Kansas Academy of Science. 



a niggardly and severe nature. It is a desperate struggle for life. No higher culture is 

 possible under such unfavorable conditions." 



The student of history can at once see the truth of these statements. No nation great 

 in moral and intellectual development exists or ever lias existed in a purely tropical or 

 frigid climate. 



The discussion in this paper will seek the relation between climate and brain-power 

 and products, and this ultimately with reference to Kansas. 



Herschell defines the climate of a country as the result of all the meteorological 

 influences to which it is habitually subjected. "Climate," says Humboldt, "indicates all 

 the changes of the atmosphere which sensibly affect our organs, as temperature, humidity, 

 variations in barometrical pressure, the calm state of the air, or the action of opposite 

 winds ; the amount of electrical tension, the purity of the atmosphere, or its admixture 

 with more or less noxious, gaseous exhalations ; and finally, the degree of ordinary trans- 

 parency and clearness of the sky, which is not only important with respect to the 

 increased radiation from the earth, the organic development of plants, and the ripening 

 fruits, but also with reference to its influence on the feelings and mental conditions of 

 man." 



Brain-power may mean that activity of the mind which shows itself in various great 

 productions, as literature, art, architecture, conquest, or civilization. Any one of these 

 marks great intellectual power, though some more than others. A statue, a temple, or a 

 campaign, may, in its conception and finish, be a poem ; but above Phidias, Cheops and 

 Alexander, tower Homer, Shakspeare and Milton. Products of pure mind justly rank 

 above those in which the conception is carried out only by vast physical aid. The writ- 

 ings left by the Greeks are worth more to us than their sculpture and temples. It is 

 interesting to trace the gradual change in brain-products from very ancient times to 

 later, and see that they not only change from the gross to the finer, but the locality of 

 them is from warmer climates to colder. This will be seen by glancing at some of the 

 most noticeable instances. 



Egypt, with its very ancient civilization, in a mean temperature of about 72° Fall., 

 principally gave expression to its brain-activity in gigantic pyramids, huge sculpture, 

 massive temples, Sesostris-like conquests, and the elements only of the arts and sciences. 

 The climate seems to have been too warm for great mental activity and acumen, though 

 the extremely dry atmosphere gave the ancient Egyptians advantages in this respect 

 superior to many of their neighbors. When they no longer had princes able to lead to 

 conquest, or to build vast pyramids, the ease with which they could procure a living from 

 their rich valley allowed them to fall into habits of indolence and into enervation. 



India, in similar temperature, but with damper air, later produced the fantastic civili- 

 zation of the Ganges and Punjaub; the light, airy architecture, imaginative and sensual 

 in its nature ; the weird Vedas, with their glimpses of the true God, but impossible sys- 

 tems of cosmogony, deities, and worship. Regarded simply as a brain-i)roduct, the Vedas 

 are greatly superior to the Egyptian Book of the Dead. But the variations of climate in 

 India are greater than in Egypt, if we take the extended definition of climate given by 

 Humboldt. It will be noticed that reference is made to the influence of climate, only, 

 on the intellectual powers, it not being the design to involve the peculiarities arising 

 from race, the extraneous influences of national relations, or the manifest destiny of na- 

 tion^. God is in history, but not to the total exclusion of many surrounding influences. 



Passing from these hot latitudes, let us glance at the climate and intellectual force of 

 the Greeks. Instead of a temperature ranging from 72° to 75° Fah., it averages ten 

 degrees less ; a country not of broad plains and great rivers, but one of narrow vales, 

 short, rapid streams, indented sea-coasts, beetling clifi's and snow-capped mountains. Here 

 were clear skies, equable temijerature, variety of productions, a soil not so rich as to breed 

 habits of indolence, alternating sea breezes and bracing mountain air, all combining with 



