330 NOTES ON HISTORY AND CLIMATE OF NEW MEXICO. 



Nile desceuds present a striking superiority over the people of lower 

 Egypt. Tbeir fiery life, love of liberty, and warlike genius place tbem 

 immeasurably above the " Fellalis." The recent war against the Abys- 

 sinians has demonstrated anew the vigor and valor of their race. 



The human race has not only degenerated by dwelling in low, un- 

 healthy places, but it is again and again decimated by the pestilences 

 generated in them. In the language of Dr. Farr, " it is destroyed now 

 periodically by five pestilences — cholera, remittent fever, yellow fever, 

 glandular plague, and influenza. The origin or chief seat of the first is 

 the Delta of the Gauges. Of the second, the African and other tropical 

 coasts. Of the third, the low west coast around the Gulf of Mexico, or 

 the Delta of the Mississippi, and the West India Islands. Of the fourth, 

 the Delta of the Nile and the low sea- side of cities of the Mediterranean. 

 Of the generating field of influenza nothing certain is known ; but 

 * * * the four great pestilential diseases — cholera, yellow fever, re- 

 mittent fever, and plague — have this property in common : that they 

 begin and are most fatal in low grounds j that their fatality diminishes 

 in ascending the rivers and is inconsiderable around the river sources, 

 except under such peculiar circumstances as are met with at Erzeroum, 

 where the features of a marshy sea-side city are seen at the foot of 



Ihe mountain chain of Ararat. Safety is found in flight to the hills." 



* * * * * * * 



In treating upon the " salubrity of high places," he refers to the influ- 

 ence of locality on race, of the sanitary instinct, the effect of the high 

 \and, and the sight of the hills on the energies of the sick, the longevity 

 of the inhabitants of various places, the effect of healthy places on the 

 breed of animals, the degeneration of race in unhealthy places, the time 

 required to produce degeneration and degradation of race. 



It is, perhaps, well for us, as individuals, to revert to such historic 

 facts as he presents in terms of classic elegance, and it is, I trust, cog- 

 nate to the subject we have in hand. "As the power of the Egyptians 

 descended from the Thebaid to Memphis, from Memphis to Sais, they 

 gradually degenerated, notwithstanding the elevation of their towns 

 above the high waters of the Kile, their hygienic laws and the hydro- 

 graphical and other sanitary arrangements which made the country 

 renowned, justly or unjustly, for its salubrity in the days of Heroditus, 

 the poison of the Delta in every time of weakness and successful inva- 

 sion gradually gained the ascendancy, and as the cities declined the 

 canals and the embalmments of the dead were neglected, the plague 

 gained ground. The people, subjugated by Persians, Greeks, Romans, 

 Turks, Mamelukes, became what they have been for centuries, and what 

 they are in the present day. Every race that settled in the Delta de- 

 generated and was only sustained by immigration. So, likewise, the 

 populations on the sites of all the city-states of antiquity, on the coast 

 of Syria, Asia Minor, Africa, Italy, seated like the people of Eome on 

 low ground under the ruin-clad hills of their ancestors, within reach of 



