452 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE EVOLUTIOX OF COLONIES. 



By JAMES COLLIER. 

 IL— EMIGRATION. 



EMIGRATIOi^ is a coutiuual regenesis of colonies, and in its 

 latest stages exhibits all the phenomena that belong to the be- 

 ginnings of societies. It answers eloselv to the genesis of the indi- 

 vidnal organism in particulars not previously mentioned. It is a 

 mere extension of the migrations of animals, which project light 

 on it, as it reflects light on them. And it recapitulates the move- 

 ments that peopled the countries whence it proceeds. Guided by 

 this triple clew, let us explore its myriad facts. They may be con- 

 veniently distributed under the principal Aristotelian categories. 

 Whence, by whom, and of what sort, when, why, how, and whither 

 has emigration taken place? Which are the emigrating races? At 

 what point in its history does a nation throw off a colony? What are 

 the characteristics of the emigrating type? What are the classes, re- 

 ligions, and professions, and which chiefly the sex, that swell the 

 stream ? What are their motives for leaving the old and seeking a new 

 country? Under what circumstances and by what agencies is emigra- 

 tion carried out, and in what direction does it move? — these are the 

 questions to be answered. 



I. It is the brilliant generalization of Weismann (with which 

 his view of the intransmissibleness of acquired characters seems to 

 have no necessary connection) that the substance of every species 

 consists of a web of germinal protoplasm that is continuous from 

 one generation to another — a warp whereon the lives of individuals 

 are as patterns woven. We might similarly conceive the migrating 

 (destined, when they reach the sea, to become the emigrating) races 

 as forming a continuous emigrating chain or cable, unbroken from 

 the departure of the first migratory band to the sailing of the last 

 emigrant ship, splitting on this side and that into independent 

 strands, but each containing the ferment of the movement that has 

 carried civilization round the globe. The Carthaginians inherited 

 a double portion of the Phosnician colonizing spirit. The Greek 

 colonies gave birth to others which, like Massalia, Syracuse, Sybaris, 

 Corcyra, and Andros, were more colonizing than themselves. Eng- 

 land, the progenitor of a hundred peoples, is a Teutonic and Scan- 

 dinavian colony. Massachusetts was the mother of a cluster of ISTew 

 England States, and Virginia of many of the Southern States. Two 

 great colonies have sprung from the loins of Xew South Wales; 

 two others from two ISTew Zealand settlements; and both countries 



