain, inundating the earth with torrents of water. 
 The air is at this time so damp that the inhabitants are 
 in an incessant vapor bath. The heat is heavy and 
 stifling ; the body becomes dull and enervated ; this is 
 the period of those endemical fevers that destroy so great 
 a number of the settlers who have come from the temper- 
 ate zones. But vegetation puts on a new freshness and 
 vigor ; the desert itself becomes animated, and is over- 
 spread for a few months with enchanting verdure, which 
 furnishes pasture to thousands of animals. Nevertheless, 
 ere long, the sun, in his annual progress, advances to 
 pour down his vertical rays upon other places ; the rains 
 diminish, the atmosphere becomes once more serene, the 
 trade wind resumes its regularity, and the heaven shuts 
 its windows once again until the following season. 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE RAINS. 
 
 155 
 
 Such is the normal course of the tropical rains. They 
 fall everywhere during the passage of the sun through 
 the zenith. The heat is then so violent that the ascend- 
 ing current neutralizes the horizontal trade wind. It 
 hurries the vapors to the heights of the atmosphere, and 
 the upper limit of the trade wind, where they are con- 
 densed and fall back in a deluge of rain. Now, as the 
 sun passes and repasses from one tropic to the other, it 
 follows that there is, in most intermediate places, a two- 
 fold rainy season, the two periods of rain being more or 
 less closely connected in point of time. 
 
 In India the course of the rain is not so regular ; it 
 depends entirely on the monsoons. The western coast 
 of Deccan, the coast of Malabar, has the season of the 
 rains during the monsoon of the south-west, which brings 
 thither the vapors of the ocean; that is, during the 
 northern summer. It has the dry season during the 
 monsoon of the north-east. During the winter, the mon- 
 soon of the south-west ascends the slopes of the western 
 Ghauts, and causes, in the heights, violent storms and 
 very abundant rains. Along the coast of Coromandel, 
 on the contrary, it is the north-east monsoon which con- 
 ducts the rains, with the vapors of the Sea of Bengal, 
 and the south-west monsoon brings the dryness. These 
 two coasts of the peninsula have then their seasons 
 reversed. One has the dry weather when the other has 
 rain, and reciprocally. The table land of Deccan par- 
 takes of the two characters ; the fall of water is more 
 variable, and there are often two periods of abundant 
 rains. 
 
156 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 We see here that the relative position of the lands and 
 the seas regulates the seasons. 
 
 The quantity of water that falls from the atmosphere 
 in the tropical regions during some months is enormous, 
 if we compare it with that which we are accustomed to 
 see wetting the soil of our own countries. It has been 
 calculated, that, on the average, there fall annually in 
 the tropics of the Old World 77 inches of water, and 115 
 m tropical America. The mean for the equatorial region 
 would be 96 inches. 
 
 But the annual quantity of rain received in some local- 
 ities, and under the influence of certain circumstances, is 
 sometimes much more considerable. At Paramaribo, in 
 Dutch Guiana, it falls to the amount of 229 inches of 
 water, or 19 feet. At St. Louis de Maranhao, in Brazil, 
 276 inches have been received, or 23 feet. But the 
 greatest quantity ever observed is that of Mahabaleshwar, 
 in the western Ghauts, south of Bombay, at the height 
 of 4,200 feet ; it rises to the enormous number of 302 
 inches. A layer of 25 feet of water would have been 
 formed by the rain waters, if they had not gradually 
 run off. 
 
 These results are the more astonishing, as all this 
 water falls in the space of only a few months, and, so 
 to speak, at once. It has been seen to fall at Cayenne 
 21 inches in a single day. This is nearly as much as 
 falls during the whole year in the northern latitudes. 
 This is the reason why, notwithstanding the abundance 
 of the rains, the number of clear days is much more 
 considerable than in our climates. Even during the 
 rainy season, the sun shows himself nearly every day, 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE RAINS. 
 
 157 
 
 and many days pass without a single drop of water 
 falling from the atmosphere. 
 
 We may conceive the prodigious effect such violent 
 showers must produce upon the rivers. Who does not 
 now understand the secret of the overflowings of the 
 Nile, once so mysterious, which are due to the cir- 
 cumstance that the region of its sources receives the 
 tropical rains.? 
 
 Floods of forty feet rise and upwards are frequent at 
 this season in the great rivers of South America; the 
 llanos of the Orinoco are changed into an inland sea. 
 The Amazon inundates to a vast distance the plains it 
 flows through. The Paraguay forms lagoons, which, 
 like those of Xarayes, are more than three hundred 
 miles in length, and ooze away during the dry season. 
 
 The quantity of water contained in the tropical atmos- 
 phere in the condition of transparent gas, is always 
 considerable. It is in proportion to the heat, which, 
 being always very great, augments its capacity to a very 
 high degree. Even under the most serene sky, the air 
 is still abundantly provided with it. It is this invisible 
 water which, being absorbed by the plants, and taken 
 up by their large leaves, produces the vigorous vegeta- 
 tion, and causes the eternal verdure that fills us with 
 astonishment, under a sky devoid of rain, and cloudless 
 during more than half the year ; while in our climates, 
 from the failure of rain for a few weeks only, we see all 
 verdure languish, and all the flowers perish for the lack 
 of moisture. 
 
 The distribution of rains in the temperate regions 
 offers a perfect contrast to that of the tropics. Here, 
 14 
 
158 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 throughout the whole year, the earth is watered by the 
 rains of heaven, although sometimes irregularly. But 
 these are variable, as are the winds and the tempera- 
 ture, and secondary circumstances have much influence 
 over them. 
 
 The further we recede from the tropics, the more do 
 we find that this periodical character disappears. But 
 we have few established facts as to the mode in which 
 the transition is made from one region to another. North 
 of the tropics we find winter rains, which doubtless are 
 caused by the meeting of the upper trade winds with 
 the north-easters. The strife of these gives birth to 
 heavy rain storms. It is so at Madeira and Lisbon. 
 Yet further north, Italy, and some portion of the Med- 
 iterranean, have spring and autumnal rains, which Dove 
 attributes to the transit of the south-west trade wind 
 before and after the solstice. In Germany, according to 
 the same authority, the same cause produces frequent 
 rains at the period of the solstice, or summer rains, 
 denoting the highest point attained by the trade wind 
 in those latitudes at the greatest declination of the sun 
 towards the north. 
 
 But it must be admitted that the general character 
 of the rains of those regions, their periods, and their 
 frequency, appear especially to depend on a thousand 
 geographical features which influence them greatly. 
 
 The quantity of water held by the atmosphere of the 
 temperate regions is much smaller than that in the air 
 of the tropics. The vegetation, therefore, cannot endure 
 the want of rain for any length of time, as I have 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE RAINS. 
 
 159 
 
 observed, and the quantity of rain water falling in 
 them is also greatly inferior. 
 
 The mean is 34 inches in the Old World, and 39 in 
 temperate America, or 35 for the whole zone. There 
 are causes, however, to be pointed out hereafter, which 
 produce the fall of twice and even thrice that quantity 
 at certain points. The number of fair days is also far 
 smaller. But if these fruitful showers are not granted 
 to us with the same prodigality as in the tropical regions, 
 they are, at least, better distributed throughout the year 
 in a manner more equal, more economical, and morf 
 advantageous to vegetation and the requirements of all 
 organized beings. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 Modifications of the general laws of distribution of the rains — De- 
 crease of the quantity of rain waters and of rainy days, from the 
 seaboard towards the inlands — Numerous exceptions and their 
 causes — Influence of the mountains and the table lands in the two 
 worlds — Distribution of rain in South America ; in North America ; 
 in Africa ; in Europe ; in Asia ; in Australia — Special hygromet- 
 rical character of each continent — Difference between the Old and the 
 New World, corresponding to the nature of their relief — Mixture 
 of the continental and the oceanic element — Influence on organized, 
 beings — Superiority of the zone of contact, or the maritime zone. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 The investigation we attempted to make in the last 
 lecture, has convinced us of the intimate connection 
 existing between the temperatures and the winds, and 
 between both and the distribution of rain over the 
 surface of the earth. In this last point of view we 
 have recognized the existence of a zone of 'periodical 
 rains, corresponding to the torrid regions of the equa- 
 tor, wherein the rains fall in abundance, and within the 
 space of a few months ; and of two zones of continuous 
 rains corresponding to the temperate and cold regions, in 
 which they fall in smaller quantity, and are more uni- 
 formly distributed through the entire course of the year. 
 It remains for us, this evening, to give some account of 
 the numerous modifications these general laws are made 
 to undergo, by the extent of the continents, the forms 
 of their relief, and their position relatively to the 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE RAINS. 
 
 161 
 
 general winds which are the dispensers of the rain 
 waters. 
 
 The map before us, on which it has been attempted 
 to express, by deeper or lighter tints, the relative abun- 
 dance of the rain that falls in each region of the globe, 
 indicates these zones in a very clear manner; it will 
 serve further to illustrate what remains to be said on 
 this subject. (See plate iv.) 
 
 The winds of the ocean striking the coasts of the con- 
 tinents, and moistening them with their waters, pene- 
 trate equally into the interior, transport thither the 
 vapors with which they are charged, and spread life and 
 freshness on their path. But in proportion as they 
 advance on their continental journey, they become more 
 and more scant and sparing of these beneficent waters : 
 their provision is exhausted, and if the way is too 
 long, if the continent is too extended, they arrive at 
 its centre, as arid and parched as a land wind. 
 
 This first result appears so natural, that it seems 
 almost useless to exhibit it by figures. Nevertheless, we 
 will let direct observation speak, that the fact may not rest 
 upon assertion alone. Here is the quantity of rain water 
 received annually in the different parts of the same con- 
 tinent, more or less remote from the seaboard. I add 
 also the number of rainy days, to complete these obser- 
 vations. As far as possible, I choose countries situated 
 under similar latitudes, in order to render them capable 
 of a more rigorous comparison in this point of view : for, 
 otherwise, the quantity of rain water diminishing in 
 proportion to the distance from the torrid regions of the 
 equator, it would be easy to attribute incorrectly to the 
 14* 
 
162 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 distance from the seas a difference that might be only 
 the effect of a position more or less towards the north. 
 
 The mean quantity of rain received during a year, 
 and the number of rainy days, are as follows, in the 
 countries situated between 45° and 50° N. lat. of the Old 
 World: 
 
 We see that, in leaving the coasts for the interior of 
 the continents, there is a gradual diminution of the 
 quantity of rain and of rainy days. If we penetrate to 
 the centre of the vast continent of Asia, we find the 
 dryness there almost absolute — a desert. 
 
 In North America, the observations are as yet so few 
 and so recent, that it is impossible to deduce from them 
 very exact averages. Besides, as we shall soon see, this 
 continent being exposed at the same time to the winds 
 of the Atlantic on the east, and to those of the Gulf of 
 Mexico on the south, receives rain waters from both 
 directions. This is especially true of the middle region, 
 situated west of the Alleghanies. In this way the 
 decrease, owing to the distance from the Atlantic, is dis- 
 guised by the additional rain water brought thither by 
 the winds of the Gulf of Mexico. These various circum- 
 stances tend in a singular degree to render the distribu- 
 
 Depth of Rain 
 in inches. 
 
 Number of 
 Rainy Days. 
 
 British Islands, 
 
 Western France, 
 
 Eastern France, 
 
 Central and North Germany, 
 
 Hungary, 
 
 Eastern Russia, Kasan, . . 
 Siberia, Yakoutsk, .... 
 
 156 
 152 
 147 
 150 
 111 
 90 
 60 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE KAINS. 
 
 163 
 
 tion of the rains more uniform in this part of the conti- 
 nent. Nevertheless, the following numbers seem to 
 indicate that the influence of the continental position is 
 not annihilated. 
 
 The annual quantity of rain water between 41° and 
 43° north lat. is, at 
 
 
 Depth of Rain 
 in inches. 
 
 38 
 36 
 30 
 
 Again, between lat. 38° and 40° north. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. ; and Lambertville, N. J., . . 
 
 Depth of Rain 
 in inches. 
 
 45 
 41 
 32 
 
 We may say, then, 9 that, in general, a country is the 
 better watered, the nearer it is to the seaboard ; and, 
 from moist and verdant Ireland to the desert of Gobi, 
 we find all possible gradations between the extremes of 
 moisture and aridity. 
 
 This indubitable general law, however, undergoes 
 numerous modifications, which infinitely diversify the 
 nature of the climates in regard to their wetness or 
 drought, causing the most surprising anomalies. 
 
 On the shore of the Caribbean Sea, on the coast of 
 Venezuela, is situated the city of Cumana, which has 
 become celebrated in the annals of science by the 
 
164 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 researches made there by Humboldt. That city, in the 
 midst of the regions of the tropics, where the rains are 
 so abundant, in spite of its maritime position, receives 
 only 8 inches of water, while very near it, a little further 
 south-east, in Guyana, there is a fall of more than 200 
 inches. 
 
 In this same South America, so plentifully watered, 
 we see on the opposite side, south-west of the Andes of 
 Bolivia, a long and narrow band destitute of rain, 
 stretching several hundred miles along the coast; it is 
 the desert of Atacama. Not a drop of water comes to 
 refresh this thirsty land, though lying upon the sea- 
 coast, and under the same latitude as the plains of 
 Upper Paraguay, which is inundated with rain. 
 
 The plateaus of Upper California are nearer the sea 
 than the centre of the valley of the Mississippi, and, 
 nevertheless, they are dry and parched, while the latter 
 is fertilized by copious rains. 
 
 Here are causes, then, which disturb the general law, 
 or rather which modify it in favor of variety of climates ; 
 these causes are the forms of relief of the soil, the 
 mountain chains and the plateaus, and their disposition 
 relative to the damp winds. 
 
 A wind loaded with vapor and clouds may pass over 
 vast continental plains, without dissolving into rain, 
 because the temperature in a plain may remain the 
 same through long spaces, or even be higher than 
 that of the sea wind crossing it. There is, then, no 
 cause of condensation of the vapors. We have an 
 example of this in the Etesian winds, which bear the 
 vapors of the Mediterranean into Sahara. They have 
 
THE RAINS, INFLUENCE OF MOUNTAINS. 165 
 
 no sooner passed the threshold of the desert, than the 
 dry and burnt air, as we have already said, dissipates 
 even the smallest cloud. 
 
 But it is not the same when the moist winds meet 
 elevated objects, chains of mountains, and high table 
 lands, in their transit. Forced to ascend along their 
 sides, they are uplifted into the colder regions of the 
 atmosphere ; they feel the pressure of the air, which is 
 less there, and the expansion of the gases composing 
 them iurther increases the cooling; the air loses its 
 capacity for holding the same quantity of vapors as 
 before. The latter are condensed into clouds, which 
 crown the summits of the mountains, and trail along 
 their sides; and they melt soon into abundant rains. 
 If the sea wind passes the chain, it descends on the 
 opposite side, dry and cold; it has lost all its marine 
 character. 
 
 The mountain chains are, then, the great condensers, 
 placed by nature here and there along the continents, to 
 rob the winds of their treasures, to serve as reservoirs 
 for the rain waters, and to distribute them afterwards, as 
 they are needed, over the surrounding plains. Their 
 wet and cloudy summits seem to be untiringly occupied 
 with this important work. From their sides flow num- 
 berless torrents and rivers, carrying in all directions 
 wealth and life. Every system of mountains becomes 
 the centre of a system of irrigation, of water courses, 
 which gives to its neighborhood a value of primary 
 importance. 
 
 This power of condensation is expressed by the fact, 
 that in the heights of the mountains there falls more 
 
166 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 water than on the slopes, and at their foot there falls 
 more than in the neighboring plains. Further, the side 
 of the chain exposed to the sea winds receives a quantity 
 of rain much beyond that which falls on the opposite 
 side ; so that the great systems of mountains not only 
 divide the spaces, but separate different, and often oppo- 
 site, climates. 
 
 The examples of this action of mountain chains on 
 the condensation of the rains, are numerous in nature. 
 I have only an embarrassment of choice. Nevertheless, 
 I am compelled to borrow them from the Old World, 
 because the exact observations I need are there more 
 numerous. 
 
 The Alps form a vast semicircle on the north of Italy, 
 wherein the warm and moist winds of the south-west, 
 coming from the Mediterranean and the ocean, pour 
 themselves as into a funnel. Before passing this lofty 
 barrier and the snow-capped summits, these winds lose 
 their vapors, which fall in copious rain on all the south- 
 ern slope of the chain. While 36 inches of water fall in 
 the plains of Lombardy, there falls an average of 58 
 inches at the very foot of the Alps. In the north-east 
 corner, forming an angle, where the vapors accumulate, 
 at Tolmezzo, in the valley of the Tagliamento, a 
 quantity of 90 inches annually is received, which 
 reminds us of that of the tropical regions. Now, this 
 number is a very constant one, for it is the average of 
 twenty-two years' observations. The northern foot of 
 the Alps has only 35 inches. 
 
 The Apennines repeat almost the same phenomenon. 
 They form an arch, the convexity of which is marked 
 
THE RAINS, INFLUENCE OF MOUNTAINS. 167 
 
 by the curve of the Gulf of Genoa and the valley of the 
 Arno. The summits, which rise from 4,000 to 6,000 
 feet, arrest the winds of the sea, and there fall at their 
 southern foot 64 inches of water, while only 26 inches 
 fall on the northern descent, in the plains south of the 
 Po. The same relation exists further south, between 
 the western and eastern slopes of the same chain ; on 
 the former it rains 35 inches of water; on the latter 
 only 27. 
 
 We have already quoted Scandinavia as giving one of 
 the most striking examples of this kind of phenomena. 
 The elevation and the length of that chain, its lofty 
 frozen table lands, which a long day's journey is hardly 
 sufficient to cross, are an insurmountable barrier to the 
 vapors brought thither on the Norwegian coast by the 
 south-west wind from the Atlantic. They are condensed 
 almost entirely upon the shores incessantly plunged in 
 drizzling fogs. At Bergen, a day of sunshine is a rarity, 
 in the midst of almost constant rains that darken the 
 atmosphere. Thus we have there a fall of 82 inches of 
 water, — an enormous quantity, especially for such high 
 latitudes. All the western coast receives nearly as 
 much, and owes to the temperature of this wind, and to 
 the caloric disengaged by so active a condensation of 
 vapors, the remarkably soft and equable climate which 
 distinguishes it. On the southern coast, and in Sweden, 
 there fall only 21 inches of water, and the same south- 
 west wind brings thither clear weather and cold. The 
 same wind carries rain on one side, and fair weather on 
 the other. 
 
 In the East Indies, we encounter the majestic chain 
 
108 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the Himalaya, the most massive and lofty on the 
 globe. 
 
 The winds of the tropics, passing over the plains of 
 the Ganges, reach it, water the southern slopes, fertilize 
 the inland valleys, and support the most wonderful ver- 
 dure, up to the limit of eternal snows. But beyond, the 
 table lands of the region of the sacred lakes and of Katchi 
 and Tangout, indicate by their drought that they are 
 deprived of this beneficent influence. Katmandoo, at 
 a third of the height, has 51 inches of rain ; Delhi, in the 
 plains of the Ganges, has only 23. 
 
 At the north-east angle of the Indo-Persian Sea, the 
 south-west trade wind accumulates its vapors on the 
 flanks of the Ghauts. The effect of this chain, which, 
 however, has no great elevation, is such, that, after the 
 following examples, we shall be able to dispense with 
 any more. At Bombay, on the west coast, the rain falls 
 80 inches ; 302 have been received at Mahabaleshwar, 
 on the mountains, at an elevation of 4,200 feet, as we 
 have already said ; this quantity is reduced to 26 inches 
 on the other side of the chain, at Darwar, on the table 
 land of Deccan. 
 
 But we have said that the plateaus also have a marked 
 effect upon the distribution of the rain waters. Their 
 borders act as the mountains, and their surface, heated 
 more than the layers of air of the same level, absorb the 
 little vapor which ascends to this height, without con- 
 densing it ; their extent, finally, and their elevation, tend 
 to impede the access of the oceanic vapors, and to in- 
 crease the drought. These differences are already marked 
 
THE RAINS, INFLUENCE OF THE TABLE LANDS. 169 
 
 in plateaus so little elevated as Spain, whose central 
 plains are from 2,000 to 2,500 feet above the sea. 
 While the south-west coast of Portugal, — Lisbon for 
 example, — is watered with 27 inches of rain, the border 
 of the table land has only 11 inches ; and soon, quitting 
 the verdant region of the seaboard, we ascend the arid 
 plains of Estramadura, of La Mancha, and of Castile, at 
 the centre of which, Madrid receives not more than 10 
 inches of rain water. No other place in Europe is so 
 badly provided in this respect. And, nevertheless, side 
 by side with this minimum of rain, we find the greatest 
 quantity that has ever been made out on this continent. 
 At the western foot of the Sierra d'Estrella, which ad- 
 vances, like a spur, very far towards the coast, in the 
 valley of the Mondego, there has been received, it is 
 said, at Coimbra, the enormous quantity of 225 inches 
 of water. An error has been suspected in this measure, 
 taken in 1816 and 1817. Schouw has reduced it to 135 
 inches; Kaemtz, to 118; adopting the last number, there 
 is still a difference of more than 100 inches from Madrid, 
 situated under very nearly the same latitude, and on the 
 same peninsula. 
 
 If it is so with the table lands of the third order, as 
 that of Spain, what will be the case with those enormous 
 masses which form the body of eastern and western 
 Asia? 
 
 The fringe of snowy mountains surrounding them, 
 their distance from the oceans, the extent of their sur- 
 faces, their elevation in the atmosphere, — all these 
 causes conspire to give them that character of aridity 
 which renders them almost an unbroken desert. 
 15 
 
170 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 The plateaus of southern Africa, those of Mexico and 
 of California, compared with the neighboring countries, 
 have equally an indisputable character of aridity. At 
 Vera Cruz, for example, there fall 62 inches of water, 
 while in Mexico, and on the coast of the Pacific, the 
 quantity seems to be considerably reduced. 
 
 If the influence of mountain chains and table lands 
 is so considerable in all the particular cases which we 
 have just examined, it ought to manifest itself on a 
 grand scale and in a certain connection, for each conti- 
 nent in particular, and for each of the two worlds. We 
 have previously ascertained a general law of the dis- 
 tribution of the reliefs : there should be here a reflection 
 of this law ; and its importance should be revealed in 
 the distribution of the pluvial waters, and of the climate. 
 We proceed, then, to seek an explanation of the effect 
 that must be produced upon each continent by the 
 particular disposition of its chains of mountains, of its 
 plateaus and plains, relatively to the maritime winds, 
 bringing them the rains and tempering their climate. 
 
 Let us begin with the New World, the structure of 
 which is more simple and easy to comprehend. 
 
 The fundamental features of the structure of Amer- 
 ica, I repeat here, are the long and lofty barrier of 
 the Andes, of the Rocky Mountains, extending almost 
 from one pole to the other, along the western coast of 
 the two continents ; then, on the east, vast plains, inter- 
 spersed with some mountain ranges of slight elevation. 
 Let us see what is the effect of this disposition on the 
 climate of both these continents. 
 
THE RAINS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 171 
 
 In South America, the principal body of which is 
 situated under the sky of the tropics, this disposition 
 secures to the continent a copious supply of moisture. 
 The plains of the east are open to the trade wind of the 
 Atlantic, which sweeps over them unobstructed, and 
 bears thither unceasingly the vapors of the ocean. The 
 secondary chains of Brazil and of the Guyanas, from 
 5,000 to 7,000, do not rise high enough into the atmos- 
 phere to arrest it; the only effect they have, is to 
 augment the falling showers, and to supply a more 
 complete irrigation. The Orinoco, and the lower trib- 
 utaries of the Amazon, the Tocantins, the San Fran- 
 cisco, and many others which flow from these two 
 systems, are there to tell us. But it is not the same 
 with the Andes. This chain, whose crests and sum- 
 mits lift themselves everywhere into the region of per- 
 petual snows, forms, by its elevation and continuity, an 
 invincible obstacle to all the moist winds of the east. 
 The vapors, having traversed the plateaus of Eastern 
 Brazil, without lingering there long, accumulate and 
 condense, and flow down their eastern slopes. All this 
 zone at the foot of the Andes is one of the best watered 
 in the globe. Thus we see issuing from hence those 
 immense streams ; the Maranon, the king of the rivers 
 of the earth, and all its tributaries, the Ucayale, the Rio 
 Purus, the Madera, and many others, to which nothing 
 is wanting but to flow through civilized countries, in 
 order to rival in importance the Nile, the Ganges, and 
 the Mississippi. 
 
 But on the other side of the Andes all is changed. 
 Neither the trade wind nor its vapors arrive at the 
 
172 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 western coast. Scarcely do the table lands of Pern and 
 of Bolivia receive from them the latter benefits, by the 
 storms which burst out at the limit of the two atmos- 
 pheres. The coast of the Pacific Ocean, from Punta 
 Parina and Amatope to far beyond the tropic, from the 
 equator to Chili, is scarcely ever refreshed by the rains 
 of the ocean. Deprived of the vapors of the Atlantic 
 by the chain of the Andes, these countries behold the 
 vapors of the Pacific flitting away with the trade 
 wind, and no accidental breeze brings them back. 
 Drought and the desert are their portion, and on the 
 border of the seas, in the very sight of the waves, they 
 are reduced to envy the neighboring countries of the 
 centre of the continent the gifts the ocean refuses 
 to themselves, while lavishing them upon the others. 
 Thus, under the same latitude, under the same tropical 
 heavens, where the phenomena meantime are so regular, 
 the two slopes of the Andes have a climate perfectly 
 opposite. In one of them, the richest vegetation ; in the 
 other, drought, and a parched soil, the nakedness of 
 which is poorly disguised by the light robe of a thinly 
 scattered vegetation. The Andes separate the two 
 climates by a sharply cut line, and testify strongly to 
 the importance of the part performed in climates by 
 the mountain chains, and their situation relatively to 
 the general winds. 
 
 The northern and southern limits of this arid region 
 are not where one would expect to find them at the 
 first glance. The question is asked, why the same 
 causes do not hinder the rains from watering the coasts 
 of Peru, under the equator, and of New Granada. But, 
 
THE RAINS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 173 
 
 besides that the depression of the Cordilleras towards 
 the north allows the trade wind to round it and to reach 
 the western side, let us remember that this part of the 
 coast corresponds nearly to the zone of calms, in which 
 the direct influence of the trade wind is nearly annihi- 
 lated, and where almost daily rain storms bring back to 
 the earth the vapors in the very places whence they 
 have risen. The influence of this latter circumstance 
 here neutralizes the action of the Andes. 
 
 It is not the same at the southern limit. Here, not 
 only the chain is continuous, but it forms, in the lofty 
 table lands of Southern Peru and of Bolivia, the broad- 
 est and the highest terrace of all the Andes, shutting 
 out all communication between the two sides. More- 
 over, we are here upon the limit of the tropic, and the 
 regions in the neighborhood are often scantily supplied 
 with rains, as we shall by-and-by understand. The 
 lower regular trade wind begins, in fact, to blow there, 
 and, as we know, the sky remains everywhere serene. 
 The upper, or return trade wind, does not yet fall 
 there ; so that the causes of the condensation of vapor 
 are wanting, and dryness of climate is the inevitable 
 consequence. It is only at a greater distance, where 
 the upper trade wind reaches the surface again, that the 
 conflict of the winds commences, and with it the rains. 
 On the coast of Bolivia, at the south of the Gulf of 
 Arica, the two arefying influences unite and cause an 
 almost absolute drought in the long desert of Atacama, 
 which borders the coast nearly to Chili. It is only in 
 the latter country, where the return trade wind of the 
 
174 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 north-west makes ite3lf felt, that the rains recommence 
 by degrees to water the earth. 
 
 In the part of South America situated beyond the 
 tropical regions, the relative position of the Andes and 
 of the plains on the east, produces an opposite effect. 
 The vapors of the Pacific cannot penetrate there. The 
 return, or north-west trade wind, avoids the coast and 
 reenters the Atlantic Ocean, or, driven aside by the 
 Andes, comes back arefied and made continental, 
 across the plains of Paraguay and of the Pampas. 
 Hence the violent west wind, in Buenos Ayres, called 
 the Pampero, which carries to the coast only the 
 whirlwind of dust it has raised in the arid plains it 
 traverses in its course. The western coast, on the 
 contrary, receives, with the return trade wind of the 
 north-west, the vapors of the Pacific Ocean. Chili has 
 rains in winter at the moment when the north-west 
 reaches the neighboring regions of the tropics. More 
 to the south, the winds of the sea coming from these 
 parts, add their contingent, and give all this southern 
 point of America the continuous rains belonging to the 
 cool, temperate regions. Terra del Fuego and Cape 
 Horn, at the confluence of all the sea winds, are 
 incessantly bathed by the rains or covered by the 
 snows ; and the correctness of the not very flattering 
 description Forster gives us of that climate, has been 
 confirmed by all the navigators who have travelled 
 through that inhospitable region of fogs and tempests. 
 
 Thus, in South America, the position of the plains 
 and of the mountains, combined with the prevailing 
 direction of the sea winds, produces the copious moisture 
 
THE RAINS IN NORTH AMERICA. 
 
 175 
 
 of the tropical portion and the comparative dryness of 
 the temperate. 
 
 In North America, an analogous disposition of the 
 reliefs, and of the atmospherical currents, would doubt- 
 less produce the same dryness as in the plains of La 
 Plata and the Pampas, if the deep cut of the Gulf of 
 Mexico did not open the whole south of the continent 
 to the wet winds of the tropics. Instead of coming 
 from the interior of the continent, as in the temperate 
 regions of South America, the return trade wind, which 
 enters by this broad gate, comes directly from the seas, 
 and has lost nothing of its vapors. It waters copiously 
 along its course the whole Atlantic region and the west- 
 ern slope of the Alleghanies ; even the valley of the 
 Mississippi shares its benefits, although to a less degree. 
 Towards the north, in the interior, the polar winds seem 
 to resume their empire, and the moisture lessens. Thus 
 North America is more favored with rains than could be 
 expected from its situation westward of the return winds 
 of the equator, and from its character as a large con- 
 tinent. 
 
 Along the western shore, from the coasts of Mexico 
 to 60° of north latitude, we find the same succession of 
 climates as in South America, in latitudes nearly cor- 
 responding. Between the tropics, in the rear of the 
 high table lands of Mexico, where the trade wind of the 
 Atlantic does not come, drought reigns, as on the coast 
 of Peru. In the sub-tropical region, where the south- 
 west trade wind has still but little influence, the rains 
 are slight ; they are almost none on the high table lands 
 
176 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 of California. Oregon, as well as Chili, has the winter 
 rains, indicating the return of the upper trade wind to 
 land ; they seem to penetrate even beyond the Rocky 
 Mountains, east of which the winter rains are frequent. 
 Here we find the sources of the Missouri. In the North, 
 finally, in Russian America, where the coast bends in 
 and forms a deep bay, the south-west winds strike the 
 coast, and produce the continuous and copious rains, the 
 temperate, equal climate, and the vegetation of the 
 coasts of Scotland and Norway. 
 
 The investigation we have just made of the distri- 
 bution of the rain in the two Americas shows the influ- 
 ence of the direction of the high chains, and of their 
 position on the western coast. It is immense. Place 
 the Andes along the Atlantic, and the marine trade wind 
 is arrested and dried ; the table lands of Brazil, the end- 
 less plains of the Amazon, are nothing but a desert : 
 no more of that wealth of vegetation, of those virgin 
 forests, which now constitute their beauty ; South Amer- 
 ica loses its character. 
 
 Place the Rocky Mountains east of North America, 
 open the plains of the Mississippi to the south-west 
 winds of the Pacific, and the climate becomes softer, 
 more equal ; the plains are still better watered, perhaps ; 
 nature has certainty changed. But what would then 
 become of the present destinies, the entire future of this 
 continent, were it necessary to cross the desert table 
 lands of California, and their high mountain ranges, in 
 order to reach the Mississippi from the Atlantic coast % 
 What would become of its important relations with 
 the Old World, if America, averted from the civilized 
 
THE RAINS IN THE OLD WORLD. 
 
 177 
 
 nations, looked only towards the Pacific Ocean and 
 China? 
 
 If we now direct our attention to the Old World, 
 we shall again find the same influence of the forms of 
 relief. 
 
 Tropical Africa, and the greatest part of the East 
 of this continent, present two regions very unequally 
 supplied with rains. On the north of the equator, the 
 lands are less consolidated, the plateaus isolated from 
 each other. Abyssinia is far from Mandara, and that is 
 far from the Kong Mountains. The coast, from Cape 
 Guardafui to that of Zanguebar, is slightly elevated : it 
 permits the east winds of the Indian Ocean to penetrate 
 the inland and to water all these parallels. The coasts 
 of Senegambia and of Guinea are in the region of calms 
 at the meeting of the two trade winds, and owe to this 
 circumstance their copious rains, their climate, moist 
 and fruitful, but treacherous and fatal to the man of the 
 North. 
 
 On the south of the equator the plateaus are con- 
 tinuous ; but instead of being in the West, as in Amer- 
 ica, the uplands are in the East ; the eastern coast rises, 
 and probably reaches, in the chain of Lupata, the 
 loftiest elevation of this part of the continent. Then the 
 eastern coast arrests the vapors; there the rains are 
 everywhere abundant, from Cape Guardafui to Cape 
 of Good Hope, while the vast elevated plains stretching 
 from the west to the coasts of Congo, seem to exhibit, as 
 far as we know them, only sterility and drought under the 
 same latitude, where we see the plains of the Amazon 
 and of Brazil drenched every year by torrents of water. 
 
178 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 The contrast is complete ; and whence comes this differ- 
 ence, if not from the disposition of the reliefs in the two 
 continents 1 
 
 The region of Cape of Good Hope is watered on the 
 south-east coast, during the summer, by the winds of the 
 Indian Ocean. But in the whole West the climate is dry 
 except at certain points, and the Atlantic sends it only a 
 few autumnal and winter rains. 
 
 The North, finally, Sahara, is closed towards the east 
 against the access of the winds ; its sub-tropical position 
 and the nature of its soil contribute further to cause the 
 deficiency of rain, making it one of the most vast and 
 complete deserts in the world. 
 
 Western Europe, by its position, by the absence of 
 high continuous chains along its seaboards, is open to 
 the equatorial winds of the Atlantic, which bring their 
 moisture thither all the year. The small extent of its 
 surface, the number of its inland seas, and of the deep 
 bays cutting into its mass, and leaving no place very far 
 from some maritime basin; all these circumstances secure 
 to it continued rains, mild climate, and that compara- 
 tively high temperature which belongs to it peculiarly. 
 The numerous mountain chains, the endless diversity of 
 soil, multiply the local condensations, as we have seen, 
 and divide the continent into climatic regions as mani- 
 fold as they are varied. Europe, alone, is without a 
 desert. 
 
 In tropical Asia the monsoons and mountain ranges 
 regulate the rains. The peninsula of India has the 
 rainy seasons reversed on its two coasts ; but its plentiful 
 
THE RAINS IN AUSTRALIA. 
 
 179 
 
 rains are reduced to a very small quantity on the pla- 
 teaus of Deccan. All the region of Indo-China and of 
 the great Asiatic archipelago is one of the best watered 
 in the world. The conflict of the different winds, of 
 which all this space is the theatre, the variety of the 
 lands, so numerously scattered there, and the discon- 
 tinuity of the chains, which can nowhere arrest the 
 winds, are so many causes that secure to the whole of it 
 such copiousness of tropical rains. 
 
 The Himalaya and the lofty chains of China stop the 
 course of the ocean winds ; all beyond, towards the inte- 
 rior, is a desert; it is the Gobi, the Tangout, and the 
 sandy seas of Turkestan. 
 
 Australia is as yet so little known that it is impossi- 
 ble to analyze its climate. Nevertheless, what we have 
 learned of late years concerning the configuration of its 
 relief, proves that the highest lands, as in Africa, are 
 placed on the eastern border of the continent. The 
 trade wind of the Pacific scarcely penetrates thither, 
 and that of the temperate regions shuns the coast. 
 Furthermore, the southern half is, for the greater part, 
 in the sub-tropical region, and seems to be deficient in 
 mountains. Thus we may believe that the interior is a 
 desert. But the eastern coast, Botany Bay, and the 
 Australian Alps, are better watered than Swan River, 
 on the western coast, and the prosperity of the colonies 
 established on these two shores, has, of necessity, been 
 in proportion. The mean quantity of rain water which 
 falls in this part of the world is estimated at twenty-five 
 inches ; it is the most insular, and yet, owing to these 
 circumstances, and to its rounded form, the most imper- 
 
180 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 fectly watered of the continents. If what precedes did 
 not inform us of this, the aspect and the slender forms 
 of the vegetation, its attenuated leaves, which constitute 
 its characteristic, would be sufficient to convince us of 
 the fact. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, if the general climates are given by 
 the latitude, that is, by the spherical form of the earth, 
 the special climates, characterized by the unequal distri- 
 bution of the temperatures and the rains, are the effect 
 of the grouping of the continents, and of the particular 
 disposition of their reliefs. 
 
 In the point of view now occupying us, each con- 
 tinent has its special character. South America is the 
 most humid of the tropical continents ; North America, 
 the best watered of the temperate continents, but the 
 rains are equally distributed ; Africa and Asia present 
 the absolute contrast of dry and moist in the zone of 
 the deserts touching upon the regions bathed by the 
 rains of the tropics ; temperate Asia is the dryest of the 
 lorthern continents. Europe combines the moisture of 
 •he maritime climate with a great variety of contrasts ; 
 but they are all softened. Australia, finally, is the 
 iryest and poorest of the continents. 
 
 The general law of the reliefs in the two worlds thus 
 manifests its influence. The New World is that of 
 plains, and the plains are open to the winds of the sea ; 
 its continental forms are less piled up and massive : it is, 
 on the whole, the most humid. The Old World is that 
 of plateaus and of vast extents; drought is its por- 
 tion. It is enough to recall the influence these circum- 
 
THE MARITIME ZONE. 
 
 181 
 
 stances of humidity or aridity exercise on the vegeta- 
 tion, the aspect, and the organized beings of a country, 
 to foresee a that these great differences between one 
 world and the other will be again reproduced in another 
 province. 
 
 We have taken a rapid view of the variety of the 
 phenomena to which the intermingling of the solid and 
 Liquid elements, of land and water, gives occasion. It 
 would be easy, by a more detailed examination, to in- 
 crease the number of these contrasts, of which I have 
 pointed out only the most general. But I have said 
 enough for a sketch of this vast subject, and to enable 
 you to take a glance at all the wealth of life that nature 
 unfolds by means so simple. I will add only one con- 
 sideration more, which will serve for a conclusion to 
 what we have thus far said of this great contrast of the 
 continental and oceanic hemispheres. 
 
 We have seen, gentlemen, that it is from the combi- 
 nation of the two elements that life is born, a higher 
 life than that belonging to either of them. It is neither 
 the oceanic climate, nor the continental climate, which 
 we shall proclaim as the foremost climate of the world ; 
 it is the combination of the two — it is the maritime 
 climate. Here are allied the continental vigor and the 
 oceanic softness, in a fortunate union, mutually temper- 
 ing each other. Here the development is more intense, 
 life more rich, more varied in all its forms. And when 
 to these causes we further add the advantage of a tropi- 
 cal temperature, the forms of nature are, as it were, 
 raised to their highest degree, and the wealth it brings 
 16 
 
182 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 to light surpasses all elsewhere seen. I will cite only a 
 single example : this will suffice. 
 
 Nowhere on the surface of the globe is the blending 
 of the continental and oceanic element so complete, and 
 on so great a scale, as in the East Indies, and in that 
 archipelago — the greatest in the world — which fills the 
 space comprised between the South of Asia and Austra- 
 lia. Peninsulas, which are worlds, as those of Deccan 
 and Indo-China ; islands, which are small continents, 
 like Borneo and Sumatra; a blending of chains and 
 plateaus, and of plains, as on the continent; and all 
 this cut up, bordered, or surrounded by seas in the most 
 diversified manner, bathed by the humid atmosphere of 
 the tropics, and exposed to the burning rays of a verti- 
 cal sun — these are all the means of physical life which 
 nature can receive. And then, what mighty, what 
 admirable vegetation ! We see at the same time plants 
 with broad and numerous leaves, the excessive expan- 
 sion of which is always the proof of an exuberant 
 humidity; and those shrubs with concentrated and 
 elaborated gums, those spices, those aromata, that 
 bear witness to the dry and intense heat of the conti- 
 nent. There is the country of the mighty Banian, the 
 symbol of vegetable strength. There uplifts its head 
 the majestic Talipot palm, a single leaf whereof, six- 
 teen feet broad and forty feet round, is enough to give 
 shade to a score of men at once; and in the bosom 
 of those virgin forests grow the largest flowers in the 
 world, the Rafflesia, whose gigantic corolla alone 
 measures no less than three feet across. There grow 
 the cinnamon, the nutmeg, the pepper, and the cloves, 
 
THE MARITIME ZONE. 
 
 183 
 
 which all civilized nations have fetched thence from 
 time immemorial. 
 
 Everything most grand and powerful of the produc- 
 tions of the animal world is there encountered. The 
 rhinoceros, the huge royal tiger, the orang-outang, that 
 great serious-looking ape, the most perfect of animals, 
 and that which seems to foreshadow in its structure the 
 complete configuration of the human body, are all inhab- 
 itants of those countries. If to these we add the mineral 
 wealth, the gold and the diamonds, abounding there, we 
 may pronounce these regions the most richly endowed 
 of the universe. 
 
 But let us raise ourselves above the limits of the 
 natural, into the regions of the historic world. Where 
 have we beheld all peoples and societies arrive at their 
 highest perfection, if not in Europe, that peninsular 
 continent, the most indented and most maritime of all 
 the continents? Where do we see barbarism reign 
 triumphant, if not in Africa and Australia, continents 
 shut off from all contact with the rest of the world, its 
 seas and its people, by their continuous and unindented 
 outlines'? This is neither the time nor the place to 
 analyze the causes of this phenomenon ; I now merely 
 allude to the facts, intending to return to the subject 
 hereafter. But I will add, that it is not an isolated fact. 
 Call together your historical recollections, and cast your 
 eyes upon this map of the world, and you will see that 
 all the highly civilized peoples of the earth, with the 
 exception of one or two primitive nations, have lived, 
 or still live, on the margins of seas or oceans. 
 
 The Chinese and the Hindoos unquestionably repre- 
 
184 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 sent the most advanced state of civilization in Oriental 
 Asia. In Europe, to name Phoenicia, Asia Minor, 
 Greece, and Rome, is to enumerate all the highly culti- 
 vated peoples of antiquity, and all have, as the theatre 
 of their strifes and exploits, as well as for their connect- 
 ing link, the Mediterranean Sea. To come to a later 
 date, it is to the ocean that Spain and Portugal owe the 
 brilliant part they played, at the period when superb 
 discoveries doubled the extent of the historic world. At 
 this very hour, to conclude, the might of England causes 
 itself to be felt from one to the other extremity of the 
 world. 
 
 And in this new world of North America, now enter- 
 ing on its great career among the nations under so 
 happy auspices, is it not on the shores of the Atlantic 
 that life is developed in its most active, most intense, 
 and most exalted form ? Is this merely a chance conse- 
 quence of the accidental debarkation at that point of 
 the colonists of the Ancient World? No, gentlemen, 
 brilliant , as may be the prospects the West may aspire 
 to from the exuberance of its soil, life and action will 
 always point toward the coast, which can only derive 
 fresh accessions of prosperity from the prosperity of 
 the interior. The life of nations is in the commerce 
 of the world, not only in a material, but even more in 
 a moral point of view; and it is because America is 
 enthroned queen-like upon the two great oceans, that 
 she will be called to play a part as mediator between 
 the two extremities of the world, of which no one can 
 at this moment conceive the magnificent extent. 
 
 This, then, is the resolution of the contrast between 
 
THE MARITIME ZONE. 185 
 
 the continental and the oceanic world, as regards the 
 intermixture of their natures. It is in this region of 
 contact between the sea and the ocean that life is 
 unfolded in its most intense and diversified form ; and, 
 both in point of nature and of history, the maritime 
 zone of every continent enjoys a superiority over all 
 others not to be questioned or disputed. 
 16* 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 The marine currents — Tlie motion of the seas due to other causes than 
 that of the continental waters — Various causes of the marine cur- 
 rents — Differences of temperature the principal, acting indirectly by 
 the winds, directly by the unequal density of the waters — Coincidence 
 between the great atmospheric currents and the marine currents — 
 System of general currents — The Equatorial current and the Polar 
 currents — The currents of the Pacific Ocean ; of the Indian Ocean ; 
 of the Atlantic Ocean — Contrast of the Old World and the New — 
 Disposition of their continental masses — Consequences — The Old 
 World the continental; the New the oceanic — The first essentially 
 temperate, the second tropical — Special character of the New World 
 — Its structure more simple — Abundance of its waters — Vegetation 
 predominates on the Animal World — Incomplete development of the 
 higher animals — Influence on the indigenous man — Conclusions. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 Thus far we have been studying, in the grand con- 
 trast of land and water, the influence of the oceanic 
 element on the continental world, of the wet upon the 
 dry, more than that of the continents upon the oceans. 
 This was the right order, because the continental world 
 is much the more important. Nevertheless, we will 
 not leave the subject without saying, at least, a few 
 words upon the action the continents, in their turn, 
 exercise upon the oceans. Now, as this action of the 
 lands is essentially limited to regulating and modifying 
 the movements of the oceanic waters, by their disposi- 
 
THE MARINE CURRENTS. 
 
 187 
 
 tion, by the forms of their coasts, and their submarine 
 relief, it will be sufficient for our purpose to take cog- 
 nizance of the principal phenomena presented by the 
 marine currents, without entering upon details which 
 the shortness of the time allowed compels me to pass 
 over in silence. 
 
 The spectacle around us has accustomed us to see 
 the continental waters in motion. We hear, without 
 astonishment, the streams murmur in the meadows, the 
 torrents roar in the mountains, and behold the rivers 
 flow majestically along their bed. The cause of this 
 motion of the water is familiar. We know that the 
 particles of this movable element, influenced by the 
 hidden power of gravitation, move and flow untiringly, 
 until they have reached the lowest place accessible to 
 them. If in their course they fall in with a basin 
 having no exit, they gather there and put themselves 
 into a state of equilibrium and repose, preserving 
 their horizontal surface and their immobility, until 
 driven from it by another force foreign to the first. 
 Such are our peaceful lakes, with pure and tranquil 
 waters, whose mirror reflects the mountains that adorn 
 their margin, the azure of the sky, and even the slightest 
 cloud floating in the atmosphere that bends over them. 
 
 But these basins, which here and there collect the 
 living waters of the continents, are only the image, on a 
 very small scale, of what the vast and deep basin of the 
 oceans is for the whole of the waters of our planet. 
 
 All the water springs that furrow the continents 
 tend towards this common reservoir. Gushing from the 
 height of the table lands, or the lofty summits of the 
 
188 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 mountains, they pour their waters first from fall to fall 
 headlong down the rapid slopes; they traverse, at a 
 more sober and measured pace, the long low plains 
 leading to the ocean, into which, as we behold their 
 slower and slower and more sluggish march, their waves 
 seem unwillingly to enter, as if conscious that they were 
 to be confounded together, and lose their existence 
 ticre. Here, in truth, ends the ephemeral life of the 
 rivers; their motion has ceased, they disappear in the 
 immensity of that vast abyss whence they had issued. 
 
 We are, then, inclined to look upon the basin of the 
 oceans as containing waters in a state of rest ; for the 
 cause which sets the river waters in motion exists no 
 longer ; the differences of level are annulled. Yet let us 
 be cautious; all this may well be only a first appear- 
 ance. The very mobility of water, which prevents it 
 from reflecting permanent forms, and levels all ine- 
 qualities, renders it also accessible to the slightest 
 external influences, and several causes succeed in im- 
 pressing upon this element, passive in the highest 
 degree, the most varied motions. 
 
 The winds raise the waves of the ocean by an action 
 wholly mechanical, and produce only a superficial and 
 local agitation ; but when they blow constantly in the 
 same direction, they impart to the waters a transfer 
 motion in the direction of their own course. The sun 
 and moon pass over the surface of the seas, and the 
 entire mass of waters, obedient to the mighty attraction, 
 piles itself up in a vast swell, whose summit follows the 
 course of the dominant luminary. These are the tides. 
 The unequal pressure of the atmosphere on the different 
 
THE MARINE CURRENTS. 
 
 189 
 
 points of the ocean, whence result differences of level, 
 and, above all, the differences of temperature between 
 the tropical and the polar seas, to which correspond 
 different degrees of density, are so many more causes 
 disturbing the equilibrium of the oceanic waters, and 
 creating in their bosom various motions which continu- 
 ally tend to reestablish the equilibrium, but without 
 effecting it. Sometimes the superficial mass is trans- 
 ported from east to west, as in the great equatorial 
 current; sometimes a deep and narrow band, a true 
 oceanic river, flowing rapidly through waters compara- 
 tively tranquil, as the Gulf Stream. Here the currents 
 meet and unite; there they are superposed, and the 
 upper and under currents run in opposite directions. 
 Everywhere is agitation; nowhere absolute rest, as 
 unknown to nature here as in all other quarters. 
 
 The greater part of the causes, to say nothing of 
 others more doubtful which it would be useless to 
 mention here, often act in concert to produce marine 
 currents ; but it would be difficult to assign to each of 
 them the exact portion of effect belonging to it. There 
 is one, however, which seems to control all the rest by 
 its power and the constancy of its action, direct or 
 indirect, and that is the difference of temperature be- 
 tween the regions near the equator and those in the 
 neighborhood of the poles. Now, since the general 
 winds, as we have seen, owe their origin to this same 
 cause, we shall not be surprised to find a similarity, and, 
 in some cases, a remarkable coincidence, between the 
 march of the great atmospheric currents and that of the 
 general currents of the ocean. For, not only do the 
 
190 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 winds act directly on the currents and sweep them 
 forward in their course, but the same forces drive them 
 both in a common direction; the same obstacles, the 
 continents, check their onward movement, and force 
 them to swerve, in a similar manner, from their original 
 direction. A knowledge of the one will facilitate the 
 understanding of the others. 
 
 The most general fact to be noted here is the existence 
 of the great equatorial current, as it has been agreed 
 to call it, which seems a general transfer movement 
 of the tropical waters from east to west all round the 
 globe, rather than a current properly so called. This 
 grand phenomenon did not escape the sagacity of 
 Columbus, who was also the first to discover it. "It 
 seems beyond a doubt, 77 said he, after one of his earliest 
 voyages, " that the waters of the ocean move with the 
 heavens;" that is, in the direction of the apparent 
 course of the sun and stars. This great current is 
 analogous to the trade winds ; it has ever been thought 
 that these winds were the principal cause of it. But it 
 is too deep and rapid to admit of being explained by 
 their action alone. 
 
 The difference of temperature between the tropical 
 and polar seas, and the loss the seas of the warm 
 regions suffer from more active evaporation, would 
 be a still more profound and irresistible cause. The 
 colder and heavier waters of the polar regions per- 
 petually tend to flow towards the warm and lighter 
 waters of the equator, and to displace them. The ex- 
 istence of these polar currents is demonstrated by the 
 floating masses of ice which, swept on by the waters 
 
THE EQUATORIAL CURRENT. 191 
 
 whence they had their being, accomplish every spring 
 long pilgrimages towards the warmer regions, and stray 
 even as far as the 40° of latitude. Like the atmospheric 
 currents setting from these same quarters, they occupy 
 the lower part of the domain of the oceans, while the 
 warm waters of the equator spread over their surface. 
 Hence the astonishing spectacle of those majestic ice- 
 bergs, of which only an eighth part is visible, while the 
 rest is sunk in the depths of the sea, continuing their 
 solemn progress southward, and, on meeting the Gulf 
 Stream, moving on in a direction opposite to the course 
 of its waters, proving thus that the waters enveloping 
 their bases pursue without obstruction their southward 
 course. The polar currents, while advancing towards 
 the equatorial regions, gradually make a bend west- 
 ward, like the winds, under the influence of the earth's 
 rotation, and at the meeting in the tropics are trans- 
 formed into a vast movement from east to west. Add to 
 this general tendency of the deep waters, the direct and 
 constant action of the trade winds upon their surface, 
 and that of the tides acting in the same direction, 
 and the cause of this phenomenon will appear to you, 
 if not fully explained, at least sufficiently accounted 
 for. 
 
 The grand equatorial current is still more disturbed 
 than the trade winds, by the continents arresting their 
 progress and causing the waters to flow back in -v r ery 
 different and often opposite directions to their origi- 
 nal course. Each of the three great oceans forming a 
 separate basin, and presenting a collective combination 
 of physical circumstances which modify the march of 
 
192 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 the oceanic currents in a peculiar manner, we proceed 
 to pass them in review successively, beginning with the 
 Pacific Ocean, whose system is more simple than that 
 of the two others. (See plate i.) 
 
 The Pacific Ocean, owing to its vast extent, gives 
 full and unimpeded sweep to the general currents in a 
 more regular manner than either of the others. The 
 Antarctic polar current, bent eastward by the prevailing 
 winds of these regions, strikes the western coast of 
 America between 50° and 40° south latitude. It divides 
 into two branches, of which one runs southward, 
 doubles Cape Horn, and carries its waters on to the 
 Atlantic. The second and principal passes along the 
 coast of Chili and Peru, cooling the climate by the loiv 
 temperature of the waters it bears, which are from 10 e 
 to 12° Centigrade, or from 18° to 22° Fahrenheit colder 
 than the neighboring sea off Lima. The current, to 
 which it has been proposed, on good grounds, to give 
 the name of Humboldt, — who was the first to prove its 
 origin and abnormal temperature, — suddenly quits the 
 coast near the height of Punta Parina, and goes on to 
 form the grand equatorial current. 
 
 This latter occupies a breadth of nearly 50 degrees on 
 the two sides of the equator, and passes beyond the trop- 
 ics, north and south. It follows its peaceful and 
 majestic course, unobstructed, with an average speed 
 of from 30 to 35 miles a day, to the chain of islands 
 that fringe the continents of Asia and Australia. On 
 the north it reaches Formosa, and, running upon the 
 coast of China, turns off and moves to the north-east 
 ilong the shores of Japan. On the south, it is; already 
 
CURRENTS IN THE INDIAN OCEAN. 
 
 193 
 
 disturbed by the monsoons, and loses its way in the 
 labyrinthine mazes of the grand Asiatic archipelago, 
 whose seas heave with the violent currents that add 
 further to the dangers of navigation in these stormy 
 seas. 
 
 In the northern part of this ocean, the west winds 
 reigning there determine a drift current, which advances 
 to the American coasts and conducts the waters south- 
 ward along the shores of California, whence they 
 doubtless reenter the equatorial current, to commence a 
 new circuit. 
 
 The polar currents seem to be almost nothing. The 
 bank or neck, which in all probability unites the 
 neighboring points of the continents of Asia and America 
 under the waters of Behring's Strait, hinders the under 
 currents coming from the pole from entering this basin, 
 while the warmer waters of the Pacific flow on the 
 surface into the Frozen Ocean. 
 
 In the Indian Ocean, the equatorial ^current, like the 
 trade wind, is broken. In the region of the monsoons, 
 or the northern region, the currents follow alternately 
 the direction of these periodical winds, and flow with 
 them six months in one direction, and six months in 
 another. But in the south, where the trade wind re- 
 tains its empire, the normal current holds its way, 
 narrows as it approaches Madagascar, sweeps north of 
 that island, and, stemmed by the coast of Africa, enters 
 the channel of Mozambique. 
 
 Compressed into this narrow passage, it acquires the 
 enormous speed of four or five miles, an hour, and, rein- 
 forced south of Madagascar by another branch, reaches 
 17 
 
194 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 in its rapid course the Cape of Good Hope, and the 
 great Needle bank, las Lagullas, the borders of which 
 it follows at a distance from the coast. Here it divides. 
 One part encounters the current setting from the south- 
 ern Atlantic, and with it reenters the Indian Ocean. 
 The other branch doubles the Cape, enters the Atlantic, 
 and, flowing along the western coast of Africa, proceeds 
 to blend its waters with those of the equatorial current 
 of this third ocean. 
 
 The forms of the Atlantic Ocean, so characteristic, 
 the small breadth it presents in the region of the equator, 
 the deep windings of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf 
 of Mexico, wherein nearly all the tropical waters of 
 this ocean are accumulated, as in a receptacle having 
 no outlet, give to its currents an aspect both more 
 marked and less normal. The equatorial current does 
 not there assume its customary proportions, while the 
 return current, the Gulf Stream, is exhibited in a very 
 unusual manner. These are the two salient features 
 necessary to study first. 
 
 The equatorial current connects itself with the cur- 
 rent of the Cape of Good Hope issuing from the Indian 
 Ocean. Starting from the coasts of Southern Africa, it 
 soon extends both sides of the line, widens considerably, 
 and flows across the ocean at the rate of two to three 
 miles an hour. Having reached the coasts of America 
 at Cape Rocca, it divides, one branch flowing south- 
 ward, along the coasts of Brazil, and, together with the 
 waters of the southern basin, resumes the route of the 
 cape and the Indian Ocean. The other and principal 
 branch takes a west-north- west direction, rolls its waters 
 
THE GULF STREAM. 
 
 195 
 
 along the shores of Guyana, enters the Caribbean Sea, 
 which Rennel calls a sea in motion, rather than a 
 current, penetrates into the Gulf of Mexico, making its 
 circuit, and, passing before the mouths of the Mississippi, 
 arrives at the narrow passage between the point of 
 F'orida and the Island of Cuba, whence it comes forth 
 under another name. 
 
 In truth, the accumulated and moving waters of the 
 Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico are the inex- 
 haustible source of that torrent of warm water, which, 
 under the name of the Gulf Stream, precipitates itself 
 over the breakers of Bahama, flows along the coast of 
 Florida, at a rate varying from two to five miles an 
 hour, according to the season, and keeps on its way, upon 
 a line parallel to the shore at a short distance from its 
 margin, until it passes beyond Cape Hatteras. The 
 Stream, hitherto narrow, deep, and rapid, meets in this 
 vicinity the cold waters from the north, and the sand 
 banks running along at a distance from the coasts as far 
 as the southern part of Newfoundland. Repulsed by 
 these obstacles, it makes a sudden turn to the east, 
 becomes much broader, spreads over the surface, and 
 holds henceforth its slackened course to the Azores, 
 whence it bends towards the south, in order to recom- 
 mence from the coasts of Africa the immense cycie of 
 its never-ending rotation. 
 
 These warm waters of the tropics advance northward 
 even beyond the limits we have just indicated. Driven 
 by the south-east winds prevailing in the northern Atlan- 
 tic, they proceed to bathe the coasts of the North of 
 Europe, the temperature of which they soften, and often 
 
196 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 deposit on the lonely shores of Scotland and Norway the 
 plants and seeds of the tropical regions, — unanswer- 
 able witnesses of their distant course. 
 
 On seeing the narrow breadth of the Gulf Stream from 
 its origin to Cape Hatteras, one is led to ask how it can 
 be sufficient to cover with warm water the immense 
 surface it occupies from this point all the way to the 
 Azores. The beautiful explorations, executed under the 
 able direction of Professor Bache, Superintendent of the 
 Coast Survey, give the answer; for numerous thermo- 
 metrical soundings prove that off this cape the depth of 
 the current is such, that at 3,000 feet below the surface 
 it still presents nearly the same differences of tempera- 
 ture which distinguish it from the surrounding sea, and 
 clearly mark its limits. It is doubtless these deep waters 
 that appear at the surface when it becomes broad ; for 
 as it loses in speed, the warm waters are free to ascend 
 and take the place assigned to them by their lesser 
 density, at the same time this very cause favors the 
 accumulation of the waters in the part of the current 
 where its progress is slackened. It only changes form, 
 and, in advancing, must lose in depth what it gains in 
 width. 
 
 The polar currents of the Atlantic are perceptible 
 chiefly on the coasts of America. Hudson's and Baffin's 
 Bay and the Sea of Greenland pour their waters and 
 their ice along the eastern coast of the continent, and 
 contribute, doubtless, to lower the temperature. 
 
 Such are the most salient features of the vast pic- 
 ture presented by the oscillations of the ocean waters. 
 Although we have merely touched upon the subject, we 
 
OLD WORLD AND NEW WORLD. 
 
 197 
 
 know already enough, I believe, to be convinced that, if 
 the causes of these movements flow, for the most part, 
 from the general laws regulating the physical constitu- 
 tion of the globe, their evolutions, and the special and 
 individual characters they assume in each ocean, are 
 an immediate result of the configuration and disposi- 
 tion of the terrestrial masses forming the basin of the 
 seas. 
 
 The great oceanic currents are one of the grandest 
 phenomena presented by the wise economy of nature. 
 Their extent, the prodigious length of their course, in 
 some nearly equal to the circumference of the globe, fill 
 us with astonishment, and leave far behind everything 
 of this description to be seen in the water courses of the 
 continents. Owing to these permanent streams, the sea 
 waters mingle from pole to pole, and move with sleep- 
 less flow from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, and from 
 this to the Atlantic ; and this unending agitation pre- 
 serves their healthfulness and purity. 
 
 Like the winds, the currents tend to equalize differ- 
 ences, to soften extremes. The cold waters of the 
 Antarctic pole temper the scorching heats of the coast 
 of Peru ; the warm waters of the Gulf Stream lessen 
 the severity of the climate of Norway and the British 
 islands. Their importance is no less in the relations of 
 the people and the commerce of the nations. It is the 
 currents which, together with the winds, trace the great 
 lines of communication upon the highways of the oceans, 
 favoring or obstructing the intercourse of one country 
 with another, bringing near together places apparently 
 the most remote, separating others that seem to touch 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 each other. Their importance in nature and history 
 cannot fail to impress the minds of all. 
 
 We abandon the ocean, and shall, henceforth, occupy 
 ourselves only with the continental masses. To study 
 them better in their analogies and their differences, to 
 detect their true character, we shall consider them suc- 
 cessively in their natural groups, under two different 
 points of view, which we have already indicated ; I 
 mean as the Old World and the New, then as the 
 Northern and Southern continents. Let us begin with 
 the contrast of the Old World and the New. 
 
 The most prominent feature of the arrangement of the 
 continents is, in fact, the grouping of the two Americas 
 in one hemisphere, and that of the four others in another 
 hemisphere. This division of the continents into two 
 worlds is so evident from the first glance, and is at the 
 same time so convenient in practice, that it has passed 
 into common speech as one of those observations admit- 
 ting no contradiction. 
 
 But to bring out prominently the contrast of these 
 two worlds, they must be studied more in detail than we 
 have thus far done : we must compare them, in order to 
 deduce, by the comparison itself, the special character 
 of each. This is what we are going to attempt. We 
 have already seen that they differ in the forms of their 
 relief and in their climate ; we shall further see that 
 these fundamental differences produce analogous effects 
 in the organized beings, and in the entire physical life of 
 each of the two worlds. Finally, we shall speak of the 
 manner in which they act upon each other, and seem, by 
 
OLD WORLD AND NEW WORLD. 
 
 19& 
 
 their very nature, destined not to live isolated, but to 
 form together a single organism, a grand harmony. 
 
 During the whole of this study, please to remember, 
 gentlemen, we are in the realm of nature, and not 
 in that of history. The America we are seeking to un- 
 derstand is that which Columbus and his successors dis- 
 covered, still entirely a virgin world, centuries ago ; and 
 not the New World of history, we shall have to speak 
 of later, that has come to plant itself on that soil. 
 
 A general comparison of the two groups of continents 
 will call to mind some of the leading features we have 
 already become acquainted with, and add some others. 
 
 The Old World and the New World differ in the 
 groupings, and in the number and extent of the conti- 
 nents composing them ; in their astronomical situation, 
 with respect to the climatic zones ; in the general direc- 
 tion of their lands; in their interior structure. This 
 assemblage of opposite characters secures to each of 
 them a climate, a vegetation, and an animal kingdom, 
 peculiarly their own. 
 
 I say, first, in their groupings : — 
 
 The Old World is composed of four continents. Set- 
 ting aside Australia, which is only an island in the midst 
 of the oceanic hemisphere, it numbers three, all very near 
 each other, aggregated, and forming an oval, compact 
 mass, whose extent far surpasses that of every other 
 terrestrial space. It presents a solid extent of land, the 
 most vast, the most unbroken, the least accessible in its 
 centre to the influences of the Ocean. The Old World 
 is preeminently the continental world. 
 
 The New World has only two continents, North Amer- 
 
200 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 ica and South America, America and Columbia, as I 
 should like to call them — to render justice where right 
 belongs — if it were not forbidden to change names con- 
 secrated by long usage. These two continents are not 
 grouped in one mass, nor placed side by side, but sepa- 
 rated from each other, not touching upon their long 
 sides, but by their exterior angles, standing in line, 
 rather than grouped. They are situated in two opposite 
 Hemispheres, and thus more distant from each other, 
 apparently, and less neighboring. 
 
 The result of this remarkable disposition is that nar- 
 row, lengthened, slender form we see in the New World. 
 No portion of the interior is very remote from the sea- 
 coasts ; everywhere it gives access to the influences of 
 the ocean, in the midst of which it is placed, like a long 
 island. This form already, contrasted with that of the 
 Old World, gives to it its character. The New World is 
 essentially oceanic. 
 
 The astronomical position, relatively to the climatic 
 zone, is also not the same in the two worlds. 
 
 The Old World is, as it were, crowded back upon the 
 north of the equator ; it belongs, for the most part, to 
 the northern hemisphere and to the temperate zone. Of 
 the three principal continents composing it, the two 
 whose importance is by far the greatest, Europe and 
 Asia, are temperate. Asia penetrates the torrid regions 
 only by the southern peninsulas; Europe at no point; 
 Australia is sub-tropical; Africa only is truly tropical. 
 Even if we take in the last two continents, more than 
 two thirds of the lands are situated in the temperate 
 regions, one third only in the equatorial regions. The 
 <^]d World is then essentially temperate 
 
DIRECTION OF THE LANDS. 
 
 201 
 
 In the New World the lands are distributed in a man- 
 ner nearly equal in the two zones and in the two hemi- 
 spheres. We find that the countries it includes, those 
 the most richly endowed, are situated under the sun 
 of the tropics. Compared with the Old World, the New 
 World is thus essentially tropical. 
 
 The general direction of the lands, or the direction in 
 which their length extends, is the inverse in the two 
 worlds. The Old World has its greatest prolongation 
 from east to west, in the line of the parallels ; the New 
 World from north to south, in the direction of the merid- 
 ians. Both have a length of about 7,500 miles, but the 
 breadth of the Old World is nearly double that of the 
 New. This disposition is of the greater consequence for 
 the distribution of the climates in each of them, since 
 this configuration coincides, as we have seen, with the 
 interior structure, with the direction of the principal 
 mountain chains, and of the table lands. From one end 
 to the other of the Old World, over a space of several 
 thousand miles, the migratory tribes are able to pursue 
 their adventurous roaming course by following, accord- 
 ing to their custom, the great features of relief of the 
 soil, without witnessing any change in the vegetation or 
 the animals that surround them. They change place, 
 but not climate, nor ways of life. This similarity of 
 climates over long spaces is, then, a property of the Old 
 World, and must have singularly favored the dispersion 
 of the primitive tribes. 
 
 In the New World, on the contrary, the zones of 
 similar climates are short and numerous; and if we 
 trave over the whole length of the two Americas, we 
 
202 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 pass twice in succession through all the temperatures, 
 from the frozen climate of the poles to that of the equator, 
 and from the burning climate of the equator to that of 
 the poles. This diversity of climate gives their char- 
 acter to the Americas. 
 
 Meantime, the interior structure modifies these climatic 
 relations in the two worlds, in such a manner as to 
 correct the uniformity of climate in the Old by more 
 marked contrasts, and the too great diversity of the 
 New, by gentler and better graduated transitions. We 
 shall see this as we proceed to a closer examination of 
 the structure of the two Americas, which will particu- 
 larly occupy us this evening. 
 
 The maps we shall make use of in this inquiry, 
 these you see before you, require perhaps some explana- 
 tion. They are intended to enable the eye to take in 
 by a single glance the different elevations of relief; we 
 see here the low plains, the table lands, and the moun- 
 tains, each indicated by a particular color. (See plate i.) 
 I need not call your attention to the usefulness of substi- 
 tuting, in teaching geography, such physical maps, for 
 the flat and perfectly unmeaning charts found in the 
 common atlas. 
 
 What characterizes the interior structure of the New 
 World is its simplicity. In place of the variety of the 
 Old World, where, in spite of a few general features 
 common to both, each continent is, as it were, cast in 
 a separate mould, the two Americas seem absolutely 
 formed upon the same plan. This plan may be sketched 
 out in a few lines. Two triangles, their vertices turned 
 to the south, one situated north-west of the other; the 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 203 
 
 long cord of the Rocky Mountains and of the Andes, 
 running the length of the extreme western coast, and 
 binding the two continents together ; great plains on the 
 east, forming the larger part of their surface ; a slightly- 
 elevated chain along the Atlantic coast of both, the Alle- 
 ghanies in North America, the Serra do Espinha<jo and 
 the Serra do Mar of Brazil, in South America; finally, in 
 the centre, three short, transverse chains, that of Parime 
 in the Guyanas, that of Venezuela, and that of the great 
 Antilles, broken into a number of islands; — these, in a 
 few words, are all the essential features of this vast 
 division of the world. 
 
 That which constitutes the richness of organization in 
 the continents, is the number and abundance of internal 
 contrasts calling out at once the activity of nature and 
 that of man. The Old World is full of them ; America 
 has only a small number, all tending to disappear by 
 reason of the structure itself. 
 
 Thus, in Asia and Europe, the line of the highest 
 lands, the continental axis, extending from the Him- 
 alaya to the Alps and the Pyrenees, divides these two 
 continents into two unequal parts, one north and one 
 south, opposite in climate, in vegetation, and even in 
 races. Scarcely anywhere is the transition from one to 
 the other gradual ; almost everywhere it is abrupt and 
 sudden. The table lands 6f Tubet and frigid Mongolia 
 touch the tropical plains of China and of the Indies ; the 
 traveller who passes the Alps, abandons the severe land- 
 scapes and the firs of the North, to descend, by a single 
 day's journey, into the ever verdant gardens and the 
 orange groves of fair Italy ; he exchanges the cold mists 
 
204 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the North for the sun of the South, and often leaves 
 on one side the snows and frosts of winter, to find on 
 the other the warm breath of spring, its verdure and its 
 flowers. 
 
 This striking contrast between the North and the 
 South, reflected in the character and history of all the 
 nations of Asia and Europe, is doubtless found in 
 America ; it is perhaps too well known in this 
 country. But in nature it is almost effaced; is soft- 
 ened down. It does not form a barrier; nowhere 
 presents an abrupt change ; nowhere breaks the unity. 
 On account of the continued plains of the continent, we 
 see the natural character of the North gradually melt 
 into that of the South. Between the shores of the 
 Frozen Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico lies the whole 
 distance from the icy regions to the tropics. But 
 it is only slowly, and over long spaces, that we pass 
 through the transition. From the treeless polar plains, 
 where flows the Mackenzie River, whose sole covering 
 is the mosses and the lichens, we pass only by degrees 
 to the coniferous forests of Lake Superior; then to the 
 oaklands of Wisconsin ; the walnuts, hickories, and the 
 chestnuts of Ohio and Kentucky next appear ; further 
 south, the magnolia and the palmetto already herald the 
 air of the tropics and the neighborhood of the Gulf of 
 Mexico. Two thousand four hundred miles separate 
 the extremes of this scale of vegetation, which almost 
 touch each other in the Himalaya. 
 
 It is, moreover, to these vast plains, offering no 
 obstacles to the dissemination of the species, and to the 
 absence of great chains from east to west, that we 
 
CONTRAST OF EAST AND WEST. 
 
 205 
 
 undoubtedly owe the appearance, at the North, of plants 
 and animals that seem to belong only to the tropical 
 regions. Not without surprise, the European, landing 
 on these shores, sees the humming-bird, that diamond 
 of the tropics, glancing in the sun in a country which 
 winter clothes, during long months, in a thick mantle 
 of snow and ice. 
 
 It is the same towards the South, where we see the 
 palm trees and the parrots of the tropics, here and there, 
 as far as the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, much beyond 
 their natural limits. 
 
 Thus the contrast between the North and the South 
 is softened, reduced : but it is not annihilated ; it exists 
 on a great scale from one of the continents to the other : 
 for North America is temperate, and South America is 
 tropical. 
 
 America is cut by the Andes into two parts, East and 
 West, as Asia and Europe are cut into two parts, North 
 and South. But this contrast likewise is almost neu- 
 tralized, as we shall soon understand. 
 
 The inequality is here carried to the extreme, to such 
 a reduction of one of the parts, that it loses its impor- 
 tance, and, so to speak, its power of reaction. The 
 western coast, dry and barren, has not extent and 
 influence enough to enter upon an effective rivalry with 
 the vast countries of the East. Moreover, the difficulty 
 of communication renders the mutual action and the 
 intercourse between the countries situated at the foot of 
 the two inclinations, still more rare. Finally, the two 
 sides of the Andes, being under the same latitudes, havi^ 
 the same, or nearly the same, climate, and differ merely 
 18 
 
206 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 in the degree of moisture or dryness falling to their por- 
 tion. The West of the two Americas is only a narrow 
 strip, not to be compared with the great plains of the 
 East occupying nearly the entire continent, and giving 
 it its character. 
 
 America is then less rich in internal contrasts than 
 the Old World, but has more of unity, because it 
 is more simple. Undoubtedly, in this uniformity of 
 structure, in this absence of obstacles to a free circula- 
 tion from end to end of this world, we are to look for 
 one of the principal causes of that common character, 
 of that American physiognomy, which strikes us in aK 
 the organized beings of this continent, and which we 
 find again in man himself, in the Indian, all the tribes 
 of whom, from the banks of the Mackenzie River to 
 Patagonia, have the same coppery tint and a family 
 likeness in the features, impossible to mistake. 
 
 The climate of the New World, compared with that 
 of the Old, is distinguished by the abundance of pluvial 
 waters, in general, by a greater humidity. We have 
 seen in what manner this phenomenon is the conse- 
 quence of its narrow and lengthened form; of the 
 opening of the great plains — that is, of the two con- 
 tinents almost entire — to the winds of the sea; of the 
 absence of high mountains in the East ; in a word, of 
 the configuration and general exposure of this part of 
 the globe. While the Old World, with its compact 
 figure, its vast plateaus, its high lands in the East, 
 receives only an average of 77 inches of water by the 
 year under the tropics, America receives 115 inches. 
 
RIVERS OF AMERICA. 
 
 207 
 
 The temperate regions of Europe have 34 inches ; North 
 America, 39 inches. 
 
 Add to this abundance of water, the extent of plains 
 permitting the development of vast systems of water 
 courses, and you will understand the existence of 
 that innumerable multitude of rivers and lakes, which 
 are one of the most characteristic features of' the 
 two Americas. Notwithstanding a much smaller ex- 
 tent than that of the Old World, the New possesses 
 the largest rivers on the earth; the richest in waters, 
 those whose basins occupy the broadest areas. Where 
 can we find, on the surface of the globe, a river equal 
 to the mighty Maranon, that giant among the rivers 
 of the earth, gathering its waters from a surface of a 
 million and a half square miles, and bearing them to 
 the ocean, after a course of 3,000 miles ? This mighty 
 monarch receives in his progress the homage of tributa- 
 ries, each of which, by its greatness and the abundance 
 of its waters, would suffice for the wants of a whole 
 vast country. Such are the Ucayale, the Rio Purus, 
 the Rio Negro, above all the Madera, rivalling in 
 importance the river to which it yields the honor of 
 giving a name to their united waters. The further it 
 advances in its majestic course, the more its proportions 
 increase; and before arriving at the ocean, its broad 
 sheet, from the middle of which the eye cannot reach 
 the banks, seems rather to be a fresh-water sea, flowing 
 sluggishly towards the ocean basin, than a river of the 
 continent. Far from its mouth, the fresh and muddy 
 waters of the Amazon are still distinguished at a glance 
 of the eye from the saline and limpid waves of the 
 
208 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 ocean ; and the slime, borne along by their currents, 
 goes to form, further north, a new soil on the shores of 
 the continent. 
 
 In the other continent, the Father of Waters, the 
 mighty Mississippi, the second of the rivers of the earth, 
 equals in length the Maranon itself; for its winding 
 course is 3,000 miles. But its basin covers only from 
 8 to 900,000 square miles. Who does not know the 
 importance of tributaries like the Missouri, which 
 wrongly gives up its name for that of its less powerful 
 brother ; like the Ohio, the Beautiful River, the stream 
 with transparent waters; like the Arkansas, and so 
 many others composing that vast system of arteries 
 that vivify the whole West,' and are destined to 
 assume daily a greater and greater importance ? And 
 these immense rivers are not isolated. At the side 
 of the Maranon, the La Plata has a course of not 
 less than 1,900 miles, and more than a million of 
 square miles send into it their waters. At the side of 
 the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence has a course of 
 1,800 miles, and a basin of nearly a million of square 
 miles. 
 
 The Old World offers nothing similar. The great- 
 est of its rivers, the Yan-tse-Kiang in China, has a 
 course of only 2,500 miles. The Ganges and the 
 Nile are far from equalling it. The Volga, the great- 
 est of the rivers of Europe, exhibits a course of only 
 1,700 miles, and if it were necessary to enumerate 
 in America rivers like the Rhine, so celebrated, it 
 would be almost by the hundred that we should have 
 to cite them. 
 
THE NEW WORLD THE BEST WATERED. 209 
 
 And what shall we say of the abundance of its lakes ? 
 The group of the great lakes of Canada, so character- 
 istic of North America, nowhere finds a parallel. It 
 contains at once the largest lakes in the world, and 
 the greatest mass of fresh water united on the surface 
 of the continents. These vast fresh water seas, 
 together with the St. Lawrence, cover a surface of 
 nearly 100,000 square miles, and it has been calculated 
 that they contain almost one half of all the fresh waters 
 on the surface of our planet. They, too, are not alone, 
 and a glance of the eye at the map enables us to 
 perceive in the North a multitude of lakes but little 
 inferior in extent : the lake Athapescow, Winnipeg, 
 Slave Lake, the Great Bear, are worthy to figure 
 side by side with the lakes of Canada and of the St. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 The rivers and the lakes are the wealth, and justly 
 form the boast, of America. No continent possesses 
 so great a number, or those of such large extent, so 
 well supplied with water, so navigable. Not only do 
 they fertilize the rich countries they traverse, but they 
 are now, and will become still more so, the great high- 
 ways of commerce between all the parts of this vast 
 world ; we already see enough to hope everything of 
 the future. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, the watery element reigns in the 
 New World ; add to this, that half of its lands are 
 exposed to the rays of the tropical sun, but that, all the 
 conditions being equal, America is, on the whole, a little 
 less warm than the Old World, and we shall have the 
 essential features of its climate. The oceanic climate — 
 18* 
 
210 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 this is what America owes to the fundamental forms 
 and the relative disposition of its lands ; while the Old 
 World is indebted to it for the preponderance of the dry 
 and continental climate. 
 
 Let us now follow out the consequences of these 
 physical circumstances upon the development of organic 
 beings, and the character of the New World will come 
 out in all its clearness. 
 
 The warm and the moist — these are the most favor- 
 able conditions for the production of an exuberant 
 vegetation. Now, the vegetable covering is nowhere so 
 general, the vegetation so predominant, as in the two 
 Americas. Behold, under the same parallel, where 
 Africa presents only parched table lands, those bound- 
 less virgin forests of the basin of the Amazon, those 
 selvas, almost unbroken, over a length of more than 
 1,500 miles, forming the most gigantic wilderness of this 
 kind that exists in any continent. And what vigor, 
 what luxuriance of vegetation ! The palm trees, with 
 their slender forms, calling to mind that of America 
 itself, boldly uplift their heads 150 or 200 feet above 
 the ground, and domineer over all the other trees of 
 these wilds, by their height, by their number, and by 
 the majesty of their foliage. Innumerable shrubs and 
 trees of smaller height fill up the space that separates 
 their trunks; climbing plants, woody-stemmed twining 
 lianos, infinitely varied, surround them both with their 
 flexible branches, display their own flowers upon the 
 foliage, and combine them in a solid mass of vegetation, 
 impenetrable to man, which the axe alone can break 
 through with success. On the bosom of their peaceful 
 
THE VEGETATION IS PREDOMINANT. 
 
 211 
 
 waters swims the Victoria, the elegant rival of the 
 Rafflesia, that odorous and gigantic water lily, whose 
 white and rosy corolla, fifteen inches in diameter, rises 
 with dazzling brilliancy from the midst of a train of 
 immense leaves, softly spread upon the waves, a single 
 one covering a space of six feet in width. The rivers 
 rolling^ their tranquil waters under verdurous domes, in 
 the bosom of these boundless wilds, are the only paths 
 nature has opened to the scattered inhabitants of these 
 rich solitudes. Elsewhere, in Mexico and Yucatan, 
 an invading vegetation permits not even the works of 
 man to endure; and the monuments of a civilization 
 comparatively ancient, which the antiquary goes to 
 investigate with care, are soon changed into a mountain 
 of verdure, or demolished, stone after stone, by the 
 plants piercing into their chinks, vigorously pushing 
 aside, and breaking with irresistible force, all the ob- 
 stacles that oppose their rapid growth. 
 
 South America, and particularly the basin of the 
 Amazon, is the true kingdom of the palm trees ; no- 
 where does this noble form of vegetation show itself 
 under a greater number of species. This is a sign of 
 the preponderating development of leaves over every 
 other part of the vegetable growth ; of that expansion 
 of foliage, of that leafiness,. peculiar to warm and 
 moist climates. America has no plants with slender, 
 shrunken leaves, like those of Africa and New Holland. 
 The Ericas, or heather, so common, so varied, so 
 characteristic of the flora of the Cape of Good Hope, is 
 a form unknown to the New World. There is nothing 
 resembling those Metrosideri of Africa, those dry Myr- 
 
212 1 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 ties (Eucalyptus) and willow-leaved acacias, whose 
 flowers shine with the liveliest colors, but their nar- 
 row foliage, turned edgewise to the vertical sun, casts 
 no shadow. Everywhere, long and abundant leaves, 
 an intense verdure, a strong and well-nurtured vegeta- 
 tion, these are what we find in tropical America. 
 
 North America, in spite of its more continental cli- 
 mate, shares no less in this character of the New World. 
 The beauty and extent of the vast forests that cover its 
 soil, the variety of the arborescent species composing 
 them, the strong and lofty stature of the trees growing 
 there, all these are too well known for me to stop to 
 describe them. It is because this continent adds to a 
 more abundant irrigation a soil slightly mountainous, 
 almost everywhere fertile, securing to it always an 
 equal moisture, a more abundant harvest of all the 
 vegetables useful to man. 
 
 Not only is the vegetation abundant in the New 
 World, but it is universal, and this is a further charac- 
 teristic distinguishing it from the Old. We do not see 
 there those vast deserts, so common in the other con- 
 tinents, and occupying a considerable portion of their 
 surface. The deserts of California and that of Atacama 
 are exceptions, and, compared with those of Africa and 
 Asia, scarcely seem made for anything except to serve 
 as specimens. The llanos of Orinoco, which their geo- 
 logical nature dooms apparently to the fate of Sahara, 
 are copiously watered during the rainy season, and are 
 covered then with an admirable vegetation. Life, 
 which seemed almost to slumber, almost extinguished, 
 springs up again more beautiful and more vigorous. 
 
ANIMAL LIFE OVERRULED. 
 
 213 
 
 To the powdered sand, swept along by the winds, 
 succeed rich pastures, where range a multitude of 
 indigenous animals, mingled with herds of horses, and 
 wild asses, coming from Europe; and thousands of 
 reptiles, buried in the watery slime during the dry 
 season, reappear, and fill again with life the temporary 
 rivers and lakes with which these valleys are then over- 
 flowing. The pampas themselves are not without 
 vegetation, and support at all times numerous herds. 
 And who is ignorant that the endless prairies of the Mis- 
 sissippi and the Missouri produce every year an abun- 
 dant vegetation, on which feed the bisons and the other 
 wild tenants of the countries 1 
 
 But what becomes of the animal in the peculiar 
 kingdom of vegetation? Blessings are divided; all 
 treasures belong not to one country alone. This luxu- 
 riant vegetation, it might be said, seems to stifle the 
 higher life, in the animal world. Animal life is, as it 
 were, overruled, enfeebled; it does not occupy here the 
 first rank, which is its due ; for it is dry heat, the con- 
 tinental element, that favors it. 
 
 From one end to the other of the animal scale, the 
 families that seem to give to these countries their 
 character, by the number of their species and by their 
 relative abundance, are those connecting themselves, 
 by their mode of life, with the aqueous, or with the veg- 
 etative element. 
 
 Hence, nothing is more splendid, more sparkling, 
 than the insect world in South America. The inex- 
 haustible variety of their species, the brilliancy of their 
 colors, the size of their bodies, make them one of the 
 
214 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 most beautiful ornaments of these regions. Here live 
 the Hercules beetle, the largest of the Coleoptera ; and 
 those brilliant broad- winged butterflies, the Mene- 
 laus, the Adonis, the Achilles, whose varying colors 
 glitter in the sun like diamonds. But why be aston- 
 ished? The existence of this little animal world is 
 almost altogether dependent on the vegetation ; the 
 wealth of the one must create the wealth of the other. 
 
 Among the vertebrates, no family is so largely repre- 
 sented as that of the reptiles, for moisture is their ele- 
 ment, and the rivers and temporary lagoons of the rainy 
 season are peopled with Caimans, the crocodiles of the 
 New World; the Iguanas, the most gigantic of the 
 lizards ; the Basilisks and other species, which multiply 
 in the warm and sluggish waters. The forests harbor 
 in great numbers those serpents of every form and 
 figure, even to those monstrous boas, that are the 
 terror of the natives themselves. They seem to be at 
 home in this country. 
 
 But among the superior animals, development seems 
 to be arrested; it is incomplete. The prevailing types 
 are at the same time the inferior types. Among the 
 birds, the stilt-plovers, inhabitants of the marshes and 
 the shores, of which the number of species far surpasses, 
 in America, that of any other continent. In the mam- 
 mifera, the order of Edentata, the Armadillos, the Pan- 
 golins, the Ant-eaters, the Sloths, which characterize, 
 more than any other family, the fauna of South Amer- 
 ica, not only in the present epoch, but also in the 
 geological ages. And if we seek representatives of the 
 higher orders, we find them less numerous in species 
 
INFLUENCE UPON MAN. 
 
 215 
 
 smaller in size ; in a word, far inferior to the correspond- 
 ing animals of the Old World; in the order of the 
 Pachyderms, instead of the elephant, the rhinoceros, 
 the hippopotamus, those giants of the Old World, the 
 feeble and harmless tapir and the pecari ; in the Rumi- 
 nants, instead of the camel and the dromedary, the 
 lama of the Andes, which reach only half their size ; 
 instead of the lordly lion of Africa, and the ferocious 
 tiger of the islands of the Ganges, the ounce and the 
 jaguars of the forests of Brazil, which are scarcely more 
 than large cats. In the monkey*, finally, those with a 
 prehensile tail, peculiar to America, are reckoned among 
 the least perfect, the lowest of their order in the scale of 
 organization. 
 
 Not only are the superior animals ill represented on 
 this continent, but they have not the strength, nor the 
 indomitable courage, not the ferocity, nor the intelligence 
 of the similar creatures of the Old World. In all tropical 
 America especially, as we see, the whole animal king- 
 dom remains in an inferior condition. It is subjected to 
 the watery element, and to the vegetable world ; for in 
 those regions where vegetable life is the superior, animal 
 life stands but in the second degree. 
 
 North America, however, in consequence of her more 
 continental character, possesses some superior types, 
 which recall to mind, and perhaps equal, those of the 
 Old World. The majestic bison, the deer, the elk, and 
 the bear, give evidence of that same vigorous northern 
 nature which predominates in the temperate continents, 
 and of which, as we shall see, North America possesses 
 her share. 
 
216 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Man himself, the indigenous man I mean, bears in his 
 whole character the ineffaceable stamp of this peculiarly 
 vegetative nature. Living continually in the shadow of 
 those virgin forests which overspread the land he inhab- 
 its, his whole nature has been modified thereby. The 
 very copper hue of his complexion indicates that he lives 
 not, like the negro, beneath the scorching sunbeams. 
 His lymphatic temperament betrays the preponderance 
 in his nature of the vegetative element. The Indian is 
 of a melancholy, cold, and insensible race. " Foreign 
 to our hopes, our joys, our griefs," says a traveller, "it is 
 rarely that a tear moistens his eyes, or that a smile lights 
 up his features." The most barbarous tortures cannot 
 extort from him a single complaint, and his stoical indif- 
 ference is disturbed only by vengeance or jealousy. If he 
 sometimes exhibits a display of prodigious muscular force, 
 he is yet without endurance. Who knows not that when 
 the first invaders of the New World endeavored to com- 
 pel the inoffensive Indians, who had received them as 
 gods, to the rude labors of the mines and the cultiva- 
 tion of the soil, these men of the woods, incapable of 
 enduring fatigue, perished in agony b}^ thousands ? And 
 it was thereupon that the Europeans substituted for the 
 Indian the robust and vigorous native of the Old World, 
 the negro, who still, to this day, used as the instruments 
 of the white man's labor, endures, I had almost said, 
 gayly, a degree of toil equal to that which destroyed the 
 native of the country. 
 
 The social condition of the Indian tribes is tinctured, 
 in an equal degree, by the powerful influence of his 
 vegetative character. The Indian has continued the 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 217 
 
 man of the forest. He has seldom elevated himself 
 above the condition of the hunter, the lowest grade on 
 the scale of civilization. The exuberance of the soil has 
 never been of value to him ; for he asks not of the earth 
 his nourishment. He has never even ascended to the 
 rank of the pastoral man. With him no domestic 
 animals are maintained to feed him with their milk, or 
 clothe him with their fleeces, as they are by the nomadic 
 races of the Old World. From one to the other extrem- 
 ity of America, we find the same lamentable spectacle ; 
 the people of the elevated table lands of Mexico and 
 Peru are the only exception to this picture, and this 
 exception goes far to establish the influence of the vege- 
 tative and humid nature of the lower plains of America. 
 For if these nations do not exhibit the same character of 
 inferiority ; if they have raised themselves a little higher 
 in the sphere of humanity, by the aid, perchance, of ele- 
 ments foreign to their own continent, it can be for no 
 other cause than that, living in those heights, those 
 aerial islands, above the influence of the hot and humid 
 atmosphere, they have been removed from the potency 
 of its action. 
 
 Such, gentlemen, is the order, the admirable connection 
 of the phenomena of nature with each other. The con- 
 formation and position of the New World give to it a hot 
 and watery climate ; this impresses its own character on 
 all the organized creation. Man himself, the one being 
 preeminently free, is liable to its influence, in proportion 
 as he neglects the exertion of those superior faculties 
 wherewith he is endowed for the conquest and subjuga- 
 19 
 
21S 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 tion of that nature which was intended, not to govern, 
 but to serve him. 
 
 We may rest, then, in this conclusion, that, as compared 
 with the Old World, the New World is the humid side 
 of our planet, the oceanic, vegetative world, the passive 
 element awaiting the excitement of a livelier impulse 
 from without. Such is the America of Nature, such was 
 it before the arrival of the man of the Old World. We 
 know already, and we shall see better yet hereafter, all 
 that his superior intelligence has been enabled to effect in 
 the way of improving upon nature. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 Geographical characteristics of the Old World — The continent of 
 Asia-Europe — Comparison of its structure with that of America — 
 The continental climate prevailing in the Old World — - Conse- 
 quences — Vegetation less abundant — Preponderance of the animal 
 world — The Old World the country of the higher and historical 
 races — Reciprocal action of the two worlds by means of man — 
 Establishment of the man of the Old World in the New — Histor- 
 ical America compared with Europe — Alliance of the two worlds ; 
 solution of the contrast. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 The comparison we have made between the Old 
 World and the New, and the detailed study of the first, 
 have enabled us, I think, to determine its true character, 
 the character assigned to it by its physical nature. The 
 character it owes to its more oceanic position, to the 
 abundance of the waters, to a more tropical situation, 
 to a more fertile soil, is the marked preponderance of 
 vegetable life over animal life. A vigorous vegetation, 
 abundant rather than delicate, immense forests, a soil 
 everywhere irrigated, everywhere productive — these are 
 the wealth of America. Nature has given her all the 
 raw materials with liberality ; has lavished upon her all 
 useful gifts. 
 
 But our globe would be incomplete, gentlemen, if this 
 element were alone represented, if this were the only 
 world that existed. The comparative study we have 
 commenced has shown us already that this is not the 
 
220 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 case; the group of continents combined in the eastern 
 hemisphere has already appeared as possessing an 
 assemblage of characters, securing to it an entirely 
 different nature. One of the two worlds is by no means 
 a repetition of the other ; for the Author of all things is 
 too rich in his conceptions ever to repeat himself in his 
 works. 
 
 We know already a good number of the physical 
 characteristics of the Old World, an unknown world to 
 us no more. Nevertheless, it is well to recall them here, 
 in order to group them in a single picture, and to deduce 
 from them the essential and characteristic feature which 
 distinguishes it from America. 
 
 The number of the continents, double that of the 
 New World, their grouping in a more compact and solid 
 mass, make it already and preeminently the continental 
 world. It is a mighty oak, with stout and sturdy trunk, 
 while America is the slender and flexible palm tree, so 
 dear to this continent. The Old World — if it is allow- 
 able to employ here comparisons of this nature — calls to 
 mind the square and solid figure of man ; America, the 
 lithe shape and delicate form of woman. 
 
 The direction of the principal reliefs, the prolongation 
 of the Old World from east to west, and its more north- 
 ern position, cause it to belong rather to the temperate 
 zones than to the zone of the tropics, and give, through- 
 out its whole length, a more similar climate. 
 
 If America is distinguished by the simplicity of its 
 interior structure, and by the consequent unity of char- 
 acter, the Old World, on the contrary, presents the variety 
 of structure carried to its utmost limits. While America, 
 
THE OLD WORLD. 
 
 221 
 
 as we have seen, is constructed upon one and the same 
 plan in the two continents, the Old World has at least 
 three, as many as its separate masses; one for Asia and 
 Europe, one for Africa, a third for Australia ; for, in spite 
 of their resemblance in certain general features, common 
 to them, as the law of the reliefs has taught us, each of 
 these three continents has none the less its special struc- 
 ture, which is not the same in Australia as in Africa, nor 
 in Africa as in Asia-Europe. 
 
 The great mass of Asia-Europe, which may be well 
 called a single continent, of a triangular form, whose 
 western point is Europe — Asia-Europe, by itself, forms 
 already the pendant of the two Americas. Like the New 
 World, it is divided into two parts by a long ridge of 
 heights, of mountain chains, and of table lands, forming 
 a line of the highest elevations, and the axis of this con- 
 tinent .; the Himalaya, the Hindo-Khu, the Caucasus, the 
 Alps, the Pyrenees, are analogous to the long American 
 Cordilleras. 
 
 This ridge also divides the Old World into two unequal 
 parts, but is not placed on one of the edges of the conti- 
 nents, as in America. It is only a little out of the centre, 
 so that it divides the whole surface into two opposite 
 slopes, unequal certainly, but the narrower is neverthe- 
 less considerable. The northern slope is more vast : it 
 contains all the great plains of the North, but it is less 
 favored by the climate, and by the forms of the soil. 
 The southern slope is less extended, but it enjoys a more 
 beautiful climate; nature is richer there; it is more 
 indented, more variously moulded ; it possesses all those 
 fine peninsulas, the two Indies. Arabia. Asia Minor, 
 19* 
 
222 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Greece, Italy, Spain, which form the wealth of Asia and 
 Europe. * Figure to yourselves the coasts of the Pacific, 
 furnished with a series of peninsulas of this description, 
 and you will have an idea of the augmentation of wealth 
 that would result to America from such an addition. 
 
 We will point out still another difference. 
 
 While in America the plains are always situated on 
 the same side of the chain of the Andes, in A sia-Europe 
 the table lands and the plains are situated on the two 
 sides of the continental axis alternately. Thus, in East- 
 ern Asia, the great plateau of Tubet and Mongolia is on 
 the north, and the plains of the Ganges are on the south. 
 In Western Asia, on the contrary, the plateaus of 
 Afghanistan and Persia are on the south, the plains 
 of Tartary on the north. In Europe, a different situ- 
 ation still ; on the south of the Alps and the Pyrenees 
 are the peninsulas and their gulfs, the mountain chains 
 and their plateaus ; in general, countries more elevated, 
 but broken and dispersed ; on the north, are chains more 
 varied, lower ; countries more continuous, less cut up, 
 and the great plains of the North of Germany. All 
 the combinations seem, if I may say so, to have been 
 exhausted. 
 
 This is not all yet. The axis of Asia-Europe, instead 
 of forming a continuous wall, without gap and without 
 breaks, like the Andes, is composed of several isolated 
 systems, independent of each other, often leaving wide 
 openings between them. Sometimes it is a sea that 
 separates them; sometimes vast plains serve as high 
 roads to the invading nations, who pass from one side to 
 the other of this great barrier, from the northern to the 
 
ASIA-EUROPE, STRUCTURE. 
 
 223 
 
 southern world. Thus, the lofty chains of the Him- 
 alaya, and of Hindo-Khu, sink towards the west and 
 disappear, and no important ridge any longer separates 
 the inhabitants of the steppes of Lake Aral from the 
 dweller on the table land of Iran. The Caucasus rises 
 abruptly from the level of the Caspian, and terminates 
 in the same way at the margin of the Black Sea ; and it 
 is only upon the high shore of this sea that the moun- 
 tains of Transylvania and the Balkan again begin to 
 separate the northern from the southern world. This 
 break opens to the polar winds and the northern tribes 
 the broad gate which has cost the south such fierce 
 assaults. The Alps, finally, do not touch the Pyrenees, 
 and the Languedoc canal, uniting the Mediterranean 
 with the ocean, proves the importance of this communi- 
 cation between the two basins. 
 
 Let us add, finally, that a large number of chains, 
 parallel to this great line, and of others cutting it trans- 
 versely, like the Bolor, the Ghauts of the Deccan, and 
 the numerous chains of Indo-China, the Lebanus, the 
 Oural, the Scandinavian Alps, to mention only the prin- 
 cipal, cut the soil in all directions, divide it into a multi- 
 tude of different basins, of natural regions, having their 
 several limits, their climate, their special character, and 
 we shall be convinced of the truth of the assertion, that 
 in the Old World, variety of structure is carried to th& 
 extreme. 
 
 Thus, while America is distinguished by simplicity of 
 forms and unity of plan, the Old World has in turn a 
 diversity of reliefs, of combinations of mountain chains, 
 of plateaus and of plains, multiplying to infinity those 
 
224 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 differences, those interior contrasts, wherewith America 
 is less richly provided, and which, as we know, are one 
 of the most powerful means of development. 
 
 The character of the climate of the Old World, taken 
 as a whole, is a result of all the general features of con- 
 figuration we have thus far ascertained. The vast 
 extent of this group of continents, the height and num- 
 ber of its table lands, the greater elevation of its eastern 
 regions, close it against the influences of the ocean, 
 scarcely holding its empire over the shores. If the 
 climate of the New World bears, in general, the oceanic 
 character, that of the Old World, on the other hand, is 
 dry, comparatively hot, extreme ; in a word, continental. 
 If the western hemisphere is the humid side of our 
 globe, the eastern hemisphere is the arid side. 
 
 The character of the climate of the Old World is 
 reflected in the organic beings, as we might expect, 
 and it stamps, on the vegetation and the animal world, 
 a special impress, important to be noticed. 
 
 In the Old World the vegetation is less universal, less 
 plentiful, than in the two Americas. Nowhere on its 
 surface do we encounter virgin forests, whose extent can 
 be compared with the boundless selvas of the Amazon ; 
 they are found, doubtless, in the tropical regions of 
 Africa and the Indies ; but they are rather local phenom- 
 ena, and do not give their character to vast countries. 
 On the other hand, the Old World is the world of steppes 
 and deserts. Nowhere else are those dry and barren 
 plains so numerous, so extensive, so unbroken. It is 
 enough to mention the boundless steppes of Russia and 
 Caucasus, of Siberia and the Altai, of Tartary and of 
 
OLD WORLD, VEGETATION. 
 
 225 
 
 Turkestan ; to recall to mind the great zone of deserts 
 obliquely traversing the Old World in its greatest length, 
 from the shores of the Atlantic, through Sahara, Arabia, 
 Eastern Persia, and Mongolia, to the Pacific Ocean, and 
 occupying all the central part of the lands of the three 
 continents united, to be convinced that the distinctive 
 character of the climate of the Old World is dryness. 
 
 The general forms and aspect of the plants them- 
 selves, at once declare the parsimony wherewith nature 
 has provided for them the moisture so essential to their 
 full development. Instead of expanding their surface 
 for evaporation and absorption, their leaves seem to 
 fold upon themselves, to concentrate themselves into a 
 smaller volume ; they have a tendency to approach the 
 linear shape, the pointed form we notice in the pines ; 
 they often become membranous, leathery ; or the plant 
 is covered with a soft down, with a nap, or even with 
 prickles, which are only leaves or branchlets, trans- 
 formed and hardened under the influence of a dry air. 
 Or, still further, they take those plump, fleshy, cylin- 
 drical forms, which seem struggling to contain the great- 
 est quantity of vegetable matter in the smallest possible 
 volume. Such is the flora of Southern Africa, with its 
 Stapelias, its juicy Mesembryanthems, its brilliant Aloes, 
 its delicate Mimosas, its Metrosideri, its heaths without 
 number. Such is that of Australia with its forests of 
 Eucalypti, its Banksias, and its Casuarinas, with their 
 long and naked, pendant, thread-like branches. Such, 
 moreover, is the flora of the steppes and the deserts of 
 Arabia and Gobi, (for there, also, are still some scanty 
 representatives of the vegetable world,) consisting en- 
 
226 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 tirely of plants of a dry and ligneous nature, often 
 clothed with white down, or of gray hues, imitating the 
 color of the dust of the desert. In all these countries 
 the forests are rare, of small extent, of little density ; the 
 scattered trees are not invaded by those woody climbers 
 which elsewhere entangle and interweave them, and 
 form those impenetrable masses of verdure which char- 
 acterize the tropical wilds of the New World. Thus, 
 in the vegetable kingdom of the Old World, there is 
 oftener a scarcity, oftener a sufficiency, but rarely an 
 abundance. 
 
 Nevertheless, because the vegetable does not reign 
 there by its mass, is this saying that it reaches a less 
 perfect organization? No, gentlemen, no such thing. 
 It is this dry and warm climate that produces the deli- 
 cate fruits of Persia and of Asia Minor, elaborates those 
 refined juices, those perfumes, those fine aromas of the 
 East, the fame of which was already established in the 
 remotest antiquity. These same regions of the Old 
 World have given us coffee from Arabia, and tea from the 
 uttermost Orient, so precious to all the civilized nations. 
 The East Indies and their archipelago, as we have said, 
 under the influence of the vigor of the continent and the 
 moisture of the ocean, yield those concentrated products, 
 those strong spices, the nutmeg, the clove, the ginger, 
 there in its native country; the pepper, the cinnamon, 
 of which the whole world makes use. It is these same 
 countries that present us the largest leaves and flowers 
 known ; there, also, grows the Banyan tree, the symbol 
 of vegetable strength; it is in Africa that the huge 
 Baobab unfolds itself — the Adansonia, whose trunk 
 
OLD WORLD, VEGETATION. 
 
 227 
 
 sometimes measures twenty-five feet in diameter. But, 
 gentlemen, let us acknowledge it, these are the products 
 of favored spots ; the common rule, — I do not speak of 
 quality, but of quantity, — the general rule of the Old 
 World is economy, and not superfluity. 
 
 But if vegetation in the Old World seems reduced to 
 a subordinate place, it is not so with animal life ; this 
 we find here in its fulness, and varied to a degree the 
 New World knows nothing of. While it seems to be 
 impoverished and subdued in the dank atmosphere of 
 tropical America, it flourishes most of all in the dry, hot, 
 exciting climate of Africa and Asia. 
 
 America, as we have seen, is the domain of insects 
 and reptiles, which prosper in the humid and vegetative 
 element. 
 
 The Old World is the domain of the higher animals, 
 the Mammalia, the number of which, their variety, their 
 strength, and their size, give character to the animal 
 kingdom of these countries. As we have said, when 
 comparing the animal kingdoms of the two worlds, not 
 only the representatives of the corresponding families 
 are larger and stronger in the Old World, but they 
 appear in more numerous genera and more varied 
 species, and even exhibit types entirely foreign to Amer- 
 ica, as the giraffe, the giant of the Ruminants. 
 
 The servants and companions of man, the horse, that 
 noble animal which he. can neither forego for his wants 
 nor for his pleasures ; the ox, more useful still ; the dog, 
 his faithful friend, are gifts the Old World has bestowed 
 upon the New. Finally, the presence of the Chimpanzi 
 of Africa, and of the Orang-outang of the Indies, whose 
 
228 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 figure comes the nearest to man's, proves that the devel- 
 opment of animal life reaches here the utmost limits it 
 can attain, apart from man himself. 
 
 The animal kingdom, as we see, has, in the Old 
 World, the preponderance over the vegetable, as in the 
 New World the vegetable had over the animal. The 
 kind of enemies man encounters in the one and the 
 other world, when he struggles with nature, already 
 tell us what is their character. In America, the over- 
 flowing rivers and their lowlands ; the virgin forest, the 
 climbing plants and their impenetrable thickets ; the 
 poisonous reptiles, and the devouring insects multiplying 
 there, are his most formidable enemies. In Africa or in 
 Asia, it is thirst, the moving sands, and the burning 
 heat of the sun; it is the lion, the tiger, the hyena, 
 and all the ferocious inhabitants of the desert, that 
 menace his life and encompass him with ever-recurring 
 dangers. 
 
 Let us raise ourselves higher still, and pass into the 
 province of man himself. We find here the contrast 
 between the two worlds still more marked. Instead 
 of a single race, the copper-colored, dwelling in both 
 Americas, from Labrador to Cape Horn, four different 
 races, if not five, belong to the Old World, and testify 
 to the variety of its plastic forms, and to their powerful 
 influence upon the organization of man. 
 
 The white race is distinguished above them all : the 
 most perfect type of humanity; the race best endowed 
 with the gifts of intelligence, and with the profound 
 moral and religious sentiment that brings man near to 
 Him of whom he is the earthly image. To this race 
 
ANIMAL LIFE PREDOMINANT. 
 
 229 
 
 belong, without exception, all the nations of high 
 civilization, the truly historical nations; this still repre- 
 sents the highest degree of progress attained by man- 
 kind. After it, the Mongolian and Malayan races, 
 which might be called the semi-historical nations, are 
 still superior in civilization to the copper-colored. If 
 we take even those races of the temperate regions of 
 the Old World, at the lowest degree of the social scale, 
 the nomadic tribes of the plateaus of Eastern Asia and 
 of the western steppes, they are still far superior to the 
 hunting tribes of the two Americas. There is even in 
 the tropical man of the Old World, in Africa at least, 
 a somewhat of native vigor of vital energy, manifested 
 by his sanguine temperament, by his gayety, by his 
 lively affections, and by his muscular strength, placing 
 him higher than the Indian of tropical America. His 
 social state, even, has made a step in advance. The 
 negro tribes of Congo and Soudan form real common- 
 wealths ; they are acquainted with agriculture. 
 
 The density of the human population in the two 
 worlds speaks with still greater emphasis. Taking the 
 least uncertain numbers, we find that, while Europe 
 counts 89 inhabitants to the square mile, Asia 32, and 
 Africa 14, America has only 4. If we compare, then, 
 either the races of the two worlds, or the civilized 
 nations of Europe and of Asia, with those of the ancient 
 inhabitants of Mexico and Peru ; or, finally, the least 
 cultivated tribes, the nomads and the negroes, with the 
 hunting Indians of North and South America, the ad- 
 vantage, in various respects, will remain with the Old 
 World. 
 
 20 
 
230 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Thus the Old and the New World are distinguished 
 by an assemblage of different and opposite character- 
 istics, making a separate type of each, and giving to 
 each a peculiar physical aspect. In one, the simplicity 
 of forms, the moist climate, the dominance of vegetation, 
 declare the passive element ; in the other, the variety of 
 forms, the dry and extreme climate, the animal world, 
 all proclaim the active element. They are opposed to 
 each other as the vegetable and the animal. 
 
 Furthermore, in this great contrast, as in that of land 
 and water, we find an inequality between the two 
 factors, considering them as we are now doing, with 
 respect to their physical nature ; one of the two worlds 
 appears to us as the superior, the other as the inferior. 
 The Old World holds the first rank by its mass, 
 by the number of its continents, by the variety and 
 richness of its structure, by its continental climate 
 opposed to the oceanic ; by the preponderance of animal 
 over vegetable life, by the number and superiority of its 
 races of men; finally, it is the primitive seat of high 
 civilization. 
 
 But these two parts of our planet are only the parts 
 of one organic whole. We see in advance — and the 
 law we have so often traced out in the course of our 
 studies confirms it — we see in advance, that two indi- 
 viduals so different from each other cannot be confronted 
 without entering into relations, without commencing a 
 life of interchanges, that will enrich them both. Thence, 
 by this mutual action of the two worlds, will be un- 
 folded all of the wealth of life, the germs whereof are 
 deposited in each; a grand unity will be constituted, 
 
THE OLD WORLD ANP THE NEW. 
 
 231 
 
 which, embracing both, will raise them to the highest 
 degree of improvement Providence seems to have de- 
 creed for them by nature itself, but which they cannot 
 attain without each other's aid. 
 
 The inequality we have just established, is, then, an 
 additional source of wealth, for it summons forth the 
 mutual actions, and hastens the solution of this great 
 contrast. 
 
 But how will this mutual action take place ? Physical 
 nature has exhausted its means of action for producing, 
 by the intervention of the atmosphere and the winds, 
 the mixture of land and sea, the diversity of climates 
 and of organized beings, making the two worlds two 
 distinct individuals ; it cannot go further ; it belongs 
 now to man, for whom they were made, to human 
 societies, to continue this work, to blend their two 
 natures, and to establish between the two worlds the 
 permanent bond that is to unite them. In their action 
 upon the peoples and nations of the globe, all their 
 physical differences must be reflected, and may be ex- 
 pected to display their true importance. 
 
 America lies glutted with its vegetable wealth, un- 
 worked, solitary. Its immense forests, its savannas, 
 every year cover its soil with their remains, which, 
 accumulated during the long ages of the world, form 
 that deep bed of vegetable mould, that precious soil, 
 awaiting only the hand of man to work out all the 
 wealth of its inexhaustible fertility. Meantime, the 
 human race of the New World, the Indian, the primi- 
 tive owner of these vast territories, shows himself in- 
 capable or careless of the work ; never has he opened 
 
232 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 the soil with his ploughshare, to demand the treasures 
 it encloses. Hunting is his livelihood ; war his holiday. 
 Upon a soil able to support millions of men in plenty, a 
 few scattered inhabitants lead a wretched existence in 
 the bosom of the wilderness. 
 
 Side by side with so much unused wealth, see the 
 Old World, exhausted by long cultivation, overloaded 
 with an exuberant population, fall of spirit and life, 
 but to whom severe labor hardly gives subsistence for 
 the day; devoured by activity, but wanting resources 
 and space to expand itself; and you will perceive that 
 this state of things, that a disproportion so startling, 
 cannot long exist. The gifts God bestows on man He 
 requires should be employed, and He takes from him 
 who does not put it to use, the talent which has been 
 entrusted to him. 
 
 As the plant is made for the animal, as the vegetable 
 world is made for the animal world, America is made 
 for the man of the Old World. It is to the latter, as 
 the active principle, that the first onset belongs. 
 
 Everything in nature is admirably prepared for this 
 great work. The two worlds are looking face to face, 
 and are, as it were, inclining towards each other. The 
 Old World bends towards the New, and is ready to 
 pour out its tribes, whom a resistless descent of the 
 reliefs seems to sweep towards the Atlantic. America 
 looks towards the Old World ; all its slopes and its long 
 plains sweep* down to the Atlantic, towards Europe. It 
 seems to wait with open and eager arms the beneficent 
 influence of the man of the Old World. No barrier 
 opposes their progress ; the Andes and the Rocky 
 
ALLIANCE OF THE TWO WORLDS. 
 
 233 
 
 Mountains, banished to the other shore of the continent, 
 will place no obstacle in their path. Soon the moment 
 will come. 
 
 The man of the Old World sets out upon his way. 
 Leaving the highlands of Asia, he descends from station 
 to station towards Europe. Each of his steps is marked 
 by a. new civilization superior to the preceding, by a 
 greater power of development. Arrived at the Atlantic, 
 he pauses on the shore of this unknown ocean, the 
 bounds of which he knows not, and turns upon his foot- 
 prints for an instant. Under the influence of the soil 
 of Europe, so richly organized, he works out slowly the 
 numerous germs wherewith he is endowed. After this 
 long and teeming repose, his faculties are reawakened, 
 he is reanimated. At the close of the fifteenth century, 
 an unaccustomed movement agitates and vexes him 
 from one end of the continent to the other. He has 
 tilled the impoverished soil, and yet the number of his 
 offspring increases. He turns his looks at once towards 
 the east and the west, and sets out in search of new 
 countries. His horizon enlarges ; his activity preys 
 upon him ; he breaks his bounds. 
 
 Then recommences his adventurous career west- 
 ward, as in the earliest ages. His intelligence has 
 grown, and with it his power and hardihood. Under 
 the guidance of the genius of the age, he attacks 
 this dreaded ocean, of which, to this time, he knows 
 only the margin. He abandons himself to the winds 
 and the currents, which bear him gently towards the 
 coasts of America. He is enraptured as he treads the 
 shore of this land of wonders, still more adorned in 
 20* 
 
234 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 his eyes by all the fascinations his ardent imagination 
 lends it. 
 
 The European establishes himself little by little upon 
 this new land; he gets a foot-hold but slowly; for. to 
 his shame be it said, the thirst for gold seems the 
 only motive urging him thither; for gold, that facti- 
 tious, cheating, transitory wealth, which in the long 
 run impoverishes him who has it, because it puts his 
 faculties asleep ; that gold, fatal to Spain, the abun- 
 dant possession of which was the signal of her decline. 
 To make a fortune rapidly, by all possible means, 
 and to return to Europe to enjoy it, this was the aim 
 of the earliest colonists. These are not the true labor- 
 ers in the great work that is beginning ; these are 
 only the trappers ; these are not the civilizers of the 
 New World ; not to them shall it be given to be its true 
 possessors. 
 
 Meantime new bands from beyond the seas soon 
 discover that the real wealth of America lies in the fer- 
 tility of the soil. Then begin the interchanges. The 
 European plants, in this still virgin land, the useful 
 vegetables he brings from the Old World, the sugar- 
 cane, the coffee, the cotton, the spices, the cereal grains, 
 more precious still, and draws therefrom abundant 
 harvests. The New World gives to Europe, in ex- 
 change, the cocoa, the vanilla, the quinquina, the potato, 
 above all, alone worth all the rest. The domestic 
 animals, which are wanting in America, follow the 
 footsteps of the colonists thither ; the horse, the ass, the 
 ox, the swine, all these useful companions of man, that 
 act so important a part in the domestic economy of 
 
ALLIANCE OF THE TWO WORLDS. 
 
 235 
 
 civilized nations, henceforth enrich this second half of 
 the earth. 
 
 For a long time America is a daughter of the Old 
 World, in her minority; and nevertheless, the colonial 
 system already reacts profoundly upon the development 
 of the European nations. During the three centuries 
 following the discovery, the questions connected with 
 the commerce of the world and the possession of the 
 colonies grow every moment in importance. Every 
 day brings with it the establishment of new colonies, 
 and augments and reinforces those already existing. A 
 local life makes no delay in displaying itself on this 
 fresh soil. Whole peoples take root and increase with 
 rapidity in the midst of that nature which yields them 
 everything in abundance. They ask no more help 
 from the mother comitry ; they are in a condition to 
 furnish it to her ; the consciousness of strength grows 
 with their prosperity. 
 
 But the hour of independence has struck ; the fruit 
 is ripe; it drops from the tree. The sons of the Old 
 World have adopted America for their country ; she has 
 become their beloved mother. America takes her posi- 
 tion face to face with Europe, not as a minor, but as a 
 full-aged daughter — free, for it is her right. She throws 
 herself alone, and on her own account, released from 
 guardianship, with demeanor more open, more frank, 
 more rapid, into the career of civilization. Now com- 
 mences a new antagonism, more serious, more vast in 
 its proportions. The two worlds treat as power with 
 power ; for two free and independent beings look upon 
 each other. But, gentlemen, they are not enemies ; 
 
236 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 they are too well adapted, too truly made for each 
 other ; they have too much need of each other ; they 
 are too much the complement of each other, not to unite 
 for their common interest. Their differences will only 
 serve to excite a more active life, a more extensive and 
 lasting interchange of all that each can give in abun- 
 dance to its rival. 
 
 Here, in fact, we find all the elements, all the condi- 
 tions, of a well-assorted union, a true marriage. Is there 
 not between the peoples of the two worlds a common 
 basis, an essential, indissoluble tie, which they are not 
 at liberty to break 1 Are they not all the children of a 
 common mother-race ? the offspring of the same civiliza- 
 tion, the worshippers of the same one God and Saviour ? 
 And yet there is an individual difference of character 
 between them, arising essentially from the special work 
 to which each seems to have been called as to an 
 appointed task. For the American, this task is to work 
 the virgin soil, and the wealth of the land Providence 
 has granted to him, for his own benefit and that of the 
 whole world. For this is the first work to be done, that 
 whereon the futurity of America depends. He is accom- 
 plishing it — who does not know? — with a fiery activ- 
 ity. He has not too much of all the resources of 
 industry the Old World and his own experience place 
 at his disposal, to subdue and fashion at his pleasure 
 this still somewhat savage nature. 
 
 Agriculture here already assumes proportions un- 
 known everywhere else. Commerce, whose business 
 is helping the world to share the wealth of its soil, is 
 carried on upon the most magnificent scale, and cannot 
 
ALLIANCE OF THE TWO WORLDS. 
 
 237 
 
 but become still more extended. From the very centre 
 of the oceans where she reposes, America sends her 
 ships and her merchandise to the ends of the earth. 
 Steam will soon join the shores of the Atlantic and 
 the Pacific, and place the United States on the great 
 highway from Europe to China. Thus the American 
 displays in every way a spirit of enterprise that goes 
 even to the length of audacity. Nothing daunts him, 
 nothing seems impossible to his activity. Every brain 
 is teeming with the most gigantic projects, which find 
 always an echo and support. There is certainly some- 
 thing of grandeur in the spectacle of the youthful vigor 
 the inhabitant of the New World displays, of the intel- 
 ligent energy with which he does his work. Whatever 
 be its object — were it even not the most exalted — 
 still such energy is worthy of admiration. 
 
 The work of Europe, her special task, at the present 
 moment, is not the same ; for her position is altogether 
 different. Without doubt, industry, commerce, agricul- 
 ture, employ a large part of her activity ; but the exer- 
 cise of these arts is not the predominant and characteris- 
 tic feature of that ancient society. Other cares occupy 
 her. The desire to know, rather than to possess ; reflec- 
 tion,' more than action; science, more than its applica- 
 tion; movement and activity in the intellectual and 
 moral world, rather than in the material world ; — 
 these are what distinguish the Old World and its 
 ancient civilization. 
 
 Thus it is there that the high philosophical, moral, 
 social questions are treated, which so profoundly task 
 the present age ; it is there that the thousand ideas, the 
 
238 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 thousand diverse systems in all the branches of human 
 science, whose variety seems an inextricable confusion to 
 the eyes of the mind that does not master them, bud and 
 blossom. The European is the man of ripened age, who 
 reflects upon men and things, analyzes the causes, and 
 seeks to understand the lessons of the spectacle the 
 world presents. The American is the young man, full 
 of fire and energy, surrendering himself entirely to his 
 activity, and drawing from life the practical shrewdness 
 and the sound sense experience gives. While the Euro- 
 pean discusses and reasons, the American acts and 
 executes. 
 
 But, gentlemen, who does not see what there is exclu- 
 sive in these two tendencies ? Who does not understand 
 to how many mutual wants these differences must give 
 birth ? how many exchanges of every kind they must 
 stimulate? what activity, what fulness of life and of 
 growth for both, what perfection of both will be the 
 result of these intimate relations? Distressed Europe 
 seemed unable to live longer without emptying its popu- 
 lation into the lap of America. America cannot fulfil 
 her destinies unless wrought out and brought into use 
 by the intelligent races of the Old World. When this 
 work, now just commencing, shall have been finished, 
 then only shall we know all the importance of America 
 to the entire race of man ; all the importance of the 
 reactions it is summoned to exercise upon the Old 
 World. 
 
 The Old World is the world of germs ; the New, the 
 fruitful bosom giving them increase. Europe thinks ; 
 America acts. All these differences, calling for and com- 
 
SOLUTION OF THE CONTRAST. 
 
 239 
 
 pleting each other, are they not the promise that this 
 contrast of the Old World and the New will soon also 
 be resolved into a grand and beautiful harmony that 
 shall embrace the whole earth ? 
 
 Yes, gentlemen, the futurity and the prosperity of 
 mankind depend on the union of the two worlds. The 
 bridals have been solemnized. We have witnessed 
 the first interview, the preliminaries, the betrothal, 
 the espousal, so fortunate for both. We already see 
 enough to authorize us to cherish the fairest hopes, 
 and to expect with confidence their realization. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 Contrast of the three continents of the North and the three continents 
 of the South — Physical characteristics of the two groups ; the for- 
 mer more articulated, more consolidated, more similar ; the latter more 
 entire, more isolated, more different — These differences and analogies 
 reproduced in the vegetation and the animal world — The three con- 
 tinents of the North temperate; the three of the South tropical — 
 Superiority of the tropical climate in nature — Gradual increase of 
 life, of the variety and improvement of the types of organized beings, 
 in proportion to the warmth, from the poles to the equatorial regions 
 — Man alone forms an exception — Law of the distribution of the 
 human races — Geographical centre of mankind marked by the race 
 of the highest perfection — Gradual degeneracy of the human type 
 towards the southern extremities of the continents — TJie geographical 
 distribution of the races of man and the animals founded upon a differ- 
 ent principle — Advantage of the temperate climate for the improve- 
 ment of man. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 We have considered the whole of the terrestrial 
 masses, as grouped in two great individuals, the Old 
 and the New World, which have exhibited themselves as 
 possessing each a special character, particular advan- 
 tages, but completing each other, and forming, as it 
 were, two halves of one great organization. The union 
 of these two worlds, the resources of which have been 
 drawn out by the most intelligent and active races, by 
 the most advanced societies, is the condition, and must 
 become the means of a progress of the human race, 
 much superior to what it would have been in each of 
 
NORTHERN WORLD AND SOUTHERN WORLD. 241 
 
 the two worlds isolated from each other. It is at least 
 the hope given us by the law of the resolution of the con- 
 trasts into a more perfect harmonious unity, which is the 
 natural product of all normal development. All that 
 passes under our eyes at the present day, this life of 
 interchanges between the two worlds, so active, so pow- 
 erful, so progressive, is a proof that we are advancing 
 irresistibly to so desirable a result. 
 
 We have now to consider our continents only under 
 one remaining aspect, under a third point of view, which 
 I hope will disclose to us some of the hidden influences 
 they seem to exercise upon the life of man ; or rather, 
 which will enable us to observe one of those admirable 
 harmonies of nature and history, arranged by the Creator 
 himself for the improvement of this privileged being, for 
 whom all nature seems made. 
 
 This third contrast, we have said, is that of the north- 
 ern and of the southern hemisphere, or rather of the 
 three continents of the North and the three continents of 
 the South. We have considered the earth as divided into 
 an Eastern World and a Western World ; we shall now 
 see it distributed into a Northern World and a Southern 
 World. 
 
 I recall this curious disposition of the continental 
 masses I pointed out, at our first interview, according to 
 Steffens, which consists in this, that each northern co:> 
 tinent has south of it a southern continent, more or less 
 connected with it, whether materially by an isthmus or 
 a chain of islands and an archipelago, or by the prox- 
 imity of their extreme lands. The two continents, thus 
 brought near together, make always a pair, the individ- 
 21 
 
242 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 uals being at once connected and opposite in nature. 
 Such are the two Americas, — a perfect type of the 
 kind ; such, again, are Europe and Africa, Asia and 
 Australia. 
 
 This arrangement, then, gives us three continents in 
 the North, and three in the South. Now, combining in 
 this point of view the prevailing features of their phys- 
 ical configuration, of their situation and of their climate, 
 I would show you : — 
 
 1. That the continents composing each of the two 
 groups have common characters, the three in the North 
 resembling each other, and the three in the South pre- 
 senting equally strong analogies. 
 
 2. That these characters are different and opposed in 
 the two groups, and constitute a contrast. 
 
 3. That this dissimilar nature assigns to the one a 
 very different part from the others in the progress of 
 human society. 
 
 Let us see, first, how they are distinguished by their 
 general forms and by their configuration. 
 
 The continents of the North are more outspread, 
 more extended, and, taken together, much more vast. 
 They embrace all the plains of the arctic and temperate 
 regions, the most considerable and the most continuous 
 on the surface of the globe, and forming a great circular 
 zone of low lands around the Frozen Ocean. The 
 southern continents are more contracted, more narrowed 
 and pointed, and, in the whole, less extensive. While 
 the three first embrace a surface of 22 1 millions of 
 square miles, the last comprise only 16| millions. 
 
 The continents of the North are more indented, more 
 
THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN CONTINENTS. 243 
 
 articulated ; their contours are more varied. Gulfs and 
 inland seas cut very deep into the mass of their lands, 
 and detach from the principal trunk a multitude of 
 peninsulas, which, like so many different organs and 
 members, are prepared for a life, in some sort, inde- 
 pendent. A great number of continental islands are 
 scattered along their shores, and are a new source of 
 wealth to them. The plastic forms of the soil are still 
 more varied. We have already seen that, in this re- 
 spect, Europe and Asia present the most complicated 
 structure, and the relative situations of the mountain 
 chains and of their plateaus and their plains, exhaust, 
 so to speak, all the possible combinations. 
 
 The southern continents, on the other hand, are 
 massive, entire, without indentations, without inland 
 seas or deep inlets, scanty in articulations of every kind, 
 and in islands. They are trunks without members, 
 bodies without organs, and the simplicity of their inte- 
 rior structure answers to the poverty of their exterior 
 forms. 
 
 These differences are carried to the extreme in the 
 Old World, where the rich border of peninsulas which 
 deck the South of Asia and of Europe, hanging like the 
 ample folds or the fringes of a royal robe, form a strik- 
 ing contrast to the mean and naked lines of Africa and 
 Australia. In the New World, where this contrast is 
 softened, by reason of the unity of plan we have clearly 
 made out, the northern continent meantime possesses by 
 itself the few peninsulas which detach themselves from 
 its coasts, Yucatan, Florida, Nova Scotia, Labrador, 
 California, and the peninsula of Aliaska. 
 
244 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Already, then, by the forms of their contours and of 
 their relief, the continents of the North are more open to 
 maritime life, to the life of commerce : they are more 
 richly organized ; they are better made to stimulate im- 
 provement. 
 
 The relative situations of the continents of the two 
 groups are equally dissimilar. 
 
 The northern continents are brought nearer together, 
 more consolidated. United, they form the central mass 
 of all the lands of the globe, whence the others appear 
 to radiate in all directions, losing themselves as they 
 taper off in the ocean. For this reason, they have a 
 more continental character. Owing to this greater 
 nearness, to the facility of communication between one 
 continent and another, to the analogy of their climate, 
 which we shall speak of by-and-by, the three northern 
 continents have a mutual relationship not to be mis- 
 taken. From the shores of the Pacific Ocean, along 
 the coast of temperate Asia, even to the western ex- 
 tremity of Europe, the vegetation presents the same 
 aspect, the same general physiognomy. The European 
 traveller finds, from one end to the other of this im- 
 mense space, the pine forests, the oaks, the elms, the 
 maples his eye has been accustomed to from infancy. 
 In the Himalaya, the Caucasus, or the Balkan, he 
 beholds again with delight those humble but graceful 
 forms of the flora he has become acquainted with in 
 the Alps and the Pyrenees. If he crosses the Atlantic, 
 what surprises him at the first glance is, not the nov- 
 elty of the vegetable forms which he was perhaps ex- 
 pecting after a voyage of thirty-five hundred miles ; it 
 
THE NORTHERN WORLD MORE ALIKE. 245 
 
 is the resemblance of physiognomy and aspect, so great 
 that, in the bosom of the vast forests of Ohio or Canada, 
 he might almost believe he had not quitted the soil of 
 Europe. Nevertheless, we hasten to say, this resem- 
 blance is not identity. The eye of the botanist, even 
 that of the simple observer, would soon perceive that, 
 if the types remain the same, the species are different. 
 If they are almost always analogous, they are seldom 
 identical. 
 
 In the animal world, the same analogy still. Noth- 
 ing is more alike, at the first view, for example, than 
 those thousands of coleopterous insects, which inhabit 
 the two worlds. The same air, the same look in the 
 corresponding species. It is a singular fact, observed 
 also in the vegetative kingdom, and still mystery, 
 that a given genus, in Europe composed of a determi- 
 nate number of species, is found again in America, with 
 an almost equ.al number of corresponding species, with 
 the same particularities of forms repeated, even to the 
 design and to the same disposition of colors. And yet, 
 to the trained eye of the naturalist, every American 
 species constitutes one very distinct from the analogous 
 species of the European continent. What takes place 
 with regard to the genera and species is further true of 
 certain families and tribes. The examples of this are 
 numerous, and I would cite them but for the fear of 
 offending your ears by names which would appear bar- 
 barous. Relations of the same kind exist between the 
 vertebrates, between the fishes, between the birds of the 
 two worlds, and it is to these deceptive resemblances 
 that the confusion of species and the mistakes of syn- 
 21* 
 
.246 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 onyms are owing, so numerous in American zoology, 
 and so hurtful to its progress. The mammalia, finally, 
 make no exception to this law. The reindeer is com- 
 mon to the polar regions of the three continents ; the 
 bison reminds one of the wild bull and the ox of Europe 
 and of Asia; the bears, also, are but slightly different 
 from those of the Old World ; the elk and certain kinds 
 of stags are so similar, that the zoologist is still in doubt 
 whether they constitute different species or not. 
 
 Thus the resemblance of the organized beings in the 
 three continents of the North is one of their distinctive 
 characters ; and this character is due to the circumstance 
 that, in proportion as the species change with the longi- 
 tude, their place is taken generally, not by new types, 
 but by analogous species. Doubtless the similarity of 
 climate is one of the most active causes of this resem- 
 blance ; for the variety of the genera, the differences 
 between the species of the three continents, augment 
 according to the elevation of temperature ; but this is not 
 enough to explain the fact entirely ; we shall see that 
 the continents of the South, under similar latitudes and 
 in similar temperatures, offer types of animals and of 
 vegetation very different in each of them. 
 
 The continents of the South are more remote from 
 each other than the foregoing. Broad oceans separate 
 them even to isolation. Scarcely any communication 
 is possible between lands so distant ; at all events, they 
 are only indirect. Shut up in themselves, incapable of 
 reacting upon each other and of modifying their respec- 
 tive natures, these continents are excluded from all 
 community of life. What is there astonishing, then, in 
 
THE SOUTHERN CONTINENTS MORE UNLIKE. £47 
 
 seeing their differences carried to an extreme, their 
 characters exaggerated ? 
 
 The organized beings of the two kingdoms in these 
 three continents have, in reality, almost ceased to pos- 
 sess anything in common. Not only the species that 
 characterize their floras and their faunas are different, 
 but they are no longer analogous, and the prevailing 
 forms, the grand types, are partly quite different. This 
 is true, above all, of their southern extremities, of their 
 points, more isolated still than the central or northern 
 parts. In Australia, it is the gigantic Myrtacete, the 
 flaring Eucalypti, so varied ; the Melaleucas, the numer- 
 ous species of which compose the greater part of the 
 trees of the forests ; it is the graceful Mimosas, and their 
 Acacias with leaf-like branches ; it is the meagre Casua- 
 rinas, and still other forms whose stunted foliage betrays 
 the dryness of the soil, that give a particular physiog- 
 nomy to the whole aspect of nature. Marsupials of 
 huge size, the kangaroos, and other analogous animals, 
 gambol in these forests and in the vast savannas; in the 
 marshes, the Ornithorhynchus, unknown to every other 
 continent, whose shapeless type brings to mind the 
 earliest ages of the world, and seems not to belong to 
 the existing epoch. 
 
 In Southern Africa, other forms are found, another 
 nature. With the pale foliage of the Proteaceae, are 
 blended the Stapelias, the aloes, with their pulpy leaves 
 and their brilliant corollas ; the Iridese, with their bold 
 bearing and splendid colors ; the geraniums : the heaths, 
 above all, the numberless species of which astonish the 
 eye by their variety, as much as they charm it by their 
 
248. 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 modest grace. In place of the jumping kangaroos, herds 
 of nimble gazelles and graceful antelopes wander over 
 the vast plains of the high regions of Africa. The 
 hyena, the panther, the lion, strangers to Australia, and 
 witnesses to a stronger and nobler nature; the giraffe, 
 which Africa alone possesses ; all, in a word, assume 
 another aspect and a peculiar stamp. 
 
 If we pass now to South America, the animated world 
 changes its physiognomy still again. The preponderance 
 and the variety of its palm trees ; in the richest regions, 
 the cactus, whose heavy form contrasts with the daz- 
 zling colors of the flowers ; then the clumsy armadillos, 
 the tapirs, the ant-eaters, the long-tailed apes, and so 
 many other animals characteristic of this continent, 
 which we have already named ; — all this has nothing to 
 remind us of Africa. 
 
 Thus, between the three southern continents there is 
 no community; out of 437 genera of the Australian 
 flora, scarcely 80 are met with in Africa ; no analogous 
 species, substitutes for each other ; none of those social 
 plants covering whole provinces in Europe, Asia, and 
 North America, and giving them a like character. The 
 280 species of heath of the Cape occupy a space scarcely 
 so extensive as is occupied in the North of Europe by the 
 common heather {Erica vulgaris) alone, so extensively 
 growing in its barren regions. Thus, in the North, 
 we have combination, association, resemblance; in the 
 South, separation, isolation, dissimilarity. 
 
 But if the northern continents are evidently favored 
 by their forms and their grouping, is it the same also 
 trith their climate? 
 
DIFFERENCE OF CLIMATE. 
 
 249 
 
 The astronomical situation of these two groups is, in 
 reality, quite different. In consequence of the general 
 arrangement of the lands, crowding them in a mass 
 towards the North, the three continents of the North are 
 situated almost entirely in the temperate zone, in the 
 middle latitudes. North America and Europe are en- 
 tirely in the temperate and frozen zones ; Asia is so with 
 respect to its principal mass, and touches the tropical 
 regions only by its southern extremity. Thus it is seven 
 parts temperate and cold for one tropical. 
 
 The southern continents, on the contrary, expose their 
 principal and most important mass to the rays of the 
 equatorial sun. Africa has four parts out of five in the 
 tropical zone, and the fifth is situated in the warm tem- 
 perate, and moreover is divided into two narrow belts, 
 separated on the north and the south of the body of the 
 continent. South America has five parts out of six in 
 the tropics, and the sixth part, temperate, is composed 
 only of the southern point, the poorest in all respects, 
 which cannot claim to stamp its character. Australia, 
 finally, belongs three fifths only to the torrid zone; 
 nevertheless, it should be said that the other two fifths, 
 situated in the warm temperate zone, give it its distinc- 
 tive physiognomy, so that we have called it the sub- 
 tropical continent. 
 
 Thus, taken as a whole, and in their prevailing char- 
 acter, the three northern continents are temperate, the 
 three southern continents are tropical. 
 
 Which are the most favored ? which are those we 
 consider superior to the others ? 
 
 The answer would be easy, if the existence of the 
 
25A COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 continents had no other definite end than the exhibition 
 of the whole physical life of nature. But let us not 
 forget that they are to serve a much higher end still ; 
 they are to serve the development of man, and of human 
 societies. It is in this two-fold point of view that we 
 ought to consider them. 
 
 In the order of nature, and at the first approach, we 
 cannot deny to the tropical continents a marked superi- 
 ority. The most powerful spring of physical life, the 
 most active source, surpassing all the others, is the heat 
 of that life-giving orb the ancient poets sang, and the 
 nations of the world, forgetting the only true Creator 
 of all things, adored as the parent of Nature. But by 
 reason of the spherical form of the earth, each district 
 of the surface receives an unequal portion. Slanting, 
 scattered, and feeble in the regions neighboring the 
 poles, the beams of the sun assume more strength, and 
 fall thicker in the middle regions ; in those of the equator 
 only, they gain all their intensity, all their splendor. 
 Now, in this same proportion, we see the development 
 of life increase in energy and variety, from the poles to 
 the equator. 
 
 What do we, in reality, see in the polar and frozen 
 countries of the North of our continent? During the 
 greatest part of the year, life seems almost extinguished 
 by the rigorous cold of a perpetual winter. A colorless 
 and stunted vegetation, a few creeping shrubs, none of 
 those stately forests, which everywhere make the orna- 
 ment of the landscape; endless plains covered with 
 mosses and lichens, composed of only a few species, 
 notwithstanding the immense number of their indi- 
 
PROGRESS WITH INCREASE OF HEAT. 
 
 351 
 
 viduals. This is the flora of the cold regions. The 
 preponderance of the cryptogamous plants, that is, of the 
 inferior forms of vegetation, the small number of the 
 genera and the species, the absence or scarcity of 
 arborescent vegetation, give it that character of poverty 
 and uniformity which strikes us in these desolated lands. 
 The animal kingdom, thanks to greater freedom of loco- 
 motion, is better represented; but the small number 
 of types and the preponderance of marine animals, still 
 keep up% character of inferiority not to be misunder- 
 stood. 
 
 In the temperate zone, the number of genera and 
 species is more than doubled ; the superior types acquire 
 a fuller development and more importance. In the vege- 
 tation, the preponderance of the phanerogamous plants, 
 the beauty of the forests, the appearance of evergreen 
 trees, are the signs of an immense progress. Meantime, 
 the soft tints, the modest forms, the winter sleep, still in- 
 terrupting the life of vegetation during long months, tell 
 us that the triumph of life is not yet complete. The 
 same progress goes on in animal life ; the land animals 
 prevail ; the animal species become more numerous and 
 more diverse. 
 
 But it is in the hot region of the tropics that the life 
 of nature displays its fullest energy, its greatest diversity, 
 its most dazzling splendors. We have already seen what 
 it can produce in those favored countries of India and 
 the Indian archipelago, where all the conditions seem 
 brought together to secure to physical life its richest 
 development. The cryptogamous plants attain, in the 
 arborescent ferns, the proportions of our forest trees. 
 
252 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 The grasses, which we only know in our climates under 
 the humble forms they put on in our fields and pastures, 
 rise into the elegant and majestic bamboo, to the height 
 of 60 to 70 feet, and become real trees, whose hard and 
 hollow trunks serve for the construction of public edi- 
 fices, as well as for that of private houses. There, the 
 entire forests seem double in height, and of a density 
 unknown in our climates. A single tree is a garden, 
 wherein a hundred different plants intertwine their 
 branches, and display their brilliant flowers orra ground 
 of verdure, where the varied hues and forms of their 
 leaves are blended together. The number of the species, 
 the beauty of the types, are not less astonishing. While, 
 in America, the temperate zones of the two hemispheres 
 furnish scarcely more than four thousand species of 
 plants, the tropical region of this same continent has 
 already made known more than thirteen thousand ; so 
 that probably the comparatively narrow zone of the 
 tropics contains much more than half of the vegetable 
 species living on the surface of our continents. 
 
 The animal kingdom is no less developed, as we 
 already know, in this privileged zone. The boundless 
 variety of species, the vivacity of the colors, the diver- 
 sity of the shades, strike us in the insects and the birds. 
 We admire the lofty stature and the strength of those 
 great pachyderms that people its forests and its rivers ; 
 the force and vigor of the ferocious inhabitants of the 
 deserts of Africa and the Ganges. It is true, gentlemen ; 
 here Nature triumphs ; here she displays herself in all 
 her brilliancy. 
 
 Such is the law in the physical world. Nature goes 
 on adding perfection to perfection, from the polar regions 
 
PROGRESS WITH INCREASE OF HEAT. 253 
 
 to the temperate zones, from the temperate zones to the 
 region of the greatest heat. Animal life grows in strength 
 and development; the types are improved; intelligence 
 increases; the forms approach the human figure; the 
 orang-outang already stands erect upon his feet ; trained 
 up by man, he has been seen to sit at his table and to 
 eat with him ; the negro of the woods, deceived by these 
 appearances, regards him as a degenerated brother, who 
 holds h^ tongue only from a desire to get rid of work. 
 Evidentry the development of the animal here touches 
 upon its highest expression. 
 
 This ascending series will then rise to its termination 
 in man, who, in his figure, is the crowning excellence of 
 the whole animal world, and the realization of its very 
 idea ; and the tropical man also will be the highest, the 
 purest type of humanity, and, physically speaking, the 
 most beautiful of his species. All zoology, all nature, 
 gentlemen, authorize us to draw this conclusion, and, for 
 my part, I have no hesitation in believing that it would 
 be so if man had no other rank upon this earth, and no 
 other functions than those assigned him by his physical 
 nature. 
 
 No, indeed, gentlemen, it is no such thing. Who does 
 not know that man makes here a wonderful exception ? 
 Far from exhibiting that harmonious outline, those noble 
 and elevated forms, all those perfections the chisel of a 
 Phidias or a Praxiteles has combined upon a single 
 head, the tropical man displays only those unfortunate 
 figures which seem to approach ever nearer and nearer 
 the animal, and which betray the instincts of the brute ; 
 those figures which we always behold with, I know not 
 22 
 
254 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 what of secret uneasiness, that would threaten to grow 
 into disgust, were not the feeling lost in pity still more 
 profound, and in the charity of a Christian heart. Even 
 in that India, where physical life attains the utmost 
 limits known to our earth, the indigenous man is a 
 black ; the white race — history compels us to believe it 
 — has descended thither from the temperate regions of 
 Western Asia. 1 
 
 If the distribution of the human races on th^surface 
 of the globe does not follow the law of the rest or mature, 
 what, then, is the law that regulates it? Or, indeed, is 
 there some great fact which may prove to be a rule in 
 this seeming confusion ? 
 
 Much has been said, gentlemen, much has been 
 written, on this important question of the human races 
 — one of the most difficult and the most delicate the 
 science of nature and history can propose to itself. I 
 am not going to discuss it here ; but what I desire is, to 
 establish, in this province also, a great general fact, 
 which, as it seems to me, has not been sufficiently 
 insisted on, and to which has not been attributed the 
 importance it deserves. This fact is the following : 
 
 While all the types of animals and of plants go on 
 decreasing in perfection, from the equatorial to the polar 
 regions, in proportion to the temperatures, man presents 
 to our view his purest, his most perfect type, at the very 
 centre of the temperate continents, at the centre of Asia- 
 Europe, in the regions of Iran, of Armenia, and of the 
 Caucasus ; and, departing from this geographical centre 
 in the three grand directions of the lands, the types 
 gradually lose the beauty of their forms, in proportion 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF RACES. 
 
 255 
 
 to their distance, even to the extreme points of the 
 southern continents, where we find the most deformed 
 and degenerate races, and the lowest in the scale of 
 humanity. 
 
 Please to cast a glance upon this series of drawings, 
 portraits taken from nature, from individuals who seemed 
 to have the most characteristic features of their respec- 
 tive races, and you will be convinced that the fact exists. 
 (See plates v. and vi.) 
 
 Let us take for a type of the central region of Western 
 Asia, this head of a Caucasian. What strikes us imme- 
 diately is the regularity of the features, the grace of the 
 lines, the perfect harmony of all the figure. The head 
 is oval; no part is too prominent beyond the others; 
 nothing salient nor angular disturbs the softness of the 
 lines that round it. The face is divided into three equal 
 parts by the line of the eyes and that of the mouth. 
 The eyes are large, well cut, not too near the nose nor 
 too far from it ; their axis is placed on a single straight 
 line, at right angles with the line of the nose. The 
 facial angle is 90 degrees. The stature is tall, lithe, 
 well proportioned ; the shoulders neither too broad nor 
 too narrow. The length of the extended arms is equal 
 to the whole height of the body ; in one word, all the 
 proportions reveal the perfect harmony which is the 
 essence of beauty. Such is the type of the white race — 
 the Caucasian, as it has been agreed to call it — the 
 most pure, the most perfect type of humanity. 
 
 In proportion as we depart from the geographical 
 centre of the races of man, the regularity diminishes, 
 the harmony of the proportions disappears. Let us 
 
256 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 follow them first in the direction of Europe and of 
 Africa. 
 
 Although the European may be considered as making 
 a part of this central race, his features have less of regu- 
 larity, of symmetry ; but more animation, more mobility, 
 more life, more expression. In him, beauty is less phys- 
 ical and more moral. 
 
 If we pass into Africa, we meet the Arab, who, 
 whether in his own country or in Algeria, shows already 
 a forehead slightly retreating, a head lengthened out of 
 proportion. The Galla of Abyssinia is almost black, 
 his long hair begins to crisp, his lips are often thick. 
 The CafFre has the woolly hair and thick lips of the 
 negro. The Hottentot, lastly, so struck the first colo- 
 nists of the Cape by his ugliness, that he served for a 
 long time as a symbol to express the most degraded 
 state of humanity. On the other coast of Africa, more 
 remote from Asia, the degeneracy of form is still more 
 rapid. The Berbers of the Atlas still evidently belong 
 to the Caucasian race; but their prolonged head, a 
 tendency in the mouth to pouting, the spare and meagre 
 forms, a deeper color, already herald a marked degen- 
 eration. The Fellatahs of Soudan, and still more the 
 inhabitants of Senegal, bring us to the pure type of the 
 Congo negro. In the latter, the retreating forehead, the 
 prominent mouth, the thick lips, the flat nose, the woolly 
 head, the strongly developed hind-head, announce the 
 preponderance of the sensual and physical appetites 
 over the nobler faculties of the intellect. At the extrem- 
 ity of Africa, the miserable Bushmen are still lower 
 than the Hottentots; and, placed by the side of the 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF RACES. 
 
 261 
 
 Caucasian, make us see how immense the distance 
 which separates them. 
 
 If, turning towards Eastern Asia, we direct our looks 
 as far as the extremity of Australia, the decreasing 
 beauty of the form is not less perceptible, not less grad- 
 ual. The Mongolian, with his prominent cheek-bones, 
 his eyes compressed, wide apart, and elevated at their 
 outer corners, his triangular figure, his squab and square 
 form, is wanting in harmony throughout his entire per- 
 son. The Malays seem to have sprung from a mixture 
 of the Mongolian with White race, which often improves 
 the type. The Papoo of New Guinea, in spite of the 
 blackness of his skin, still preserves some advantages 
 of form ; but the South Australian, with his gaunt body, 
 his lean members, his bending knees, his hump back, 
 his projecting jaws, presents the most melancholy assem- 
 blage the human figure can offer. These portraits of 
 an Australian warrior and of a native woman of Van 
 Diemen's Land, show the last degree to which ugliness 
 can go in this being, created so perfect, and destined to 
 be the lord of all the world. 
 
 In the third direction, that of America, the same law 
 makes itself felt. This face of an Oto Indian chief 
 would have still some advantages, if the prominence of 
 the cheek-bones, a slight elevation of the outer angle 
 of the eyes, and the size of the jaw, did not clearly 
 betray a less perfect nature. In the South American 
 Indian, all these defects are still more exaggeiated, and 
 give to the races of the §>outh, compared with those of 
 the North, a very marked character of inferiority. 
 Finally, at the extreme point of the continent, and in 
 
262 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Terra del Fuego, live the Pecherays, the most misshapen, 
 the farthest from any culture, the most wretched, of all 
 the inhabitants of the New World. 
 
 It would be still the same in advancing towards the 
 poles. Passing the Finns, we arrive at the Laplanders ; 
 through the Mongolians, we reach the Tongoos, the 
 Samoiedes of Siberia, and the Esquimaux of North 
 America. 
 
 Thus, in all directions, in proportion as we remove 
 from the geographical seat of the most beautiful human 
 type, the degeneration becomes greater, the debasement 
 of the form more complete. Does not this surprising 
 coincidence seem to designate those Caucasian regions 
 as the cradle of man, the point of departure for the 
 tribes of the earth ? 
 
 It results from this remarkable distribution of the 
 races of man, that the continents of the North, forming 
 the central mass of the lands, are inhabited by the finest 
 races, and present the most perfect types; while the 
 continents of the South, forming the extreme and far- 
 sundered points of the lands, are exclusively occupied 
 by the inferior races, and the most imperfect representa- 
 tives of human nature. This contrast is more decided 
 in the Old World than in the New ; nevertheless, in the 
 latter, notwithstanding the inferiority of the copper- 
 colored race, we have seen that the man of the Northern 
 race, the Indian of Missouri, has a marked superiority 
 over the Indian of the South, over the Botocudes, the 
 Guaranis, and the Pecherays of South America. 
 
 The degree of culture of the nations bears a proportion 
 to the nobleness of their race. The races of the northern 
 
DISTRIBUTION OF RACES. 
 
 263 
 
 continents of the Old World alone are civilized; the 
 southern continents have remained savage. In America, 
 the civilized Aztecs of Mexico have come from the North. 
 The ancient civilization of the Quichuas, at the summit's 
 of the Andes of Peru, scarcely seems itself indigenous 
 to South America. It belongs elsewhere by its elevated 
 position ; it belongs to the temperate zone. 
 
 Now these differences between the .North and the 
 South are not of yesterday, nor to-day. If we consult 
 the memorials of these tribes, without written history, — 
 , bounded and scanty as they are, — it might seem that 
 it has been the same from a time ascending beyond all 
 our traditions, if we except the Bible. No indication 
 brings to light in these tropical continents the existence, 
 at another epoch, of a purer type, of a more perfect race 
 of men, than the inferior form Ave there meet with at 
 the present day. The annals of the tribes in no part of 
 these continents, record either the birth or the progress 
 of a civilization which has contributed to the brilliant 
 development of the present condition of man. Man has 
 there always remained at the bottom of the scale of 
 culture; while, from the earliest days of the world, 
 history marks out the temperate continents as the seat 
 of the refined communities. As there is a temperate 
 hemisphere and a tropical hemisphere, we may, in the 
 same manner, say there is a civilized hemisphere, and a 
 savage hemisphere. 
 
 The distribution of man over the surface of the globe, 
 and that of the other organized beings, are not then 
 founded on the same principle. There is a particular 
 law which presides over the distribution of the human 
 
264 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 races and of civilized communities, taken at their cradle, 
 in their infancy ; a different law from that which gov- 
 erns the distribution of plants and animals. 
 
 In the latter, the degree of perfection of the types is 
 proportional to the intensity of heat, and of the other 
 agents stimulating the display of material life. The 
 law is of a physical order. 
 
 In man, the degree of perfection of the types is in pro- 
 portion to the degree of intellectual and moral improve- 
 ment. The law is of a moral order. 
 
 Thus the geographical march of the perfection of 
 the species, from the poles to the equator, is suddenly 
 broken when man appears, to recommence on a plan 
 wholly new. 
 
 This difference between the two laws has its principle 
 in the profound difference existing between the nature 
 and destination of these distinct beings. The plant and 
 the animal are not required to become a different thing" 
 from what they already are at the moment of their 
 birth. Their idea, as the philosophers would say, is 
 realized in its fulness by the fact alone of their material 
 appearance, and of their physical organization. The 
 end of their existence is attained, for they are only of a 
 physical nature. But with man it is quite otherwise. 
 Man, created in the image of God, is of a free and 
 moral nature. The physical man, however admirable 
 may be his organization, is not the true man ; he is not 
 an aim, but a means ; he is not an end, like the animal, 
 but a beginning. There is another, new-born, but 
 destined to grow up in him, and to unfold the moral 
 and religious nature until he attain the perfect stature 
 
CAUSE OF DIFFERENCE. 
 
 265 
 
 of his master and pattern, who is Christ. It is the 
 intellectual and the moral man, the spiritual man. 
 
 The law of development, if I may say so, is the law 
 of man, the law of the human race, and of human 
 societies ; now, the free and moral being cannot unfold 
 his nature without education ; he cannot grow to matu- 
 rity, except by the exercise of the faculties he has 
 received as his inheritance. 
 
 Here is the reason, gentlemen, that the Creator has 
 placed the cradle of mankind in the midst of the conti- 
 nents of the North, so well made, by their forms, by 
 their structure, by their climate, as we shall soon see, to 
 stimulate and hasten individual development and that 
 of human societies ; and not at the centre of the tropical 
 regions, whose balmy, but enervating and treacherous, 
 atmosphere would perhaps have lulled him to sleep the 
 sleep of death in his very cradle. 
 
 Have we not the sad picture of what might have 
 become of man, if he had had for his birth-place only 
 the warm regions of the earth, in the wretched condition 
 in which our unfortunate brethren of the inferior races 
 still live, wandering to the furthest extremities of the 
 tropical climates 1 
 
 The fact of the gradual modification of the human 
 types as we depart from a central race, seems to me to 
 establish between all the varieties of mankind, however 
 remote they may otherwise appear from the most perfect 
 type, a bond of union, which, after having been estab- 
 lished, science is not at liberty to pass over in silence, 
 without taking into account. Now, if we consider the 
 question of the formation of the races in the point of 
 23 
 
266 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 view we have just assumed, perhaps we shall see 
 this field, once so dark, illuminated by some gleams of 
 light. 
 
 However, before proceeding further, let us set forth 
 one fact more, no less undeniable ; for, in speaking of 
 man, we must not forget there are always two sides to 
 consider ; the one physical, the other moral. 
 
 Western Asia is not only the geographical centre of 
 the human face, but it is, moreover, the spiritual centre : 
 it is the cradle of man's moral nature. Was it not there 
 that those divine teachings were proclaimed, which the 
 most cultivated communities in the world regard as 
 their dearest treasure, and every man who loves the 
 true, acknowledges to be Truth itself? Was it not 
 there that the chosen people lived, to whom they were 
 given in trust to preserve for the world until the time 
 appointed by the Supreme Wisdom ? Was it not there 
 that the Saviour of all the members of the human 
 family appeared, and the gospel of grace and liberty 
 was preached, in the lowly valleys of Judea — that 
 gospel which recognized neither Jew, nor Greek, nor 
 Gentile, nor barbarian, and which invites all the races 
 of the earth to salvation, without distinction ? Is it not 
 from the height of the sacred mount where He died 
 upon the cross for all, that Christ bids every human 
 soul, whatever be the ephemeral form of its earthly 
 covering, to a spiritual union which he will consummate 
 in his glory? And these great facts, gentlemen, in- 
 teresting to every human being, these facts whose 
 blessed consequences surround us on all sides at the 
 present day, belong not to the number of those that any 
 
IMPROVEMENT, THE LAW OF MAN. 
 
 267 
 
 historical unbelief can ever strike out of the annals of 
 mankind. Nor are they of secondary importance, 
 considered merely in the results already accomplished ; 
 for who will maintain that, even in the future, man 
 will ever witness an event more important for him 
 than the appearance of the Saviour, and the proclama- 
 tion of the universal gospel, destined to unite all men, 
 and at the same time to bind them all to their common 
 Creator ? 
 
 Now, if man came from the hands of the divine 
 Author of his being, pure and noble, it was in those 
 privileged countries where God placed his cradle, in the 
 focus of spiritual light, that he had the best chance to 
 keep himself such. But how has he fallen elsewhere 
 so low? It is because he was free, of a perfectible 
 nature, and consequently capable also of falling. In the 
 path of development, not to advance is to go back ; it is 
 impossible to remain stationary. The animal does not 
 degenerate, because the form of his existence is neces- 
 sary ; he is not required to add anything. But man, who 
 should grow in perfection by the constant exercise of the 
 higher faculties of his nature, by struggling against the 
 evil inclinations of a perverted will, man descends ever- 
 more, and proceeds from fall to fall, if he neglects those 
 divine gifts, and abandons himself to the low instincts 
 of his animal nature. He goes down to the life of the 
 brute, whose form and semblance he takes. And what 
 will come to pass if, separated from his God ? and forget- 
 ting Him, he voluntarily stops the sources of the higher 
 life, and moral life ? Remote from the focus of tradition, 
 where he might renew the temper of his faith, he 
 
268 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 remains unarmed in combat with that mighty nature 
 that subjugates him ; he yields in the struggle, and, 
 vanquished, bears soon upon his figure the ineffaceable 
 mark of bondage. Thus, perhaps, might one, I do not 
 say explain, but conceive, the incontestable influence of 
 each continent, and each region of the earth, on the 
 physical forms, the character and the temperament of 
 the man who dwells in it, and the degeneracy of his 
 type in proportion as he is removed from the place 
 of his origin, and the focus of his religious traditions. 
 Renouncing moral liberty, which exists only in good- 
 ness, man gives to nature power over himself, submits 
 to it, and thus are traced and distinguished, a race of 
 Eastern Asia, an African race, an Australian race, a 
 Polynesian race, an American race. We must con- 
 fess, however, it is not granted to follow out, either in 
 nature or in history, the steps of this transformation; 
 a transformation that could only have taken place, 
 at the time when the human race in their infancy 
 had still the flexible and plastic nature of the child; 
 and we must repeat, the origin of the human races is 
 a fact beyond our observation and anterior to all history, 
 and, like all other origins, is screened by an impenetra- 
 ble veil. 
 
 Since man is made to acquire the full possession and 
 mastery of his faculties by toil, and by the exercise of 
 all his energies, no climate could so well minister to his 
 progress in this work as the climate of the temperate 
 continents. It is easy to understand this. 
 
 An excessive heat enfeebles man ; it invites to repose 
 and inaction. In the tropical regions the power of life 
 
ACTION OF CLIMATE UPON MAN. 
 
 269 
 
 in nature is carried to its highest degree ; thus with the 
 tropical man, the life of the body overmasters that of 
 the soul ; the physical instincts of our nature, those of 
 the higher faculties; passion, sentiment, imagination, 
 predominate over intellect and reason ; the passive facul- 
 ties over the active faculties. A nature too rich, too 
 prodigal of her gifts, does not compel man to snatch 
 from her his daily bread by his daily toil. A regular 
 climate, the absence of a dormant season, render fore- 
 thought of little use to him. Nothing invites him to 
 that struggle of intelligence against nature, which 
 raises the forces of man to so high a pitch, but which 
 would seem here to be hopeless. Thus he never 
 dreams of resisting this all-powerful physical nature ; 
 he is conquered by her ; he submits to the yoke, and 
 becomes again the animal man, in proportion as he 
 abandons himself to these influences, forgetful of his 
 high moral destination. 
 
 In the temperate climates all is activity, movement. 
 The alternations of heat and cold, the changes of the 
 seasons, a fresher and more bracing air, incite man to a 
 constant struggle, to forethought, to the vigorous em- 
 ployment of all his faculties. A more economical 
 nature yields nothing, except to the sweat of his b,row ; 
 every gift on her part is a recompense for effort on his. 
 Less mighty, less gigantesque, even while challenging 
 man to the conflict, she leaves him the hope of victory ; 
 and if she does not show herself prodigal, she grants 
 to his active and intelligent labor more than his 
 necessities require; she allows him ease and leisure, 
 which give him scope to cultivate all the lofty faculties 
 23* 
 
270 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 of his higher nature. Here, physical nature is not a 
 tyrant, but a useful helper; the active faculties, the 
 understanding and the reason, rule over the instincts and 
 the passive faculties ; the soul over the body ; man over 
 nature. 
 
 In the frozen regions man also contends with nature, 
 but with a niggardly and severe nature ; it is a des- 
 perate struggle, a struggle for life and death. With 
 difficulty, by force of toil, he succeeds in providing a 
 miserable support, which saves him from dying of hun- 
 ger and hardship during the tedious winters of that 
 climate. No higher culture is possible under such 
 unfavorable conditions. 
 
 The man of the tropical regions is the son of a 
 wealthy house. In the midst of the surrounding abun- 
 dance, labor too often seems to him useless • to abandon 
 himself to his inclinations is a more easy and agreeable 
 pastime. A slave of his passions, an unfaithful servant, 
 he leaves his faculties, the talent God has endowed 
 him with, uncultivated and unused. The work of 
 improvement with him is a failure. 
 
 The man of the polar regions is the beggar, over- 
 whelmed with suffering, who, too happy if he but gain 
 his daily bread, has no leisure to think of anything 
 more exalted. 
 
 The man of the temperate regions, finally, is the 
 man born in ease, in the golden mean, the most favored 
 of all conditions. Invited to labor by everything around 
 aim, he soon finds, in the exercise of all his faculties, at 
 once progress and well-being. 
 
 Thus, if the tropical continents have the wealth of 
 
ACTION OF CLIMATE UPON MAN. 
 
 271 
 
 nature, the temperate continents are the most perfectly- 
 organized for the development of man. They are 
 opposed to each other, as the body and the soul, as the 
 inferior races and the superior races, as savage man 
 and civilized man, as nature and history. This con- 
 trast, so marked, cannot remain an open one ; it must 
 be resolved. The history of the development of human 
 societies will give us the solution, or at least will permit 
 us to obtain a glimpse of the truth. 
 
LECTURE XI 
 
 The continents of the North considered as the theatre of history — 
 Asia-Europe; contrast of the North and South; its influence in 
 history; conflict of the barbarous nations of the North with the civil- 
 ized nations of the South — Contrast of the East and West — 
 Eastern Asia a continent by itself and complete; its nature; the 
 Mongolian race belongs peculiarly to it ; character of its civilization 
 — Superiority of the Hindoo civilization ; reason why these nations 
 have remained stationary — Western Asia and Europe ; the country 
 of the truly historical races — Western Asia ; physical description ; 
 its historical character ; Europe — the best organized for the devel- 
 opment of man and of societies ; America — future to which it is des- 
 tined by its physical nature. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 The result of the comparison we have made between 
 the northern continents and the southern continents, in 
 their most general characteristics, has convinced us, if 
 I do not deceive myself, that what distinguishes the 
 former is, not the wealth of nature and the abundance 
 of physical life, but the aptitude which their structure, 
 their situation, and their climate, give them, to minister 
 to the development of man, and to become thus the seat 
 of a life much superior to that of nature. The three 
 continents of the North, with their more perfect races, 
 their civilized people, have appeared as the historical 
 continents, which form, a marked contrast to those of 
 <*he South, with their inferior races and their savage 
 tribes. 
 
ASIA-EUROPE, THEATRE OF HISTORY. 273 
 
 Since this is the salient and distinguishing feature, 
 securing to them decidedly the first place, we shall 
 this evening proceed to study them more in detail as the 
 theatre of history. 
 
 We know beforehand, gentlemen, that the condition 
 of an active, complete development is the multiplicity 
 of the contrasts, of the differences, — springs of action 
 and reaction, of mutual exchanges exciting and mani- 
 festing life under a thousand diverse forms. To this 
 principle corresponds, in the organization of the animal, 
 the greater number of its special organs ; in the conti- 
 nents, the variety of the plastic forms of the soil, the 
 localization of the strongly characterized physical dis- 
 tricts, the nature of which stamps upon the people 
 inhabiting them a special seal, and makes them so many 
 complicated but distinct individuals. 
 
 The various combinations of grouping, of situation, 
 with regard to each other, placing them in a permanent 
 relation of friendship or hostility, of sympathy or of 
 antipathy, of peace or of war, of interchange of relig- 
 ions, of manners, of civilization, complete this work, 
 and give that impulse, that progressive movement, which 
 is the trait whereby the historical nations are recog- 
 nized. 
 
 We may, then, expect to see the great facts of the life 
 of the nations connect themselves essentially with these 
 differences of soil and climate, with these contrasts, that 
 nature herself presents in the interior of the continents, 
 and wfcose influence on the social development of man, 
 although variable according to the times, is no less evi- 
 dent ill all the periods of his history. 
 
274 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Let us commence our inquiry with the true theatre of 
 history — with Asia-Europe. 
 
 We have already had occasion to call attention to the 
 unity of plan exhibited in this great triangular mass, 
 which authorizes us to consider it as forming, in a nat- 
 ural point of view, a single continent, whose subdivisions 
 bear the imprint of only secondary differences. We 
 have also indicated, as the most remarkable trait of its 
 structure, that great dorsal ridge, composed of systems 
 of the loftiest mountains, traversing it from one end to 
 the other in the direction of the length, which may even 
 be regarded as the axis of the continent. It is, in fact, 
 on the two sides of this long line of more than 5,000 
 miles, on the north and south of the Himalaya, of the 
 Caucasus, ,of the Balkan, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, 
 that the high lands of the interior of the continent 
 extend. It splits Asia-Europe into two portions, unequal 
 in size, and differing from each other in their configura- 
 tion and' their climate. On the south, the areas are less 
 vast ; the lands are more indented, more detached — on 
 the whole, perhaps, more elevated; it is the maritime 
 zone of peninsulas. On the north, the great plains pre- 
 vail; the peninsulas are rare, or of slight importance, 
 the ground less varied. 
 
 But what chiefly distinguishes one of the two parts 
 from the other, what gives to each a peculiar nature, is 
 the climate. Those lofty barriers we have just named 
 almost everywhere separate the climates, as well as the 
 areas. The gradual elevation of the terraces towards 
 the south, up to this ridge of the continent, by prolong- 
 ing in the southern direction the frosts of the north, 
 
CONTRAST OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 275 
 
 augments still further, in Eastern Asia and in Europe, 
 the difference of temperature between their sides, and 
 renders it more sensible. Thus, almost everywhere, the 
 transition is abrupt, the two natures wide apart. These 
 high ridges arrest at once the icy winds of the poles, 
 and the softened breezes of the south, and separate their 
 domains. The Italian of our days, like the Roman of 
 former times, boasts of his blue sky and his mild climate, 
 and speaks with an ill-concealed contempt of the frosts 
 and the ice of the countries beyond the Alps. 
 
 To the father of the Grecian poets, to Homer, who 
 knows only the Ionian sky, the countries beyond the 
 Hsemus are the regions of darkness, where rugged 
 Boreas reigns supreme. At the northern foot of the 
 Caucasus, the dry steppes of the Manytsch are swept 
 by the frozen winds of the north ; on the south, the 
 warm and fertile plains of Georgia and of Imereth, feel 
 no longer their assaults. In Eastern Asia, finally, the 
 contrast is pushed to an extreme. The traveller, cross- 
 ing the lofty chain of the Himalaya, passes suddenly 
 from the polar climate of the high table lands of Tubet, 
 to the tropical heats and the rich nature of the plains of 
 the Indus and the Ganges. Yet, as we have said, this 
 great wall, which separates the North from the South, 
 is rent at several points. Between the Hindo-Khu and 
 the Caucasus, the depressed edge of the table land of 
 Khorasan, between the Caucasus and the Balkan, the 
 plains of the Black Sea and of the Danube, open wide 
 their gates to the winds and to the nations of the shores 
 of the Caspian and the Volga. Between the Pyrenees 
 and the Alps, the climates and the peoples of the South 
 penetrate into the North. 
 
276 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Thus two opposite regions are confronted, one on the 
 North, in the cool temperate zone, with its vast steppes 
 and desert table-lands, its rigorous climates, its intense 
 colds, its dry and starveling nature ; the other on the 
 South, in the warm temperate zone, with its beautiful 
 peninsulas, its fertile plains, its blue heavens and its soft 
 climate, its delicate fruits, its trees always green, its 
 lovely and smiling nature. 
 
 The contrast of these two natures cannot fail to have 
 a great influence on the peoples of the two regions. It 
 is repeated, from the history of the very earliest ages, in 
 the most remarkable manner. In the North the arid 
 table lands, the steppes, and the forests, condemn man 
 to the life of shepherds and hunters; the peoples are 
 nomadic and barbarous. In the South, the fruitful 
 plains and a more facile nature invite the peoples to 
 agriculture ; they form fixed establishments and become 
 civilized. Thus in the very interior of the historical con- 
 tinent we find a civilized and a barbarous world, placed 
 side by side. 
 
 Two worlds so different cannot remain in contact 
 without reacting upon each other. The conflict begins, 
 one might say, with history itself, and continues through- 
 out its entire duration ; there is scarcely one of the great 
 evolutions, particularly in Asia, not connected with this 
 incessant action and reaction of the North upon the 
 South, and of the South upon the North, of the bar- 
 barian world upon the civilized world. At all periods 
 we see torrents of barbarous nations of the North issuing 
 from their borders and flooding the regions of civilization 
 with their destroying waves. Like the boisterous and 
 
CONTRAST OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 277 
 
 icy winds of the regions they inhabit they come sud- 
 denly as the tempest, and overturn everything in their 
 way ; nothing resists their rage. But as after the storm 
 nature assumes a new strength, so the civilized nations, 
 enervated by too long prosperity, are restored to life and 
 youth by the mixture of these rough but vigorous chil- 
 dren of the North. Such is the spectacle presented by 
 the history of the great monarchies of Asia and of their 
 dynasties ; that of Europe is scarcely less fertile in strug- 
 gles of this kind. Some examples, which I proceed to 
 recall to your memory, will be enough to convince you 
 of the powerful influence of this contrast. 
 
 As far as the memorials of history ascend, it exhibits, 
 on the table land of Iran and in the neighboring plains 
 of Bactriana, one of the earliest civilized nations, the 
 ancient people of Zend. The Zendavesta, the sacred 
 book of their legislator, displays everywhere deep traces 
 of the conflict of Iran, of the southern region, of the light 
 of civilization — the Good — with the Turan, the coun- 
 tries of the North, the darkness, the barbarous peoples — 
 the Evil. Who can say that even the idea of this dual- 
 ism — of Good and Evil — which is the very foundation 
 of the religious philosophy of Zoroaster, is not, to a cer- 
 tain extent, the result of the hostile relations between two 
 countries so completely different ? Six centuries before 
 Christ, the barbarous Scythians come down from the 
 North, sweep like a whirlwind through the same gate of 
 the Khorasan upon the plateau of Iran, overrun the 
 flourishing kingdom of Media, and spread themselves as 
 far as Egypt. A whole generation was necessary to re- 
 store to Cyaxares his crown, and to efface the traces of 
 24 
 
278 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 this rude attack. In the eleventh century of our era,, the 
 Seldjouks Turks, descend from the heights of Bolor and 
 Turkestan, invade first Eastern Persia, overturn the 
 power of the Gaznevide Sultans, put an end to that of 
 the Caliphs, and lord it over Western Asia. But noth- 
 ing equals the tremendous shock caused through the 
 whole of Asia by the invasion of the Mongolians. Issu- 
 ing from their steppes and their deserts, under the con- 
 duct of the daring Gengis-Khan, the hero of his nation, 
 their ferocious hordes extend like a devastating torrent 
 from one end of Asia to another. Nothing withstands 
 their onset; even Europe itself is threatened by these 
 barbarians ; all Russia is subjected, and scarcely can the 
 assembled warriors of Germany drive them back from 
 their frontiers, and save the nascent civilization of the 
 West. China herself beholds a succession of conquerors 
 establish in the North a brilliant empire, and for the first 
 time the two Asias are subject to one and the same 
 dominant people. India alone had been spared ; she 
 yields before a fresh invasion, and Sultan Babur — who 
 already is no more a barbarian — founds, at the begin- 
 ning of the sixteenth century, the mighty Mongolian 
 Empire, which, in spite of its vicissitudes, has existed 
 down to our days, and has yielded only to the power of 
 the nations of civilized Europe. The history of China, 
 lastly, is crowded with the struggles of the civilized peo- 
 ple of the plain with the roving tribes of the neighbor- 
 ing table lands, and the last of these invasions, so 
 frequent, — that of the Manchou Tartars, — has given 
 to China its present rulers. 
 
 In Europe, the war of the North against the South, 
 
CONTRAST OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 279 
 
 though seemingly not so long continued, is not less 
 serious. Six centuries before our era, bands of Celts, 
 enticed by the attractions of the fertile countries of the 
 South, set forth from Gaul, under the lead of Bellovese 
 and Sigovese, cross the Alps, and proceed to establish 
 themselves in the smiling plains of the Po. Other bands 
 follow them thither, and found a new Gaul beyond the 
 Alps. These impetuous children of the North soon press 
 upon Etruria; and Rome, having drawn upon herself 
 their anger, suffers the penalty of her rashness. About 
 390 B. C, the city was burnt, and the future mistress of 
 the world well nigh perished in her cradle, by the strong 
 hand of the very men of the North whom she was des- 
 tined afterwards to subject to her laws. A century 
 later, these same Gauls, finding Rome victorious and 
 Italy shut against them, rush upon enervated Greece, 
 give her up to pillage, and, profaning the sacred temple 
 at Delphi, announce the fall of Hellas, and the last days 
 of her glory and her liberty. Another troop of these 
 bold adventurers cut their way into Asia Minor ; they 
 maintain themselves there, objects of terror in the land 
 that bears their name, to the very moment when the 
 power of Rome forced all the nations to bow beneath 
 her iron yoke. 
 
 A century before the birth of our Saviour, the men of 
 the North are again in motion. The Cimbri and the 
 Teutons appear at the gates of Italy, and spread terror 
 even to Rome herself. Forty years have scarce rolled 
 away when Rome, in her turn, assails the Northern 
 World. Caesar marches to conquer the Gauls, formerly 
 so terrible, and in the course of the ages, they are won 
 
280 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY". 
 
 to civilization. Thus, by the third gate which opens 
 the wall of separation, the Southern World penetrates 
 into that of the North. 
 
 But a still more earnest struggle then commences. 
 The Germans have preserved their native energy, and 
 are still free. Rome is declining, and, little by little, 
 the sources of life in that immense body are drying up. 
 The weaker it grows, the more the men of the North 
 press upon the mighty colossus, whose head is still of 
 iron, though its feet are of clay. It falls, for its own 
 happiness and that of humanity ; a new sap — the fresh 
 vitality of the Northmen — is to circulate through it ; 
 and soon shall it be born again, full of strength and life. 
 
 You see, gentlemen, from the beginning to the end of 
 history, the contrast of these two natures exercises its 
 mighty influence. The struggle between the peoples of 
 the two worlds is constant. In Asia it may be again 
 renewed, for nature there is unconquerable, and the con- 
 trast still exists. In Europe, the coarse struggle of brute 
 strength of the early days has ended, since, culture hav- 
 ing passed into the North, conquerors and conquered, 
 civilized men and barbarians, have melted down into 
 one and the same people, to rise to a civilization far 
 superior to the preceding. But we behold it reappear, 
 less material but not less evident, between the free and 
 intelligent thinker, and the Protestant of the North, and 
 the artistic, impassioned, superstitious, Catholic man of 
 the South. 
 
 Let us pass now to a second feature of the structure 
 of the continent Asia-Europe, which has almost as 
 much weight as that we have just discussed. 
 
CONTRAST OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 281 
 
 Long chains, extending from the north to the south, 
 in the direction of the meridians, the Bolor and Mt. Soli- 
 man, cut at right angles the great east-west axis. The 
 Bolor forms the western margin of the high central pla- 
 teau ; the Soliman, the eastern margin of the table land 
 of Iran ; — the one on the north, the other on the south ; 
 — so that these two solid masses touch each other at 
 their opposite angles, south-west and north-east. The 
 remarkable point where these high ranges intersect, and 
 the table land and the plains, lying outspread at their 
 feet, touch each other, is the Hindo-Khu. These feat- 
 ures of relief sever the continent into two parts, of 
 almost equal extent, but of very unequal importance ; 
 Eastern Asia on the one side, and Western Asia and 
 Europe on the other — the Mongolian races, and the 
 White races. 
 
 This separation is so deeply marked in nature and in 
 the nations, that even the ancients, with the practical 
 sense belonging to them, made a division of Asia intra 
 Imaum, and Asia extra Imaum; that is, Asia this side 
 and Asia beyond the Bolor and the Hindo-Khu; as they 
 also divided the North and the South into Scythia — 
 Nomadic Asia — and Asia proper, or civilized Asia. 
 
 Eastern Asia forms, in fact, a continent by itself 
 alone. A vast pile of highlands, a plateau in the form 
 of a trapezium, occupies the entire centre, and forms the 
 principal mass. It seems to invade everything; ; t is the 
 prominent feature, and gives a distinctive physiognomy 
 to the continent. It is surrounded on all sides by lofty 
 ranges capped with snow, which seem, like towering 
 ramparts, to guard it from attack, and to isolate it on 
 24* 
 
282 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 every side. On the south the Himalaya, on the west 
 the Bolor, on the north the Altai, on the east the Khin- 
 gan, and the Yun-Ling, form an almost unbroken 
 enclosure, whose detached summits belong to the lof- 
 tiest mountains of the earth. A small number of 
 natural entrances lead to the interior, or give an exit 
 from it. The only gate that offers some facility is Zun- 
 gary, between the Thian-Shan and the Altai; every- 
 where else, high and frozen passes. 
 
 The interior of this vast enclosure is cut by numerous 
 chains, the highest of which — those of theKuenlun on 
 the south, and of the Thian-Shan on the north — are 
 parallel to the Himalaya and the Altai, and divide the 
 ground into several basins, or high bottoms. In all this 
 extent, no fertile and easily cultivated plain; every- 
 where stretch the steppes, a dry and cold desert, or 
 seas of drifting sand. Nevertheless, a considerable 
 depression in Eastern Turkestan, where the Tarim 
 flows, and whose bottom is marked by Lake Lop, 
 allows the cultivation of the vine and the cotton tree at 
 the foot of the Thian-Shan ; but this is an exception. 
 Apart from some privileged localities, nature here per- 
 mits no regular tillage, and dooms the tribes of these 
 regions to the life of shepherds and herdsmen, — the 
 nomadic life. 
 
 Around this central mass, towards the four winds of 
 heaven, extend at its feet broad and low plains, watered 
 by the rivers pouring down from its heights, which 
 rank among the largest in the world. On the north is 
 the most extensive but the least important, the frozen 
 «tnd barren plain of Siberia, with the streams of the 
 
EASTERN ASIA. 
 
 283 
 
 Obi, the Jenisey, the Lenaf on the east the low 
 country of China, where meet and unite the two giant 
 rivers of the Old World — those two twin rivers, which, 
 born in the same cradle, flow on to die in the same 
 ocean. On the south, the plain of Hindoostan, moist- 
 ened by the fresh and abundant waters of the Himalaya, 
 and the sacred streams of the Indus and the Ganges ; 
 on the west, finally, the plain of Turan, with the two 
 rivers of Gihon and Sihon, and its salt seas, to which 
 Western Asia already lays claim. In these plains, 
 with fruitful alluvial soil, and on the banks of these 
 blessed rivers, were developed the earliest, almost the 
 only, civilized nations belonging to this continent. But 
 the warm and maritime region of the East and the 
 South, connected with the rich peninsulas of India, is 
 by far the most favored of all. China and India, there- 
 fore, have given birth to the two great cultivated nations 
 of Eastern Asia. 
 
 Nevertheless, as the great central ridge swerves 
 obliquely towards the south, this warm and fortunate 
 region forms only a narrow strip, not to be compared 
 in extent with the cold, and sterile, and barbarous 
 world of the North. This predominates, and decides its 
 character. 
 
 Such are the distinctive features of Eastern Asia. 
 What strikes us, in this world of the remotest East, is 
 its gigantic proportions. The loftiest mountains of the 
 earth, the most massive table lands, the most extensive 
 plains, peninsulas which are small continents, rivers 
 that have no rivals in the Old World, give it a char- 
 acter of grandeur and majesty not elseAvhere to be found. 
 
284 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 But, it is easily understood, nowhere are the differences 
 also so strongly drawn, so huge, so invincible. No- 
 where is the contrast between the high lands and the 
 low lands, between the heat and the cold, between the 
 moisture and the dryness, abundance and sterility, 
 presented on so vast a scale. See, by the side of the 
 low, burning, and productive plains of Hindoostan, ten 
 or fifteen thousand feet higher up, the cold and arid 
 highland plain of Tubet and Tangout ; by the side of 
 China and its populous cities, the elevated deserts and 
 the tents of the nomads of Mongolia. The differences 
 are everywhere pushed to their utmost limit. 
 
 Furthermore — and this characteristic completes the 
 picture — the communications from one region to another 
 are always difficult. One thoroughfare alone, the valley 
 of the Peschawer, leads from Persia to India, and has 
 been the highway of all the conquerors, from Alexandei 
 to Babur and to the English. No practicable road for 
 armies or for regular commerce unites India and China ; 
 the peninsulas communicate only by sea. The passes 
 of the Himalaya are at an elevation of from ten to 
 eighteen thousand feet ; those of the Bolor are frozen in 
 the middle of summer. At all times, the passage of the 
 plateau is a difficult and tedious undertaking, and at 
 certain points almost impossible. 
 
 Eastern Asia is, then, preeminently, the country 
 of contrasts, of isolated and strongly characterized 
 regions ; for each forms a world apart, and is sufficient 
 unto itself. 
 
 What must be the effect of this strong and massive 
 
EASTERN ASIA. 
 
 285 
 
 nature upon the nations who live under its influence, 
 history will inform us. 
 
 As Eastern Asia has a physical nature belonging 
 especially to itself, so it has a particular race of men — 
 the Mongolian race. We have already pointed out the 
 external characteristics of the Mongolian family. With 
 it, the melancholic temperament seems to prevail; the 
 intellect, moderate in range, exercises itself upon the 
 details, but never rises to the general ideas or high 
 speculations of science and philosophy. Ingenious, 
 inventive, full of sagacity for the useful arts and the 
 conveniences of life, the Mongolian, nevertheless, is 
 incompetent to generalize their application. Wholly 
 turned to the things of earth, the world of ideas, the 
 spiritual world, seems closed against him. His entire 
 philosophy and religion are reduced to a code of social 
 morals limited to the expression of those principles of 
 human conscience, without the observance of which 
 society is impossible. 
 
 The principal seat of the Mongolian race is the 
 central table land of Asia. The roaming life and the 
 patriarchal form of their societies are the necessary 
 consequence of the sterile and arid nature of the regions 
 they inhabit. In this social state, the relations and the 
 ties which unite the individuals of the same nation are 
 imposed by kindred, by birth ; that is, by nature. As- 
 sociation is compulsory, not of free consent, as in more 
 improved societies. Thus, the greater part of Eastern 
 Asia seems doomed to remain in this inferior state of 
 culture; for the whole North — Siberia and its vast 
 
286 COMPARATIVE PHYISCAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 areas — is scarcely more suited to favor the unfolding of 
 a superior nature. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the warm and maritime zone, in the 
 fertile and happy plains of China and India, along 
 those rivers which support life and abundance on their 
 banks, nations, invited by so many advantages, estab- 
 lish themselves and fix their dwelling-places. Their 
 number soon augments ; they demand their support 
 from the soil, which an easy tillage yields them in 
 abundance. They become husbandmen ; cultivated so- 
 cieties are formed ; civilization rises to a height unknown 
 to the tribes of the table land. 
 
 The Chinese, of Mongolian race, preserves, even in 
 his civilization, the character as well as the social prin- 
 ciple stamped upon his race by nature — the patriarchal 
 form. The whole nation is a large family ; the Em- 
 peror is the father of the family, whose absolute, des- 
 potic, but benevolent power governs all things by his 
 will alone. China, then, in the order of civilized 
 nations, is the purest representative of Eastern Asia, 
 and shows to what point the patriarchal principle of 
 the earliest communities is compatible with a higher 
 cultivation. 
 
 In India, the nations of the white race, sprung from 
 the West, have founded a civilization wholly different, 
 the character of which is explained at once by the 
 primitive qualities of the race and the climate. 
 
 Endowed with a higher intelligence, with a power of 
 generalization, with a profound religious sentiment, the 
 Hindoo is the opposite of the Chinese ; for him the 
 invisible world, unknown to the Chinese, alone seems to 
 
EASTERN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 287 
 
 exist. But the influence of the climate of the tropics 
 gives to the intuitive faculties an exaggerated. preponder- 
 ance over the active faculties. The real, positive world 
 disappears from his eyes. Thus, in his literature, so 
 rich in works of high philosophy, of poetry and religion, 
 we seek in vain for the annals of his history, cr any 
 treatise on science, any of those collections of observa- 
 tions so numerous among the Chinese. In spite of these 
 defects the Hindoo civilization, compared to that of 
 China, bears a character of superiority, which betrays 
 its noble origin. It is the civilization of the western 
 races transported and placed under the influence of the 
 East. 
 
 But there is one characteristic common to all these 
 civilizations of the uttermost East, deserving our par- 
 ticular attention. Born in the earliest ages of the world, 
 (for without admitting — far from it — the fabulous an- 
 tiquity their own traditions assign them, we may regard 
 them as belonging to the most ancient in the world,) 
 they seem to grow rapidly at first, and at the remotest 
 period recorded by history they have already acquired 
 the degree of development and all the leading features 
 that distinguish them at the present day. Nearly 
 fifteen hundred years before Christ — others say two 
 thousand — India already possessed the Vedas — those 
 religious and philosophical works, which already sup- 
 pose a high culture and its accompanying social state. 
 Alexander finds it flourishing and brilliant still, but 
 little changed ; the description the historians of his con- 
 quests have left, is true of modern India when invaded 
 by the English. As much may be said of China, whose 
 
288 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 existing condition seems to present the same essential 
 features we know it to have possessed from a time long 
 before our era. Thus, these nations offer the astonishing 
 spectacle of civilized communities remaining perfectly- 
 stationary. Three thousand years of existence have 
 made no essential change in their condition, have taught 
 them nothing, have brought about no real progress, have 
 developed none of those great ideas, which effect a com- 
 plete transformation in the life of nations. They are, as 
 it were, stereotyped. 
 
 What, then, has been wanting to these peoples, that 
 they have not been favored with a further progress? 
 Why do they all stop short in the career they have 
 entered upon in so brilliant a manner — even the Hin- 
 doos of noble race — of the race eminently progressive ? 
 
 What has been wanting to the communities of East- 
 ern Asia, gentlemen, is the possibility of actions and 
 reactions upon each other, more intimate, more perma- 
 nent ; it is the possibility of a common life. 
 
 These nations are too isolated by nature, too opposite 
 in race and character, to be able to blend in one com- 
 mon civilization. The Hindoos are separated from 
 China by the snowy terraces of the Himalaya, and of 
 the Yun-Nan; from Western Asia, by the high table 
 lands of Caboul. These forms of relief are too huge ; 
 the contrasts resulting from them are too violent ; they 
 are unconquerable by man. Meantime, each of these 
 rich districts may suffice, of itself alone, for a beautiful 
 career of improvement, but each of these peoples fur- 
 nishes but a single type. In their isolation, their excel- 
 lences, as well as their defects, run into excess ; nothing 
 
WESTERN ASIA AND EUROPE. 
 
 289 
 
 tempers or corrects them ; their character is more indi- 
 vidual. Such is the strength of these civilizations, that 
 clouds of conquerors are successively absorbed, without 
 modifying them, almost without leaving a trace behind. 
 
 But individuality is here carried to egoism. Of this 
 very isolation which causes their inferiority, and kills 
 all progress, they make a conservative principle. The 
 Hindoo cannot leave his country except by sea; the 
 Vedas forbid it under pain of pollution. Japan and 
 China obstinately close their borders against all the 
 nations of Europe, and it is only at the cannon's mouth 
 that the English have opened the gates so long shut, 
 and forced them to the life of interchange which will 
 restore them to progress and vitality. Thus, while 
 everything around them is advancing, India and China 
 have remained stationary. For it is not given to one 
 people alone, any more than to one individual alone, to 
 run through the whole compass of the scale of human 
 progress, by themselves and without the aid of their 
 brethren. Eastern Asia is, then, the continent of ex- 
 treme contrasts and of isolated regions ; of races essen- 
 tially Mongolian ; of stationary civilizations ; of the 
 semi-historical nations. It is not there that the work 
 of the development of humanity can be achieved. 
 
 The second half of the Old World, in the temperate 
 region, Western Asia and Europe, forms another whole, 
 wherein we are able to point out several common char- 
 acteristics. Besides the division into a North and a 
 South, on the two sides of the continental axis, the most 
 salient feature is the long table land of Iran, stretching 
 uninterruptedly from India to the extremity of Asia 
 25 
 
290 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Minor, and even prolonging itself, without losing its 
 nature, across the peninsulas of the Mediterranean, as 
 far as Spain. 
 
 From one end of these regions to the other, nature 
 wears a character of uniformity. Everywhere the same 
 cretaceous and jurassic limestone deposits form the 
 greater part of the ground ; everywhere volcanoes rise 
 from the earth, and shake it with their convulsions. 
 The climate, also, is alike ; for in Asia a more southern 
 latitude is counterbalanced by a greater elevation of the 
 plateaus. The flora is analogous ; the cultivated plants, 
 the fruits, the domestic animals, are the same, with the 
 exception of the camel of the desert, useless to Europe. 
 Finally, the white Caucasian race, the most noble, the 
 most intellectual of the human species, and all the nations 
 of progressive civilization, dwell there. If we add Egypt 
 and the vicinage of the Atlas, which belong to the Medi- 
 terranean, it is the true theatre of history, in the proper 
 meaning of that word. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of this real community of char- 
 acteristics, it is easy to detect, in Western Asia and 
 Europe, certain differences not less important, that force 
 us to consider them still as two distinct continents. 
 
 In Europe, in the southern zone, the plateau loses its 
 continuity, and splits into peninsulas. In the northern 
 zone, the arid steppes and the deserts are changed 
 beyond the Oural into a fertile soil, more elevated, well 
 watered, covered with forests, and susceptible of cultiva- 
 tion. The areas become gradually smaller, and the 
 whole continent is only a great peninsula, of which the 
 headland turning towards the west juts out into the 
 
WESTERN ASIA. 
 
 291 
 
 ocean. The north-east direction of the continental axis 
 crowding the lands further north, and the influence of 
 the ocean, give it a wetter and more temperate climate. 
 Let us further examine these two portions of Asia- 
 Europe, considered in the historical point of view. 
 
 Western Asia is placed in the middle portion of the 
 continent Asia-Europe, between the two extremes. Like 
 Eastern Asia, it has for its centre and prominent feat- 
 ure, a table land encircled with mountains, the plateau 
 of Iran and of Asia Minor ; but it is narrower, more 
 elongated. The mountain chains are less elevated, less 
 continuous. The mountains of Kurdistan and of the 
 Taurus, which edge it on the south, attain a height of 
 ten or twelve thousand feet only at a few points. The 
 higher mountains, as the Ararat, are isolated, or form 
 a chain, detached from the mass, like the Caucasus. 
 We have already said that the north-east side is low 
 and entirely open. The deep valley of Peschawer cuts 
 its eastern side, and opens a passage towards India. 
 Not only is this plateau more accessible than that of 
 Eastern Asia, by reason of these forms of relief, but, 
 very different from the latter, which is far from any 
 ocean, it is bathed at its very feet, on the four corners, 
 by inland seas, that are so many new outlets. On the 
 south, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Medi- 
 terranean; on the north, the Caspian and the Black 
 Sea. 
 
 Low and fertile plains, watered by twin streams, 
 stretch at the foot of the table land of Iran. On the 
 south, the plain of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the 
 unequalled fertility whereof ceases with the rich allu- 
 
292 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 vial lands of those rivers; on the north, the no less 
 happy plains of Bactriana, watered by the Gihon and 
 the Sihon. Beyond these lifegiving rivers, the steppes 
 of the deserts establish their empire. 
 
 The climate of Western Asia no longer offers those 
 extreme contrasts which strike us in Eastern Asia. The 
 plateau is on the south of the central ridge, and not on 
 the north, and enjoys a favored climate. It is less dry, 
 more fertile ; the desert there is less continuous ; these 
 southern plains are not under the tropics ; the difference 
 between the plain and the table land is softened. 
 
 The true Western Asia, the Asia of history, is reduced 
 thus to a plateau flanked by two plains. Add the Soris- 
 tan, which connects it with Egypt and this last-men- 
 tioned country, and you will have all the great coun- 
 tries of civilization at the centre of this continent: on 
 the north, the nomads of the steppes of the Caspian ; on 
 the south, the nomads of Arabia and its deserts form the 
 natural limits of the civilized world of these countries. 
 Compared with the East, the areas are less vast, the 
 reliefs less elevated, the nature less continental — not- 
 withstanding its more central position — the contrasts 
 less strongly pronounced, the whole more accessible. 
 
 Here, as we have said, is the original country of the 
 white race, the most perfect in body and mind. If we 
 take tradition for our guide, and follow step by step the 
 march of the primitive nations, as we ascend to their 
 point of departure, they irresistibly lead us to the very 
 centre of this plateau. Now, in this central part also, 
 in Upper Armenia and in Persia, if you remember, we 
 find the purest type of the historical nations. Thence 
 
CONTRAST OF EAST AND WEST. 
 
 293 
 
 we behold them descend into the arable plains, and 
 spread towards all the quarters of the horizon. The 
 ancient people of Assyria and Babylonia pass down the 
 Euphrates and the Tigris into the plains of the South, 
 and there unfold, perhaps the most ancient of all human 
 civilization. First, the Zend nation dwells along the 
 Araxes, then, by the road of the plateau, proceeds to 
 found, in the plains of the Oxus, one of the most remark- 
 able and the most mysterious of the primitive commu- 
 nities of Asia. A branch of the same people, or a kin- 
 dred people — the intimate connection of their language 
 confirms it — comes down into India, and there puts forth 
 that brilliant and flourishing civilization of the Brah- 
 mins, of which we have already spoken. Arabia and 
 the North of Africa receive their inhabitants by Soris- 
 tan ; South Europe, perhaps, by the same routes, through 
 Asia Minor; the North, finally, through the Caucasus, 
 whence issue, in succession, the Celts, the Germans, and 
 many other tribes, who hold in reserve their native 
 vigor for the future destinies of this continent. There 
 then is the cradle of the white race at least — of the 
 historical people — if it is not that of all mankind. 
 
 The civilizations of Western Asia also, as well as 
 those of Eastern Asia, spring up in the alluvial plains 
 which are easily tilled, and alike connect themselves 
 with the great rivers, and not, as in Europe, with the 
 seas. The plains of Babylonia and of Bactriana are 
 continental, and not maritime, like India and China. 
 The contrasts of nature are still strongly expressed, but 
 yet less so than in the East. There are still vast spaces, 
 and consequently vast states. The religions, the polit- 
 25* 
 
294 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 ical and social condition of the people, still betray the 
 influence of a nature man has not yet succeeded in 
 overmastering. 
 
 The civilizations are still local, and each has its special 
 principle : and yet there is no more of isolation. The 
 accessible nature of all these regions, as we have seen, 
 makes contact easy, and facilitates their action upon 
 each other ; a blending is possible, and it takes place. 
 The formation of great monarchies, embracing the 
 whole of Western Asia, from India to Asia Minor, from 
 the steppes of Turan to the deserts of Arabia, is a fact 
 renewed at every period of their history. Assyria, 
 Babylonia, Persia, reunite successively under the do- 
 minion of the same conqueror all these various nations. 
 But no one knew so well as Alexander how to break 
 down all the fences that kept them apart. The lofty 
 idea which reigned in the mind of that great conqueror, 
 that of fusing together the East and the West, carried 
 with it the ruin of the special civilizations of the East 
 and the universal communication of Hellenic culture, 
 which should combine them in one spirit, and drew the 
 whole of that part of the world into the progressive 
 movement Greece herself had impressed on the countries 
 of the West. 
 
 Egypt, alone, in her isolation, represents, up to a cer- 
 tain point, the nature of Eastern Asia. Yet she, too, 
 was compelled to yield to the social and progressive 
 spirit of Greece, which soon brought her into the circle 
 of relations with the nations of the West. 
 
 Thus the people and the civilizations of Western Asia 
 were saved from the isolation and egoism so fatal 
 
EUROPE FITTED FOR IMPROVEMENT OF MAN. 295 
 
 to China and to India. They perished in appearance, 
 but it was only to sow among the very nations who 
 were their conquerors, the prolific seeds of a fairer 
 growth, whereof the future should gather the fruits. 
 
 Europe, in her turn, has a character quite special, 
 whose principal features we have already pointed out. 
 Although constructed upon the same fundamental plan 
 with the two Asias, it is only the peninsular head- 
 land of all this continent. Here are no more of those 
 gigantesque forms of Eastern Asia, no more of those 
 boundless spaces, no more of those obstacles against 
 which the forces of man are powerless, of those contrasts 
 that sunder the opposite natures, even to incompatibil- 
 ity. The areas contract and shrink ; the plateaus and 
 the mountains are lowered ; the continent opens on all 
 sides. None of those mortal deserts to cross, none of 
 those impassable mountain chains, which imprison the 
 nations. From the foot of Italy to the head of Cape 
 North, from the coasts of the Atlantic to the shores of 
 the Caspian, there is no obstacle a little art may not 
 overcome without much effort. The whole continent 
 is more accessible ; it seems more wieldy, better fashioned 
 for man. 
 
 And yet, gentlemen, all the contrasts of both Asias 
 exist, but they are softened, tempered. There is a 
 Northern World, and a Southern World, but they are 
 less different, less hostile ; their climates are more alike. 
 Instead of the tropical plains of India, we find there the 
 fields of Lombardy ; instead of the Himalaya, the Alps ; 
 instead of the plateaus of Tubet, those of Bavaria. The 
 contrasts are even more varied, more numerous still. 
 
296 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 The table land of the South is broken up into peninsulas 
 and islands ; Greece and its archipelago, Italy and its 
 isles, Spain and its sierras, are so many new individuals, 
 exciting each other reciprocally to animation. The 
 ground is everywhere cut and crossed by chains of 
 mountains, moulded in a thousand fashions, in such 
 a way as to present, within the smallest possible 
 space, the greatest number of districts physically inde- 
 pendent. 
 
 Add to all these advantages that of a temperate cli- 
 mate, rather cold than hot, requiring of men more labor 
 and effort, and you will be satisfied that nature is no- 
 where better suited to lift man by the exertion of his 
 powers to the grandeur of his destination. 
 
 Nevertheless, the earliest civilized societies do not 
 spring up in Europe ; she is too far removed from 
 the cradle of the nations, and the beginnings are 
 less easy there. But these first difficulties once over- 
 come, civilization grows and prospers with a vigor 
 unknown to Asia. In Asia it is in the great plains, 
 on the banks of the rivers, that civilization first shows 
 itself. In Europe, it is on the peninsulas and the margin 
 of the seas. 
 
 Europe is thus the most favored continent, considered 
 with respect to the education of man, and the wise 
 discipline it exercises upon him. More than any other 
 it calls into full play his latent forces, which cannot 
 appear and display themselves, except by their own 
 activity. Nowhere can man better learn to subdue 
 nature, and make her minister to his ends. No con- 
 tinent is more fitted, by the multiplicity of the physical 
 
AMERICA. 
 
 297 
 
 regions it presents, to bring into being, and to raise up 
 so many different nations and peoples. 
 
 But it is not alone for the individual education of 
 each people that Europe excels; it is still more ad- 
 mirably adapted than any other continent to favor 
 the common relations of the countries with each other ; 
 to increase their reciprocal influence, to stimulate them 
 to mutual intercourse. The smallness of the areas, 
 the near neighborhood, the midland seas thick strown 
 with islands, the permeability of the entire continent 
 — pardon me the word — everything conspires to estab- 
 lish between the European nations that community 
 of life and of civilization which forms one of the 
 most essential and precious characteristics of their 
 social state. 
 
 America, finally, the third continent of the North, 
 presents itself to us under an aspect entirely different. 
 We are already acquainted with its structure, founded 
 on a plan widely departing from that of Asia-Europe ; 
 we know that its characteristic is simplicity, unity. 
 Add to this feature its vast extents, its fruitful plains, 
 its numberless rivers, the prodigious facility of com- 
 munication, nowhere impeded by serious obstacles, its 
 oceanic position, finally, and we shall see that it is 
 made, not to give birth and growth to a new civiliza- 
 tion, but to receive one ready-made, and to furnish forth 
 for man, whose education the Old World has completed, 
 the most magnificent theatre, the scene most worthy 
 of his activity. It is here that all the peoples of Europe 
 may meet together, with room enough to move in ; 
 may commingle their efforts and their gifts, and carry 
 
298 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 out, upon a scale of grandeur hitherto unknown, the 
 life-giving principle of modern times — the principle of 
 free association. 
 
 The internal contrasts which assisted the development 
 of the nations in their infancy and youth, exist not 
 here ; they would be useless. They are reduced to two 
 general contrasts, which will preserve their importance ; 
 the sea-shore and midland on the one side, and the 
 North and the South on the other. The last will be fur- 
 ther softened down, when slavery, that fatal heritage of 
 another age, which the Union stills drags after it, as the 
 convict drags his chain and ball, shall have disap- 
 peared from this free soil, freed in the name of liberty and 
 Christian brotherhood, as it has disappeared from the 
 fundamental principles of its law. 
 
 Thus America also seems invited, by its physical 
 nature and by its position, to play a part in the history 
 of humanity, very different indeed from that of Asia 
 and Europe, but not less glorious, not less useful to all 
 mankind. 
 
LECTUKE XII. 
 
 Geographical march of history — Asia the cradle of civilization — 
 Common character of the primitive nations — Powerful influence of 
 nature — The human race in its infancy lives under authority, which 
 becomes slavery — Civilization passes to Europe — Greece; period of 
 youth; emancipation, and intellectual and moral development ; action 
 on the East and West; the Greek the teacher of the world — Rome; 
 her work, political and social — Inability of the Ancient World to 
 attain the end of humanity — Coming of Christ ; his doctrines new in 
 a historical point of view — The Germanic Christian world begins 
 their application — Civilization passes to the North, and embraces all 
 Europe ; its different phases — Europe owes it to the rest of the world 
 — Discovery of America — Universal inroad of the civilized nations — 
 Social work begun at the same time — America must finish it — The 
 people of the future; by ivhat signs recognized — Conclusions — Fore- 
 seen solution of the contrast of the three Northern continents and the 
 three Southern — Duties of the privileged races towards the inferior — 
 A few words upon the method pursued — Science and faith. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 The examination we have made of the structure of 
 the northern continents, considered in respect of the 
 influence they exercise through their physical nature 
 upon the condition of human societies, enables us to 
 judge in advance that they are formed to act different 
 parts in the education of mankind. It remains to be 
 seen whether the course of history will confirm these 
 anticipations. Now, if we find a real concordance, a 
 harmony between these two orders of facts, we may 
 
300 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 fearlessly assert that these differences of physical organi- 
 zation were intentional, and prepared for this end by 
 Him who controls the destinies of the world. 
 
 The first glance we cast upon the annals of the 
 nations, enables us to perceive a singular but incon- 
 testable fact, that the civilizations representing the 
 highest degree of culture ever attained by man, at the 
 different periods of his history, do not succeed each 
 other in the same places, but pass from one country to 
 another, from one continent to another, following a 
 certain order. This order may be called the geograph- 
 ical march of history. We now proceed to set this forth 
 by a rapid review of the great phases through which 
 human societies have passed in their gradual improve- 
 ment. 
 
 Asia, the country of the superior races, Western Asia, 
 above all, the country of the white race, of the historical 
 race, is also the cradle of the earliest civilized commu- 
 nities whose existence is commemorated by history. 
 
 Tradition universally represents the earliest men 
 descending, it is true, from the high table lands of this 
 continent ; but it is in the low and fertile plains lying at 
 their feet, with which we are already acquainted, that 
 they unite themselves for the first time in national 
 bodies, in tribes, with fixed habitations ; devoting them- 
 selves to husbandry, building cities, cultivating the arts : 
 in a word, forming well-regulated societies. The tradi- 
 tions of the Chinese place the first progenitors of that 
 people on the high table land, whence the great rivers 
 flow; they make them advance, station by station, as 
 far as the shores of the ocean. The people of the 
 
ASIA, THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION.- 301 
 
 Brahmins come down from the regions of the Hindo- 
 Khu, and from Cashmere, into the plains of the Indus 
 and the Ganges; Assyria and Bactriana receive their 
 inhabitants from the table lands of Armenia and Persia. 
 
 These alluvial plains, watered by their twin rivers, 
 were better formed than all other countries of the globe, 
 tq render the first steps of man, an infant still, easy in 
 the career of civilized life. A rich soil, on which over- 
 flowing rivers spread every year a fruitful loam, as in 
 Egypt, and one where the plough is almost useless, so 
 movable and so easily tilled is it, a warm climate, 
 finally, secure to the inhabitants of these fortunate 
 regions plentiful harvests in return for light labor. 
 Nevertheless, the conflict with the river itself and with 
 the desert, which, on the banks of the Euphrates, as on 
 those of the Nile and the Indus, is ever threatening to 
 invade the cultivated lands, the necessity of irrigation, 
 the inconstancy of the seasons, keep forethought alive 
 and give birth to the useful arts and to the sciences of 
 observation. The abundance of resources, the absence 
 of every obstacle, of all separation between the different 
 parts of these vast plains, allow the aggregation of a 
 great number of men upon one and the same space, 
 and facilitate the formation of those mighty primitive 
 states which amaze us by the grandeur of their propor- 
 tions. 
 
 Each of them finds upon its own soil all that is neces- 
 sary for a brilliant exhibition of its resources. We see 
 those nations come rapidly forward and reach in the 
 remotest antiquity a degree of culture, of which the 
 temples and the monuments of Egypt and of India, and 
 26 
 
302 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 the recently discovered palaces of Nineveh, are living 
 and glorious witnesses. 
 
 Great nations, then, are separately formed in each of 
 these areas, circumscribed by nature within natural 
 limits. Each has its religion, its social principles, its 
 civilization severally. But nature, as we have seen, 
 has separated them; little intercourse is established 
 between them ; the social principle on which they are 
 founded is exhausted by the very formation of the social 
 state they enjoy, and is never renewed. A common 
 life is wanting to them ; they do not reciprocally share 
 with each other their riches. With them movement 
 is stopped; everything becomes stable and tends to 
 remain stationary. 
 
 Meantime, in spite of the peculiar seal impressed on 
 each of these Oriental nations by the natural conditions 
 in the midst of which they live, they have, neverthe- 
 less, some grand characteristics common to all, some 
 family traits that betray the nature of the continent 
 and the period of human progress to which they be- 
 long, making them known on the one side as Asiatic, 
 and on the other side as primitive. 
 
 The causes of this phenomenon are at once of a moral 
 nature and of a physical nature. 
 
 Man is still in the period of infancy, and infancy must 
 needs be trained under the authority of a law which 
 guides his first steps. Even by virtue of an inward 
 nature, of a moral nature reflecting the divine image of 
 his Maker, he cannot grow up to complete development, 
 to his perfect stature, except by fulfilling the will of 
 Him who calls him to such lofty destinies. This will 
 
INFANCY OF MANKIND. 
 
 303 
 
 is the supreme good; all that departs from it is evil. 
 Man created free must fulfil it freely, and with con- 
 sciousness of its excellence; but this very liberty, the 
 most infallible sign of the nobleness of his nature, con- 
 ceals the danger of a fearful fall. This liberty led the 
 men of the earliest times on to that pitch of wickedness 
 which rendered necessary the first great catastrophe of 
 the human race, that earliest great punishment of the 
 Flood, of which all nations, even the most barbarous, 
 have preserved an appalling memory. Above all things 
 it is the duty of man, if the work of his discipline is not 
 to stop short of its end, to learn his dependence upon the 
 Judge of good and of evil ; to learn that saving fear of 
 God which is the beginning of wisdom, and which alone 
 can regulate the employment of his liberty, and hinder 
 him from surrendering himself to the irregular inclina- 
 tions of his finite nature. Now, God had revealed 
 himself to man ; had made known to him his will, and 
 pointed out the path which he ought to have followed. 
 The Creator himself condescended to guide the steps of 
 the creature upon the long journey he had to travel. 
 This is what the Bible tells us ; this is confirmed by 
 the vague memorials of all the primitive nations, whose 
 oldest traditions, those antecedent to the philosophical 
 Theogonies prevalent at a later period, and giving them 
 their specific character, contain always some disfigured 
 fragment of this divine history. 
 
 But man soon became unfaithful ; like a true prodigal 
 son, he abandoned the benevolent Father, under whose 
 protection he was living ; he cast off the yoke easy to 
 bear ; he forgot the living God who had been revealed 
 
304 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 to him, and, submitting to the lower instincts of his 
 being, he fell under the power of nature. 
 
 Recall, meantime, to your minds, gentlemen, all that 
 we have learned of the stupendous and massive forms 
 of that Oriental nature, of its insuperable contrasts, of 
 its climate, tropical in India and in a part of China, 
 very hot still on the banks of the Euphrates and the 
 Nile; of that physical vigor which the Old World 
 displays upon all the points favored by the copiousness 
 of the waters, and you will understand that man, a 
 child still, brought into the presence of such a power, 
 must have felt himself, not merely a dependent, but 
 a slave. The river he looks to for the fertility of 
 the soil that feeds him — the animal, the plant, that 
 minister to his wants — the sun, above all, that bright orb 
 which reigns over nature, and in alternate march seems 
 to dispense either life or death at his will — everything 
 becomes to him an object of worship. He acknowledges 
 the powers of nature as his gods, to whose mercy he feels 
 himself to be committed, and accepts for his supreme rule 
 the inflexible law that governs the heavenly bodies. He 
 is falling from the world of liberty into that of necessity. 
 
 After this, what reason is there to be astonished that 
 everything in those ancient civilizations bears the impress 
 of the subjection of human liberty to the yoke of nature? 
 All the religions, however varied they may otherwise 
 appear, are the worship of the heavenly hosts. The 
 immutable, blind laws of necessity, regulating the courses 
 of the celestial bodies and the life of nature, these are 
 the gods of the early East ; inflexible, despotic, unloving, 
 inexorable. 
 
MAN ENSLAVED BY NATURE. 
 
 305 
 
 There all science appears as traditional. Man attains 
 not to the light by his own activity. The truth is not 
 the recompense of his efforts, of his progress, of the free 
 unfolding of his faculties. It is transmitted to him 
 already prepared from elsewhere. 
 
 In social life, casts, separated by insurmountable bar- 
 riers consecrated by religion itself; or, in the patriarchal 
 state, domestic relations, imposed by nature, restrain the 
 free movement of the human faculties. 
 
 In political life, absolute monarchy, the entire organi- 
 zation of which is only the earthly image of the great 
 Celestial Court of the Sun and his retinue, and of which 
 the chief, representative of the Deity himself, is clothed 
 with an unlimited power like him, and like him pro- 
 nounces irrevocable decrees. 
 
 Such are the features common to all the civilized com- 
 munities of the early East ; one people alone forms an 
 exception, — poor and insignificant in appearance, but 
 great in its destinies ; — it is the Jewish people, the 
 people of God. In the midst of the defection of all the 
 nations, they received the glorious mission of preserving 
 in the world the knowledge of the only personal, living, 
 and true God. Placed under His law, they would have 
 been able to show, had they remained always faithful, 
 what man might have become under the paternal gov- 
 ernment of his Creator; but their history is scarcely 
 anything but that of disobedience and chastisement, and 
 it enables us the better to see that at this first period of 
 his development, man is under the law, and not under 
 the economy of grace and liberty. 
 
 During the long centuries of these first ages, man has 
 26* 
 
306 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 therefore learned but one thing, that he depends on the 
 will of a master, but that master is an inexorable despot, 
 devoid of love. He can only fear him ; if he obeys him, 
 it is as a slave ; he loves him not, nor adores him, for 
 love presupposes liberty. 
 
 Man cannot, gentlemen, remain thus. A cry of liberty 
 makes itself heard; it reechoes to the depths of that East 
 which groans in its chains ; it issues from the land of the 
 West, a land of emancipation and liberty ; from that 
 Europe which in a thousand various ways allures man 
 to the free culture of his faculties. In a small corner of 
 the earth, neighboring still to the East, but admirably 
 organized, in that small peninsula of Greece, where all 
 the varied contrasts of the whole continent seem to be 
 repeated in a narrow space, under a climate blessed of 
 Heaven, a new people arise, upon a new land, a free 
 people, a people of brethren. With them the period of 
 youth commences ; human consciousness awakes with 
 energy; man recovers himself; the slave bent beneath 
 his yoke springs up and holds his head erect. The 
 Greek, with his festivals, his songs, his poetry, seems to 
 celebrate, in a perpetual hymn, the liberation of man 
 from the mighty fetters of nature. 
 
 A new civilization is to be born ; all these riches of 
 poetry, of intellect, of reason, which are the heritage of 
 the human mind, display themselves without obstacle, 
 and expand in the sun of liberty. Who can describe all 
 there is of fresh and youthful energy in that people of 
 artists and philosophers, whose efforts open to us a world 
 entirely new ? This is no longer the world of nature ; it 
 is that of the human soul. Everything, in fact, with the 
 
MAN EMANCIPATED IN GREECE. 
 
 307 
 
 Greek bears that eminently human character which 
 betrays the preponderance of human personality and 
 the energy of individual character. 
 
 His religion is a deification of the faculties and affec- 
 tions of man. In place ^f the passionless, immovable 
 deities of Egypt and of Persia, his Olympus presents the 
 animated spectacle of an assembly of human persons, 
 free and independent, presided over by the happy con- 
 queror of the elder gods of nature. Destiny, banished 
 almost beyond the confines of heaven, hardly reminds 
 us of those blind and deaf gods, those gods of necessity, 
 who reigned absolutely over all the East. When the 
 forces of nature, when the trees of the forests, the moun- 
 tains, the springs, and the rivers, appear as objects of 
 worship, it is under the form of gods, of goddesses, and 
 of nymphs, endowed with all the affections, and subject 
 to all the weaknesses of common mortals. 
 
 Greek science is no longer merely traditional ; we see 
 its birth and its growth ; it is the production of the 
 efforts of the human soul ; it is progressive ; the Greek 
 no longer goes to the outer world of nature in search of 
 wisdom, but descends to the depths of human conscious- 
 ness. With Socrates and his school, philosophy has 
 passed from the realm of nature into the realm of man ; 
 she has become a moral philosophy. 
 
 In the social life of the Greeks, no more castes, nc 
 more of those hard sacerdotal despotisms of the East> 
 which, by regulating human existence in detail, hinder 
 its improvement; but communities of free and equal men, 
 and the predominance of democracy, that is, of individ- 
 ual and local life ; these are its characteristics. 
 
308 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Such is the impulse the awakening of human person- 
 ality impresses on this chosen people, that a few cen- 
 turies suffice to achieve the work of the most brilliant 
 display of the human mind, and of a culture leaving far 
 behind all the nations of the East. Among them all 
 the flowers of genius bloom together ; their poets, their 
 sculptors, their historians, their philosophers, have been, 
 down to our day, and will hereafter be, the guides and 
 the models of the man of taste and intelligence, in all 
 countries and in all ages. The Greek becomes the 
 teacher of the whole world. 
 
 The civilization of the Greeks is a conquest of man 
 1oo beautiful to remain confined within the narrow 
 limits of this petty country and inconsiderable people ; all 
 mankind must needs enjoy the benefit. The East, 
 having given so much to Greece during her infancy, 
 possessed the first rights in the achievements of her 
 maturity. The conquests of Alexander begin the work 
 of planting Grecian culture in the ancient soil of Asia, 
 in the bosom of those worn-out nations which seem 
 ready to perish in their weakness. A fresh sap flows 
 through them, and Western Asia, drawn forcibly into 
 the movement of the nations of the West, henceforth 
 takes her part in their progress and their vicissitudes. 
 Eastern Asia alone is untouched, and remains station- 
 ary. India and China, fossil remains of that ancient 
 Orient which perished under the blows of the Greeks, 
 subsist, as if to represent, down to the present moment, 
 the antique civilization of the first ages, and to show the 
 imbecility of its principle. At a later period, Rome, 
 with her rude warriors, comes herself to seek for culture 
 
GREEK CIVILIZATION. 
 
 309 
 
 and the arts on the soil of Greece ; and Greece, conquered 
 by arms, still reigns by her genius over her very con- 
 querors. 
 
 Nevertheless, gentlemen, the Greek, who carried the 
 individual culture of man to so high a pitch, knew not 
 how to establish the social relations on a solid basis, nor 
 to organize a national body, nor to combine the peoples 
 subjected to his influence into a system of nations 
 strongly united together. I wish for no other proofs 
 than that terrible Peloponnesian war, that fratricidal 
 struggle, from which dates the decline of Greece, and 
 the lamentable history of the Empire of Alexander and 
 his successors. The Greek principle is individuality, 
 and not association, and this is still further determined 
 by the race, by the tribe ; that is, by nature, and not 
 by voluntary agreement. 
 
 This political and social work is a new work, and is 
 entrusted to a new country and a new people. The 
 centre of the civilized world again changes place ; it 
 takes a step further towards the West ; its circumference 
 enlarges ; it embraces at once the South, the East, and 
 the West. Rome, more skilled in the arts of conquest, 
 and of establishing solid and durable political ties be- 
 tween the nations, combines in one and the same social 
 net- work all the civilized nations of the Ancient World. 
 The place she occupies in the very middle of the basin 
 of the Mediterranean, seems to foretell that she is 
 destined to become the metropolis of all the cultivated 
 peoples who dwell upon its shores. This vast empire 
 recombines the various elements of all the foregoing 
 epochs in one and the same civilization, and the Roman 
 
310 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 world, having profited by all these advantages, offers 
 the spectacle of the most brilliant social epoch of which 
 the history of antiquity has anything to say. 
 
 And yet, in spite of all these advances, if we look 
 somewhat nearer, what inability to accomplish the aim 
 of humanity, what universal selfishness and corruption ! 
 No common faith binds together the nations, aggre- 
 gated, rather than united. Rome exacts only one 
 worship, that of the Emperor, who personifies the state. 
 On all sides, conquerors and conquered still are found, 
 and in this land of liberty one half of the men are slaves 
 to the other. The Roman world, like all the rest, is to 
 perish by its own vices. 
 
 Thus far, as you see, gentlemen, man has attempted 
 to go his own way, growing up without God. He has 
 not, however, been abandoned, as his progress shows ; 
 but he has exhausted all the spells and conjurations this 
 procedure enabled him to try. He is convinced of his 
 weakness ; doubt takes hold of him and devours him ; 
 despair stands at his gate. All the literature of the 
 Roman Empire confirms this. He has passed from the 
 idolatry of nature to that of man ; from the idolatry of 
 man to that of society, represented by the head of the 
 state. He must return to the true God, or there is no 
 hope for him in the future. 
 
 It was then that the meek form of the Saviour 
 appeared upon the scene of the world. What comes 
 he to teach upon the earth ] He recalls man to the only 
 God, personal, free, full of love, merciful, the God of 
 salvation. He proclaims the equal worth of every 
 human soul, for he died for all. He gives unto men 
 
COMING OF THE SAVIOUR. 
 
 311 
 
 that new commandment, u Love one another as I have 
 loved you," for ye are all brethren, and children of the 
 same Father. 
 
 Thus, no more idolatry, no more servitude; for he 
 liberated man from the yoke of evil that restrains the 
 freedom of his moral being. No more thraldom; for 
 that is incompatible with the rights of his brethren and 
 with the love he owes them. No more national reli- 
 gions, opening between the nations abysses that noth- 
 ing can fill up. All the nations of the earth must unite 
 together in spirit, by the bonds of the same faith, under 
 the law of the same God. This is the lofty goal to 
 which henceforth all human societies ought to aim. 
 The world hears the unity and brotherhood of all human 
 kind proclaimed, without distinction of nation or of race 
 — the true principle of humanity. This is the leaven 
 that is to leaven the whole lump ; it is upon this new 
 basis that humanity, recommencing its task, goes on to 
 build a new edifice. 
 
 But what people shall be charged with this immense 
 work? Shall it be that old Roman society, wholly 
 pagan still in its origin and in its forms, stained by 
 slavery and violence, condemned long since to perish for 
 its crimes ? That body whose sap is gone, whose princi- 
 ple of life is exhausted, whose work is finished, — can 
 it be bom again '? No, gentlemen, it is glory enough for 
 the Roman world to have received and borne in its 
 bosom this precious seed of the future, and to have 
 shielded its earlier growth. The Church had her birth 
 there, but the Christian world must needs bloom else- 
 where. 
 
312 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 The North is summoned in turn ; the fierce Germans, 
 after five centuries of struggle, break down the old 
 empire, but adopt Christianity. In the midst of this 
 great and universal ruin, the Church alone remains 
 upright, and becomes the corner stone of the new edi- 
 fice. Civilization passes to the other side of the Alps, 
 where it establishes its centre. A still virgin country, 
 a people full of youth and life, receive it ; it grows under 
 the influence of the Christian principle of unity and 
 brotherhood. A common faith unites all the members 
 of that society of the middle ages, so strangely broken 
 up; those nations, so different, so hostile to each other 
 in appearance, nevertheless look upon one another as 
 brothers, and form together the great family of Chris- 
 tianity. The circle of civilization soon widens, and 
 embraces all Europe in the same range of improve- 
 ment ; no people, however, takes part unless it shares 
 the common faith; but, from the day of its conversion, 
 also dates its entrance upon the path of progress. 
 
 Meantime, through many internal struggles, great 
 states are gradually forming, the modern nations appear; 
 full a thousand years have scarcely sufficed for these 
 protracted throes. Different in characters, opposite in 
 interests, long isolated from each other, these nations, 
 having grown to maturity, enter into reciprocal rela- 
 tions. These relations are hostile at first ; but the 
 blending of so many various interests hastens their 
 progress ; bonds of intimacy are established ; a greater 
 community of interests, of ideas, of civilization in a word, 
 strengthens the craving for harmony, and the balance 
 of power in Europe becomes the aim of all high policy. 
 
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 313 
 
 This equilibrium of material forces is finally changed 
 in the nineteenth century into a European concert. 
 Europe gives to the world, for the first time, the spec- 
 tacle of a family of states, so closely bound together 
 that they are only different members of the same body. 
 No longer united by material ties alone, they are already 
 bound by spiritual ties. From the depths of Russia to 
 the ends of England, from Sicily to Cape North, we 
 find the same religion at the basis of the social condition 
 of all nations. The old ideas are a common property ; 
 new ideas speed almost through this whole space with 
 the rapidity of thought, and reach, at the same time, 
 the understandings of all. The manners, customs, sen- 
 timents, become every day more alike ; in all things, 
 community and intimacy are closer and closer. Nothing 
 that touches the smallest, the most remote of the mem- 
 bers of the great confederacy remains foreign or indiffer- 
 ent to the whole. 
 
 And yet the assimilation of the people of Europe stops 
 far short of confounding their distinctive qualities. Not 
 long since, the world saw them, with some surprise 
 perhaps, piotesting against the complete fusion seem- 
 ingly about to annihilate their individual existence, and 
 threatening to carry them back to the chaos of a homo- 
 geneous unity. They have once again proclaimed the 
 power of historical ties, uniting the offspring of the same 
 people, like friends of childhood, by a long community 
 of life, and the vitality of those elements of race which 
 bear witness to the original diversity of the gifts the 
 Creator has bestowed upon his children. Each of 
 the great physical districts composing that continent, in 
 27 
 
314 comparative; physical geography. 
 
 reality sustains a people whose moral and intellectual 
 character, aptitudes, talents, differ as much as their 
 language from those of their brethren. Each of these 
 nations plays, in the great drama of history, a special 
 part in accordance with its particular gifts, and all 
 together form, in truth and reality, one of those rich 
 organic unities which we have recognized as being the 
 natural result of all regular and healthy growth. 
 
 This variety of elements and their reciprocal influ- 
 ence, joined to the community of action, which is the 
 distinctive feature of modern society, exalt the powers 
 of man to a degree hitherto unknown. Christian 
 Europe beholds poetry, the arts, and the sublimest 
 sciences, successively flourish, as in the bright days of 
 pagan Greece ; but, enriched already with the spoils of 
 the past, culture is far more comprehensive, more varied, 
 more profound; for it is not only affluent with the wealth 
 of days gone by, but Christianity has placed it on the 
 solid foundation of truth. The spirit of investigation 
 ranges in all directions ; it adds to this brilliant crown 
 a new gem, the science of nature, growing with a 
 speed of which the Ancient World had not even a fore- 
 cast. Unriddled by the spirit of man, nature has yielded 
 lip to him her secrets ; her untiring forces are enlisted 
 in the service of intellect, which knows how to guide 
 their action for its own purposes. Who shall describe 
 those thousand applications of the science of nature, 
 those inventions of the arts, each more marvellous than 
 the others, coming upon us with a daily surprise ; those 
 ingenious and mighty machines obeying without pause 
 he orders of man, and under his watchful eye accom- 
 
SPREAD OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 315 
 
 plishing, Avith the same ease, the most gigantic works 
 and the most delicate operations ? The ocean has lost 
 its terrors; with the help of steam the sailor braves 
 opposing winds and waves; the compass and the stars 
 conduct him with unerring precision to the end of his 
 voyage. Space is annihilated by railroads ; the word 
 of man, borne on the wings of electricity, outruns in its 
 course the sun himself; distances vanish, obstacles are 
 smoothed away. Man thus disposes at will with the 
 forces of nature, and the earth at last serves her master. 
 
 Such is the spectacle presented by European civil- 
 ization. Looking upon it only under this brilliant 
 aspect, and in itself, the progress of man seems to be 
 almost touching its final goal. Nevertheless, the plan 
 traced by the Divine Founder of the Christian church 
 is much more vast ; the goal which He sets up is much 
 higher. These precious gifts of culture are not to 
 remain the exclusive property of a small number of 
 privileged men, nor of a single society, of one continent 
 alone ; the Christian principle is broader ; it is universal, 
 like the love of Christ. An important work remains, 
 then, to be done ; the work of diffusion and of propaga- 
 tion. This work is two-fold ; for it is a duty to extend 
 to the greatest possible number of the members of the 
 same community all the blessings of civilization, at the 
 same time that it is a duty to help all the nations of the 
 3arth to enjoy them. The first is social; the second 
 pertains to humanity in general. To bring them both 
 about, European society must overpass its present boun- 
 daries. 
 
 Just as Greece, the model on a small scale of what all 
 
316 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 Europe becomes on a large scale, imparted to the East 
 and to Rome the civilization which was the fruit of her 
 whole popular life, so Europe owes to the world both 
 her sciences and her culture, and the gospel, her most 
 priceless good. The realm of civilization, which has 
 been gradually enlarging, must increase still further ; it 
 must have no other limits than those of the great globe 
 itself. 
 
 All was prepared in nature and history to invite the 
 society of Europe to take this glorious initiative, and to 
 facilitate the task. 
 
 The position of the European continent, in the midst 
 of the other continents, seems to destine it from the 
 beginning to this important part; its situation on the 
 shores of the ocean opens an easy access to the remotest 
 countries. 
 
 The ocean is, in fact, gentlemen, the grand highway 
 of the world ; from the earliest ages the civilized nations, 
 urged by a secret instinct of their coming destinies, 
 seem tending unconsciously to gather themselves near 
 its shores. Born on the banks of the great rivers of the 
 East, they cluster afterwards round the Mediterranean, 
 under the sway of Greece and Rome. The modern 
 world exchanges this theatre, henceforth too narrow, 
 for the basin of the oceans, and our ships sail over the 
 vast expanse of waters with more ease and security 
 than the triremes of Greece and Rome crossed their 
 inland seas. 
 
 The progress made by man in Europe also renders 
 him capable of undertaking this work. In that conti- 
 nent, so tractable in shape, so well made, so nicely 
 
SPREAD OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 317 
 
 adjusted to his forces, he has learned to subdue nature 
 by intelligence, and has thrown off the yoke. The 
 child of the East has become a man in the land of the 
 West. Thus no obstacle dismays or arrests him ; he 
 sets forth, and, like the Rome of other days, the Europe 
 of the present marches to the conquest of the world less 
 by arms than by her colonists, her commerce, her civil- 
 ization, and by the gospel, which she carries to all 
 nations. 
 
 The first land her ships encounter is the New World, 
 waiting, as we have seen, only for the active labors 
 of the civilized races, to yield up to them all the treas- 
 ures that lay unused in its bosom. The European 
 nations bordering the Atlantic establish themselves there, 
 and divide it among them. In North America, the 
 people of the North of Europe — the Anglo-Saxons, the 
 Germans, the French ; in South America, the Spanish 
 and the Portuguese. The contrast between the North 
 and South, mitigated in the temperate regions of the 
 mother country, is reproduced in the New World more 
 strongly marked, and on a grander scale, between North 
 America, with its temperate climate, its Protestant and 
 progressive people, and South America, with its tropical 
 climate, its Catholic and stationary inhabitants. The 
 conquest of the New World was the fairest and the most 
 useful the European communities could have made, 
 both for themselves and for the accomplishment of their 
 work. They are transported thither with all their 
 means of action ; they get the mastery of nature with- 
 out exhausting efforts ; they strike their roots deep in a 
 receptive soil almost untenanted ; and America, while 
 27* 
 
318 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 preparing to make new advances in social science, is 
 already laboring in concert with Europe for the civil- 
 ization of the world, which will not be completed with- 
 out her. 
 
 But Europe stops not here. The ocean still opens 
 to her the way to the maritime countries, the most 
 highly favored regions in every continent. Africa and 
 Australia receive her colonists, who plant in that soil, 
 rebellious to civilization, the habits and the manners of 
 our communities ; Asia herself, old and immovable Asia, 
 the symbol of stability, is shaken to her very founda- 
 tions. India beholds her political power crushed under 
 the arms and by the skill of England, while Christianity 
 and the light of knowledge undermine the ancient Brah- 
 min edifice, threatening every day to bury beneath its 
 ruins that Old World which has survived more than 
 three thousand years. China, in her turn, is forced to 
 open her gates, and the ideas of Christianity and civili- 
 zation, together with the products of European industry, 
 are piercing, little by little, into that old sanctuary of 
 superstition. Finally, there is not, in the bosom of the 
 oceans, an island so distant but that, with the visits of 
 the ships from Christian lands, it receives some germs of 
 future improvement. The work is everywhere pre- 
 paring, or beginning to bear fruit ; and instead of one 
 of those invasions of barbarous hordes, which so often 
 terrified the world, plunging it again, for whole centu- 
 ries, into the darkness x>f ignorance, Ave gaze upon the 
 magnificent and consoling spectacle of a peaceful but 
 irresistible march of civilization, and of the light of 
 knowledge to the conquest of the whole earth, 
 
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 
 
 319 
 
 Certainly these are admirable beginnings, the har- 
 bingers of a still more brilliant future. But here is 
 only a part of the work the Christian nations of 
 modern Europe appear summoned to execute. To this 
 spread of the blessings of civilization abroad, ought to 
 correspond, as we have said, a work of diffusion within 
 civilized society itself; to the humanitary work, a social 
 work. The greatest possible number of the members, — 
 all, if it may be, — each, according to the measure of his 
 gifts and the position assigned him by Providence, ought 
 to share in the well-being, in the light of knowledge, in 
 the moral perfection, which are now the portion of but 
 a few. These advantages should, at least, be placed 
 within the reach of all those, who, by a wise activity, 
 the first condition of all progress, render themselves 
 worthy to receive such reward. 
 
 This progress, whereto at present all civilized society 
 aspires, — this goal, towards which it is tending, instinc- 
 tively urged on by the very principle that constitutes its 
 life, — is shown, as from afar, by that beautiful formula, 
 drawn from the gospel, but so shamefully perverted by 
 the false friends of progress, that one hardly dares 
 repeat it after them ; it is proclaimed in words that are 
 the motto of the present age — Liberty, Equality, Fra 
 lernity. Yes, gentlemen, liberty to unfold all the living 
 forces, and all the good tendencies of man, but not his 
 evil tendencies ; the equality of rights lying in the moral 
 nature of man, but not that absolute, impossible equality 
 which is contrary to nature and the course of Provi- 
 dence, and annihilates all progress ; that fraternity 
 which is the law of the gospel, and substitutes, for the 
 
320 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 selfishness that isolates and kills, the fraternal love and 
 devotion that unites and makes alive ; a free people, a 
 people of brethren ; unobstructed individual growth, 
 attended by all the advantages of social life ; diversity 
 in unity, — this is the dream of the existing world, this 
 is the prayer expressed under every variety of form. I 
 say the dream of the existing world; for the perfect 
 realization of such an ideal is possible only in perfect 
 obedience to the divine law, in absolute goodness. In 
 this earthly state, man, the sinner, must content himself 
 with tending towards it, and drawing nearer every day. 
 
 Europe, gentlemen, has conceived the idea, and com- 
 menced the execution of the work. If we cast a glance 
 back upon the phases of her progress, we see that each 
 step she has taken in culture is at the same time marked 
 by an amelioration in the state of the lower classes of 
 society. From epoch to epoch, instruction and well- 
 being become more and more universal. But historical 
 ties of every kind, ancient customs, acquired rights, as 
 much to be respected as any other rights of man, and, 
 above all, the want of resources and of room for an 
 ever-increasing population, are almost insurmountable 
 difficulties, seeming to indicate that the work begun 
 upon her soil is to be finished elsewhere. In Europe, 
 the present must take the past into account, and in her 
 past, Europe has roots too deeply fixed to adapt herself 
 readily to all the exigencies of a new principle. Cut off 
 the roots of this tree, ancient, but still majestic, still 
 flowing with sap, and you take away its life. Cat from 
 it a shoot, set that shoot in a fresh and virgin soil, and a 
 new tree, at once strong and flexible, will readily take 
 
THE PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 321 
 
 whatever form the skilful gardener shall desire to give it. 
 Is not this what has been done for modern society by 
 Him who dresses the great garden of humanity ? 
 
 Yes, gentlemen, a new work is preparing, and a grave 
 question is propounded. To what people shall it belong 
 to carry out this work into reality ? The law of history 
 replies, to a new people. And to what continent ? The 
 geographical march of civilization tells us, to a new con- 
 tinent west of the Old World — to America. 
 
 This conclusion may seem a bold one ; for the future 
 is still covered by a veil it were unwise to wish to 
 lift. Nevertheless, many signs seem to authorize this 
 anticipation. It is worth the trouble of marking their 
 existence, and of seeking to understand their language. 
 
 What is that new people, forming and growing upon 
 the land of the future ? 
 
 Is it a new race ? No ; for the ties of race imposed by 
 physical nature must disappear in that world of eman- 
 cipation and of liberty, to leave all its spontaneous 
 character to the activity of man. 
 
 Is it some particular nation of the Old World ? No ; 
 for if one people seems to stamp the physiognomy, yet 
 the historical nations of every language and of every 
 character are flowing thither, and blending together in 
 one and the same nationality. The historical walls of 
 separation in the Old World have fallen at once, and 
 without a struggle. The European, who sets foot on 
 American ground, with the purpose of making it his 
 country, throws aside, at the threshold, not his affections 
 and his memories, but his social and political past — if 
 I may say it, takes a fresh start, recommences a new 
 
322 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 existence. He is received, by those who have gone 
 thither before him, as a brother, entitled to the same 
 immunities they are themselves enjoying. The most 
 varied elements are gathering and harmonizing in this 
 American people, which is moulding itself as no other 
 ever did before, and which, more than any other people, 
 is preeminently the cosmopolite, by virtue of its very 
 constitution. 
 
 And what is the vital principle we find at the very 
 root of this nation ? It is the gospel. Not the gospel 
 disfigured and cramped by the iron fetters of a power- 
 ful hierarchical church, like that the Christian Ger- 
 manic world received while in its cradle, but the gos- 
 pel restored by the Reformation, with its life-giving 
 doctrines, and its regenerative power. Luther drew 
 the Bible forth from the dust of libraries, where it lay 
 forgotten, at the moment when Columbus discovered the 
 New World. Will any one believe that here was only 
 an accidental coincidence ? More than this, gentlemen ; 
 for the first foundations were then laid of the edifice 
 rising at the present day before our eyes, the actual 
 construction of which, three centuries and a half later, 
 enables us to see the providential connection of the two 
 events. 
 
 The founders of social order in America are indeed 
 the true offspring of the Reformation, — true Protestants. 
 The Bible is their code. Imbued with the principles 
 of civil and religious liberty they find written in the 
 gospel, and for which they have given up their former 
 country, they put them in practice in this land of their 
 choice. They are all brethren, children of the same 
 
THE PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 323 
 
 Father — this is equality, independence, liberty. They 
 submit from the heart to their Divine Leader, and to his 
 law ; this is the principle of order. Now the union of 
 these two terms is free obedience to the divine will, 
 which is the condition of a normal development, the 
 supreme end of the education of man. 
 
 These, you will agree, gentlemen, are the sublime 
 doctrines whence flow the religious, political, and social 
 forms that distinguish America at the present time, from 
 all the other countries on the globe. In religion, as in 
 politics, democracy ; the principle of free association per- 
 vading every part of public and private life ; the pre- 
 ponderance of the judicial element set above the state 
 itself, as the divine law is placed above human liberty ; 
 free obedience to the law, finally, rendering the means 
 of constraint almost superfluous, and guaranteeing at 
 once both security and liberty ; — these are so many 
 Christian ideas that have been incorporated in society, 
 so many blessings America will continue to enjoy in 
 proportion as she shall be faithful to the great principles 
 whence they emanate. 
 
 A last characteristic, finally, of the nation forming 
 on the soil of America, — ■ upon which we fix our atten- 
 tion, because it furnishes in fact the representative 
 of all modern progress, — is the greater emancipation 
 from the dominion of nature. European society is 
 transported to the New World, with all the power of 
 modern arts and industry, which it applies without let 
 or hindrance upon a large scale. Man, the master, now 
 explores its vast territory. A perpetual movement, a 
 fever of locomotion, rages from one end of the continent 
 
324 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 to the other. The American uses things without allow- 
 ing himself to be taken captive by them. We behold 
 everywhere the free will of man overmastering nature, 
 which has lost the power of stamping him with a local 
 character, of separating the nation into distinct peoples. 
 Local country, which had so great sway in the Old 
 World, no longer exists, so to speak, beyond the limits 
 of the city, itself an association determined by man's free 
 will, and not by the force of external nature. The great 
 social country wins all interest, and all affection ; it 
 overmatches entirely geographical country. 
 
 Such are the principal lineaments that give to this 
 people a character peculiarly their own. By these feat- 
 ures we recognize the people of the future ; for all 
 the tendencies, struggling hard to find a vent in Euro- 
 pean society, are realized without effort here, because 
 they are the very foundations whereon all the social 
 relations rest. It is to this people, then, that the full 
 and entire development belongs in the course of the 
 epoch now beginning. 
 
 And what continent is better adapted than the Ameri- 
 can, to respond to the wants of humanity in this phase 
 of its history ? 
 
 The nations of Europe might easily be drawn out 
 and arrayed within its vast confines. Its fertile soil 
 secures prosperity to all, in exchange for their labor. Its 
 forests, its treasures of coal laid up in quantities surpass- 
 ing everything of the kind to be found in any part of 
 the globe, prepare an inexhaustible support, and allow a 
 future extension of industry to a degree and in propor- 
 tions unknown elsewhere. 
 
AMERICA THE SOCIAL WORLD. 
 
 325 
 
 The simplicity and unity of plan we have observed 
 m its configuration, its extensive plains, navigable 
 rivers, the extreme facility of communications uni- 
 versally, with no serious obstacle lying in the way, 
 from one end to the other of the fruitful part of the con- 
 tinent, all invite the inhabitants to frequent connection, 
 to never-ceasing intercourse and exchange, checking 
 the formation of local nationalities, and favoring the 
 maintenance of a national unity, by the assimilation of 
 all the parts. 
 
 Thus we may, perhaps, foresee that the American 
 Union, already the most numerous association of men 
 that has ever existed voluntarily united under the same 
 law, will be able hereafter to become, even within the 
 limits of its present confines, a true social world, tran- 
 scending in grandeur and unity the most impressive 
 spectacles of human greatness the history of past ages 
 holds up to our view. 
 
 Finally, the oceanic position of the American conti- 
 nent secures its commercial prosperity, and creates, at 
 the same time, the means of influence upon the world. 
 It commands the Atlantic by its ports, while Oregon and 
 California open the route of the Pacific Ocean and the 
 East. America, also, is so placed as to take an active 
 part in the great work of the civilization of the world, so 
 admirably begun by Europe. 
 
 As Greece, then, gave the ancient world instruction 
 and culture, so Europe instructs and refines the modern 
 world, and all mankind; and as Rome wrought out the 
 social work of antiquity, America seems called to do the 
 same service for modern times, and to build up in the 
 28 
 
326 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 New World the social state of which the Old World 
 
 dreamed. 
 
 But while Rome accomplished her task by brute 
 force, made a mere outside work, and brought about 
 only an imperfect fusion of the nations, America is doing 
 hers by persuasion. Drawing to her the free will of the 
 sons of all the races, she binds them by one faith, and is 
 thus preparing a true brotherhood of man. The one had 
 only gross material arms ; the other has spiritual arms. 
 Between the two lies the whole distance that separates 
 the heathen from the Christian world, and the progress 
 made during two thousand years. 
 
 And further, what is there in common between this 
 new social world of America and that world dreamed of 
 by the morbid imagination of frantic Utopians, who, 
 denying Christianity and its saving doctrines, renounce 
 the vital principle of modern societies ; who talk of 
 progress, but fetter individual liberty, which is its 
 sinew; of fraternity, as if man without God did not 
 always relapse into selfishness ; and show, finally, by 
 their abortive attempts, both the corruption of the heart 
 of man, and his inability to do the work of reconstruct- 
 ing society, which Divine Providence ; in its wisdom, has 
 reserved to itself? 
 
 The new society ought to receive entire the inheri- 
 tance of those which have gone before ; for nothing good 
 or beautiful should perish. It ought to be rooted in 
 that living faith which nourishes the nations and keeps 
 up in them the freshness of life ; its instruments 
 should be the sciences and industry ; its ornaments, 
 literature and the fine arts ; its end, the happiness of 
 
AMERICA THE SOCIAL WORLD. 
 
 327 
 
 all, by training them up to moral perfection, and by- 
 spreading the gospel throughout the world, to the glory 
 of the Redeemer. 
 
 You see, gentlemen, this picture transports us into 
 the future. There stands the goal, and we are only 
 now at the starting point. But this lofty goal may 
 serve as a guiding star for the present, to preserve it 
 from losing its way. In what measure and through 
 what perils it shall be given to mankind, and to America 
 in particular, to attain it, is known to God alone, and 
 future ages will teach the issue to the world ; but what 
 we do know is, that it will be in proportion as man shall 
 be faithful to the law of his moral nature, which is the 
 divine law itself. 
 
 Asia, Europe, and North America, are the three 
 grand stages of humanity in its march through the 
 ages. Asia is the cradle where man passed his infancy, 
 under the authority of law, and where he learned his 
 dependence upon a sovereign master. Europe is the 
 school where his youth was trained, where he waxed in 
 strength and knowledge, grew to manhood, and learned 
 at once his liberty and his moral responsibility. Amer- 
 ica is the theatre of his activity during the period of 
 manhood ; the land where he applies and practises all 
 he has learned, brings into action all the forces he has 
 acquired, and where he is still to learn that the entire 
 development of his being and his own happiness are 
 possible only by willing obedience to the laws of his 
 Maker. 
 
 - Thus lives and prospers, under the protection of the 
 Divine Husbandman, the great tree of humanity, Avhich 
 
328 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 is to overshadow the whole earth. It germinates and 
 sends up its strong trunk in the ancient land of Asia. 
 Grafted with a nobler stalk, it shoots out new branches, 
 it biossoms in Europe. In America only, it seems des- 
 tined to bear all its fruits. In these three we behold at 
 once, as in a vast picture, the past, the present, and the 
 future. 
 
 We see, then, that at each great phasis of the history 
 of humanity the real work of the epoch is accomplished 
 on a different theatre, and the centre or principal nucleus 
 of civilized societies changes its place in the course of the 
 ages. But in pointing out the remarkable fact of this 
 successive displacement, let us not forget to state at the 
 same time another movement, a progressive movement 
 of extension, no less evident, and of almost equal impor- 
 tance. At first we behold the Orient shine alone ; but 
 soon the Occident ascends, and assumes the sceptre of 
 intellectual light, and Greece now draws with her into a 
 new progress the better portion of the East. Rome suc- 
 ceeds, and by her conquests removes the boundaries 
 of the civilized world, whereof Italy is the soul, to the 
 uttermost limits of the West. The North in succession is 
 added, and all Europe becomes in turn the centre of a 
 new world, which breaks the barriers seemingly imposed 
 on it by nature, to enlarge and expand itself beyond the 
 oceans. The establishment of European civilization in 
 the New World, which has more than doubled the terri- 
 torial extent of the cultivated nations, prepares an epoch 
 of aggrandizement more rapid still. The two Americas, 
 situated between the other four continents, seem destined 
 to become, in their turn, a new centre of action, or a 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 329 
 
 point of support for the establishment of easy and more 
 rapid relations with all the nations of the world, and the 
 irresistible logic of facts passing under our eyes, compels 
 us to believe that during the epoch which is preparing, 
 the boundaries of the domain of the civilized world can 
 only be those of the globe itself. 
 
 Before closing let us cast back a glance upon the 
 long way we have travelled over. The geographical 
 march of history must have convinced us, if I am not 
 mistaken, — 
 
 1. That the three continents of the North are organ - 
 ized for the development of man, and that we may 
 rightfully name them preeminently the historical con- 
 tinents. 
 
 2. That each of these three continents, by virtue of its 
 very structure, and of its physical qualities, has a special 
 function in the education of mankind, and corresponds 
 to one of the periods of his development. 
 
 3. That in proportion as this development advances, 
 and civilization is perfected, and gains in intensity, the 
 physical domain it occupies gains in extent and the 
 number of cultivated nations increases. 
 
 4. That the entire physical creation corresponds to 
 the moral creation, and is only to be explained by it. 
 
 Such, it seems, is the result of the study we have 
 been making, of the relations between nature and 
 history. It is not, perhaps, without some surprise, that 
 we behold privileged continents and races, continents and 
 races almost unalterably smitten with a character of 
 inferiority. And yet, why be surprised at this ? Is it 
 not the attribute of God to dispense his gifts to whom he 
 28* 
 
330 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 will, and as he will 1 Do we not know that in every 
 organism there are needed divers members, clothed with 
 functions more or less exalted, but alike necessary) 
 We shall see that this great contrast of the historical 
 continents and the continents of the inferior races seems 
 established by Providence as a standing invitation ad- 
 dressed to man, bidding him unfold a new activity, and 
 exercise the virtue of self-devotion, one of the highest to 
 which his moral nature can be called. For the law of 
 contrasts in the order of nature is the law of love in the 
 moral order. 
 
 The three continents of the South, outcasts in appear- 
 ance, — can they have been destined to an eternal 
 isolation, doomed never to participate in that higher life 
 of humanity, the sketch of which we have traced? 
 And shall those gifts nature bestows on them with 
 lavish hand, remain unused? No. gentlemen, such a 
 doom cannot be in the plans of God. But the races 
 inhabiting them are captives in the bonds of all power- 
 ful nature ; they will never break down the fences that 
 sunder them from us. It is for us, the favored races, to 
 go to them. Tropical nature cannot be conquered and 
 subdued, save by civilized men, armed with all the 
 might of discipline, intelligence, and of skilful industry. 
 It is, then, from the northern continents that those of the 
 south await their deliverance ; it is by the help of the 
 civilized men of the temperate continents that it shall be 
 vouchsafed to the man of the tropical lands to enter into 
 the movement of universal progress and improvement, 
 wherein mankind should share. 
 
 The privileged races have duties to perform, pro- 
 
SOLUTION OF THE CONTRAST. 
 
 331 
 
 portioned to the gifts they possess. To impart to 
 other nations the advantages constituting their own 
 glory, is the only way of legitimating the possession of 
 them. We owe to the inferior races the blessings and 
 the comforts of civilization; we owe them the intel- 
 lectual development they are capable of; above all. 
 we owe them the gospel, which is our glory, and 
 will be their salvation ; and if we neglect to help them 
 partake in all these blessings, God will some time call us 
 to a strict account. 
 
 In this way, alone, will the inferior races be able 
 to come forth from the state of torpor and debasement 
 wherein they are plunged, and live the active life of the 
 higher races. Then shall commence, or rather shall 
 rise to its just proportions, the elaboration of the material 
 wealth of the tropical regions, for the benefit of the 
 whole world. The nations of the lower races, associ- 
 ated like brothers with the civilized man of the ancient 
 Christian societies, and directed by his intelligent activ- 
 ity, will be the chief instruments. The whole world, 
 so turned to use by man, will fulfil its destiny. 
 
 The three northern continents, however, seem made 
 to be the leaders ; the three southern, the aids. The 
 people of the temperate continents will always be the 
 men of intelligence, of activity, the brain of humanity, 
 if I may venture to say so ; the people of the tropical 
 continents will always be the hands, the workmen, the 
 sons of toil. 
 
 History seems to be advancing towards the realization 
 of these hopes, towards the solution of this great con- 
 trast. Each northern continent has its southern conti- 
 
332 
 
 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 nent near by, which seems more especially commended 
 to its guardianship and placed under its influence. 
 Africa is already European at both extremities ; 
 North America leans on South America, which is in- 
 debted to the example of the North for its own emanci- 
 pation and its own institutions. Asia is gradually 
 receiving into her bosom the Christian nations of 
 Europe, who are transforming her character, and be- 
 ginning thence to settle the destinies of Australia. 
 Lastly, the Christian missions are organizing upon a 
 larger and larger scale in the two leading maritime 
 countries of the globe, England and America, to whom 
 the dominion of the sea seems granted for this end ; and 
 by engrafting upon all the nations the vital principle of 
 civilized societies, without which no real community 
 can exist between them, are preparing and hastening the 
 true brotherhood, the spiritual brotherhood, of the whole 
 human race. 
 
 It is in this great union, foretold alike by the order of 
 nature and by the gospel, that every continent, as well 
 as every people, will have its special functions, and 
 that we shall find the solution and the definitive aim 
 of all the physical and historical contrasts we have 
 been studying. Everything in nature is arranged for 
 the accomplishment by man of the admirable designs of 
 Providence for the triumph of the good ; and if man 
 were faithful to his destination, the whole world would 
 appear as a sublime concert of nature and the nations, 
 blending their voices into a lofty harmony in praise of 
 the Creator. 
 
 We are touching upon the close of our course ; we 
 
FAITH AND SCIENCE. 
 
 333 
 
 are far distant, indeed, from the point whence we started. 
 Nevertheless, we have arrived hither, I believe, by a 
 natural and regular path. Before we separate, gentle- 
 men, allow me to add a few words upon the spirit and 
 method that have animated and directed our studies. 
 
 All is life for him who is alive ; all is death for him 
 who is dead. All is spirit for him who is spirit ; all is 
 matter for him who is nothing but matter. It is with 
 the whole life and the whole intellect that we should 
 study the work of Him Avho is life and intellect itself. 
 
 This work of the Supreme Intelligence— can it be 
 otherwise than intelligent ? The work of Him who 
 is all life and all love — must it not be living and full of 
 love ? 
 
 How should we not find in our earth itself the realiza- 
 tion of an intelligent thought, of a thought of love to 
 man, who is the end and aim of all creation, and the 
 bright consummate flower of this admirable organiza- 
 tion ? 
 
 Yes, certainly, it is so. Faith so teaches, inspir- 
 ing us with this sentiment, vague still, yet profound. 
 Science so teaches by a patient and long-continued 
 study, reserving this sublime view as the sweetest 
 reward for our labor. Faith, enlightened and ex- 
 pounded by science, — the union of faith and science, — 
 is living, harmonious knowledge, is perfected faith, for 
 it has become vision. 
 
 I have sought, gentlemen, to introduce you to the 
 living knowledge of our globe, in the modest measure 
 it is given me to do it. In spite of the imperfec- 
 tion of this knowledge, of which I feel that I have only 
 
334 COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 touched upon the margin, if you have followed me. you 
 have had one more intellectual experience, and you 
 admire with me the Author of so fair a creation. 
 
 If your heart has felt the benevolent purposes that 
 have throughout presided over these arrangements, if it 
 is convinced that everything in nature and history is 
 ordained to guide us to happiness by lifting us up to 
 Him, then it is grateful, then it loves in turn. 
 
 If the heart admires and loves, it adores ; and that is 
 the only worship worthy of rational man, the only ser- 
 vice his Maker asks and accepts at his hands. 
 
 THE END. 
 
mm® m® m®©^ 
 
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 THE EARTH AND MAN: 
 
 LECTURES ON COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 BY ARNOLD GUYOT. 
 
 TESTIMONIALS 
 
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 From Prof. Louis Agassiz, of Harvard University. 
 11 Gentlemen : — I understand that you are publishing the Lectures of Prof. Guyot 
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 series of graduated text-books of geography, from the first elements up to a scientific 
 treatise. It would give new life to these studies in this country, and be the best prep- 
 aration for sound statistical investigations." 
 
 From Prof. George Ticknor, Boston. 
 "I was very glad to learn, that you intend to publish Mr. Guyot's Lectures on 
 Physical Geography. Their familiar and simple manner will, I hope, cause them to 
 be used in our schools, where I think their modest learning and religious philosophy 
 wi!l make them an excellent foundation for the study of all geography, as it is now 
 taught, and especially of that higher geography which connects itself with the desti- 
 nies of the whole human race." 
 
 From George S. Hillard, Esq., Boston. 
 "Professor Guyot's Lectures are marked by learning, ability and taste. FamLXai 
 with the labors of all who have gone before him, he has been himself an extensive and 
 accurate observer. His bold and comprehensive generalizations rest upon a careful 
 foundation of facts. The essential value of his statements is enhanced by his luir.i- 
 nous arrangement, and by a vein of philosophical reflection which gives life and 
 dignity to dry details. Such a work as his Lectures will furnish will be a valuable 
 accession to our literature. I cannot think so lightly of the judgment and taste of our 
 community, as to entertain any doubt of its success. To teachers of youth it will be 
 especially important. They may learn from it how to make Geography, which I 
 recall as the least interesting of studies, one of the most attractive; and 1 earnestly 
 commend it to their careful consideration/' 
 
TESTIMONIALS. 
 
 From Prof. C. C. Felton, of Harvard University. 
 "I cannot help believing that by publishing the volume you will render an accepta- 
 ble service to an intelligent and appreciating public. The original lectures, in point 
 of style, are characterized by simplicity and elegance." 
 
 From Charles Sumner, Esq., Boston. 
 "It was my good fortune to hear several of these Lectures, as delivered, and I have 
 since read them all in print. The instruction and satisfaction which they have j 
 afford 3d to me, I shall be glad to see within the reach of others. Beyond the intrinsic j 
 interest of the subject, they have the charm of simplicity and clearness, while the \ 
 elevated sentiment which inspires the lecturer, and which naturally belongs to his 
 theme, makes science seem like a Christian preacher. Most truly do I thank him for i 
 leashing so persuasively the duties of the superior races of men towards the races 
 which are inferior in the scale of creation — to succor, protect, and elevate, not to .' 
 subdue, depress, and enslave. Thus has he drawn from these founts of science the 
 divine lesson of charity and good-will to men." 
 
 From Prof Benjamin Peirce, of Harvard University. 
 11 Having heard or read the greater portion of Professor Guyot's Lectures on Physi- 
 cal Geography, I cannot forbear expressing the strong feeling which I have, of their 
 scientific and literary merits, and of the importance of their publication. He has set 
 himself to work at the foundation of an almost new science, with the ability and sim- 
 plicity of a true master ; he has developed profound and original views, with the most 
 enlarged variety and richness of illustration, and in the most attractive and eloquent 
 forms of language. His ingenious investigations, sustained by faithful and conscien- 
 tious research, are an invaluable addition to science ; while the vivid and picturesque 
 earnestness of their utterance cannot fail to charm the least learned of his readers." 
 
 From Rev. Edward N. Kirk, Boston. 
 "Many will hail with delight the introduction of Prof. Guyot to the great field of 
 education in our country. His Lectures on Physical Geography will open a new 
 career of study to many of our teachers, as well as learners ; and will form to them a 
 true scientific basis for the study of History. And if Mr. Guyot can follow this work 
 by some elementary books for schools, he will increase his claims to the gratitude of 
 the country which is now ready to adopt him." 
 
 From George B. Emerson, Esq., Boston. 
 
 "I received, some time ago, a copy of Prof. Guyot's excellent work on Physical 
 Geography, which the business of my school prevented me from acknowledging. I 
 avail myself of my earliest leisure to thank you for it. The work contaii s much 
 which has not been made accessible to English readers, and much of original generali- 
 zation, which render it a most valuable work. It ought to be in the hands of every 
 teacher of Geography. It will enable him to read and understand the high lessons 
 which the study of nature is calculated to teach, but which, without some guiding 
 philosophical principles, are apt to be missed, or to be lost sight of. It will enable him, 
 in very many particulars, to give an interest to the study of Geography, which mere 
 barren, unrelated, unassociated facts can never possess to the youthful student. It 
 brings the imagination, and the desire to search into causes, to the aid of the memory. 
 
 "Much of the chapters relating to the distribution of rains is, so far as I know, 
 now for the first time laid before the American reader by the American press. The 
 publication of the work will mark an era in the teaching of Geography." 
 
THE EARTH AND MAN: 
 
 Lectures on Comparative Physical Geography, in its Relation to the History 
 of Mankind. 
 
 By Arnold Guyot, Prof. Phys. Geo. & Hist. Neuchatcl. 
 Translated from the French, by Prof. C. C. Felton. — With Illustrations. 
 Revised Edition. 12mo. Price $1.25. 
 
 " Those who have been accustomed to regard Geography as a merely de=cripti\e 
 branch of learning, drier than the remainder biscuit after a voyage, will be delighted 
 to find this hitherto unattractive pursuit converted into a science, the principles cf 
 which are definite and the results conclusive ; a science that embraces the investiga- 
 tion of natural laws and interprets their mode of operation ; which professes to dis 
 cover in the rudest forms and apparently confused arrangement of the materials com- 
 posing the planets' crust, a new manifestation of the wisdom which lias filled the 
 earth with its riches. * * * To the reader we shall owe no apology, if we have 
 said enough to excite his curiosity and to persuade him to look to the book itself for 
 further instruction." — North American Review. 
 
 " The grand idea of the work is happily expressed by the author, where he calls it 
 the geographical march of history. * * * The man of science w>ll bail it as a beauti- 
 ful generalization from the facts of observation. The Christian, who trusts in a mer 
 eiful Providence, will draw courage from it, and hope yet more earnestly for the 
 redemption of the most degraded portions of mankind. Faith, science, learning, 
 poetry, taste, in a word, genius, have liberally contributed to the production of the 
 work under review. Sometimes we feel as if we were studying a treatise on the 
 exact sciences ; at others, it strikes the ear like an epic poem. Now it read3 like 
 history, and now it sounds like prophecy. It will find readers in whatever language 
 it may be published ; and in the elegant English dress which it has received from the 
 accomplished pen of the translator, it will not fail to interest, instruct and inspire. 
 
 We congratulate the lovers of history and of physical geography, as well as all 
 those who are interested in the growth and expansion of our common education, that 
 Prof. Guyot contemplates the publication of a series of elementary works on Physical 
 Geography, in which tbese two great branches of study which God has so closely 
 joined together, will not, we trust, be put asunder." — Christian Examiner. 
 
 " A copy of this volume reached us at too late an hour for an extended notice. The 
 work is one of high merit, exhibiting a wide range of knowledge, great research, and 
 a philosophical spirit of investigation. Its perusal will well repay the most learned 
 in such subjects, and give new views to all, of man's relation to the globe he inhabits." 
 Silliman , s Journal, July, 1849. 
 
 " These lectures form one of the most valuable contributions to geographical science 
 that has ever been published in this country. They invest the study of geography 
 with an interest which will, we doubt not, surprise and delight many. They will 
 open an entire new world to most readers, and will be found an invaluable aid to the 
 teacher and student of geography."~£ue/im^ Traveller. 
 
 " We venture to pronounce this one of the most interesting and instructive books 
 which have come from the American press for many a month. The science of which 
 it treats is comparative!y r of recent origin, but it is of great importance, not only on 
 account of its connections with other branches of knowledge, but for its bearing upon 
 many of the interests of society. In these lectures it is relieved of statistical details, 
 and presented only in its grandest features. It thus not only places before us most 
 instructive facts relating to the condition of the earth, but also awakens within us a 
 stronger sympathy with the beings that inhabit it, and a profounder reverence for the 
 beneficent Creator who formed it, and of whose character it is a manifestation and 
 expression. They abound with the richest interest and instruction to every intelli- 
 gerr: render, and especially fitted to awaken enthusiasm and delight in all who are 
 devoted the study either of natural science or the history of mankind." — Providcna 
 Journal. 
 
 «" Geography is here presented under a new and attractive phase ; it is no longer » 
 dry description of the features of the earth's surface. The influence of soil scenery 
 and climate upon character, has not yet received the consideration due to it from his- 
 torians and philosophers. In the volume before us the profound investigations of Hum- 
 boldt, Ritter and others, in Physical Geography, are presented in a popular form, and 
 with the clearness and vivacity so characteristic of French treatises on science. The 
 work should be introduced into our higher schools." — The Independent, New York. 
 
 " Geography is here made to assume a dignity, not heretofore attached to it. The 
 knowledge communicated iu these Lectures is c irious, unexpected, absorbing."— 
 
 Christian Mirror* Portland. 
 
COMPARATIVE 
 
 PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY, 
 
 OR THE STUDY OF 
 
 THE EARTH AND ITS INHABITANTS. 
 
 A. SERIES OF GRADUATED COURSES FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS. 
 
 BY ARNOLD GUYOT. 
 Late Professor of Physical Geography and History, at Neuchatel, Switzerland^ 
 Author of " Earth and Man" etc, 
 
 G., K. § L. are happy to announce that the above work, which has been undertaken 
 in compliance with the earnest solicitations of numerous teachers and friends of education, 
 is in a forward state of preparation. The plan of the author, and the principal charac* 
 teristics of this series may be gathered from the following exposition of the subject : 
 
 A knowledge of the globe we inhabit, whether considered in itself alone, or in tt3 
 relations to man, the distribution of the races of men, and the civil divisions of its sur- 
 lace, are subjects of interest too varied, too direct, and too vital, not to co mm and the 
 attention, and excite the sympathy of the mind at every period of life. 
 
 If Geography has been considered a dry and often fruitless study, — if indeed, tc 
 fceach it with success has been considered as one of the most difficult problems in edu- 
 cation, there is reason to believe that the difficulty lies not in the subject but in the 
 method of teaching it. 
 
 In most manuals the accumulation of facts, and especially the want of an arrange- 
 ment of them, really corresponding to their connection in nature, renders the study 
 difficult, and overburdens the memory at the expense of a true and thorough under- 
 standing of the subject. Hence there is confusion and a want of clear and comprehen- 
 sive views, and consequently a lack of interest for the student. For, if the mind seeka 
 to comprehend, it is only interested in what appears clear and well connected. To attain 
 to this end it is necessary — 
 
 First. To attempt a rigid selection of materials, and to reject from school instruc- 
 tion all details which have but a transient value, and, on the other hand, to render 
 facts of permanent value prominent ; preferring, for instance, the details of Physical 
 Geography and of Ethnography, to those of Statistics, which may find a larger place 
 Elsewhere. 
 
 Second. To distribute geographical instruction throughout the whole course of edu- 
 cation, so as to divide the labor of learning, and to give at the same time to each period 
 of life the nutriment most appropriate for its intellectual taste and capacity. To this 
 end, the globe should be studied from the different points of view successively ; gradu- 
 ating each view to the capacity of different classes of students. At first, the funda- 
 mental outlines, alone, should be presented, and next, not only additional facts, but a 
 deeper understanding of the connection, and so on ; and thus, by a regular and natural 
 path, a full and intelligent knowledge of the globe in all its relations, will be finally 
 attained. 
 
 Third. The comparative method, recently adopted with so much success in Europe, 
 should always be employed ; for it is by the recognition of resemblances and differences 
 that the mind seizes upon the true characters, and perceives the natural relations, and 
 the admirable connection, of the different parts which form the grand whole ; in a 
 word, gains real knowledge. 
 
 The series hereby announced is designed to meet these wants. It will consist of three 
 courses adapted to the capacity of three different ages and periods of study. The first 
 i3 intended for primary schools, and for children of from seven to ten years. The 
 second is adapted for higher schools, and for young persons of from ten to fifteen years. 
 The third is to be used as a scientific manual in Academies and Colleges. 
 
 Each course will be divided into two parts, one of purely Physical Geography, the 
 other for Ethnography, Statistics, Political and Historical Geography. Each part will 
 be illustrated by a colored Physical and Political Atlas, prepared expressly for this 
 purpose, delineating, with the greatest care, the configuration of the surface, and 
 the other physical phenomena alluded to in the corresponding work, the distribution 
 of the races of men, and the political divisions into States. Each part with the corres- 
 ponding maps will be sold separately. 
 
 The two parts of the first, or preparatory course, are now in a forward state of pr* 
 paration, and will be issued at an early day. 
 
 Also, in preparation, by the same Author, 
 
 A SERIES OF ELEGANTLY COLORED MURAL MAPS, 
 
 EXHIBITING 
 
 THE PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF THE GLOBE, 
 
 PROJECTED ON A LARGE SCALE, FOR THE RECITATION ROOM.