230 NUG.E ETHNOLOGIC AE. 



hedge-hog. His body is uncovered by hair and exposed to the elements, 

 so as to require artificial protection. The tales told by romancing trav- 

 ellers concerning men clothed with hair, may rank with the equally au- 

 thentic histories of mermaids and sea-serpents. 



Man possesses speech. That animals possess a means of communica- 

 tion by sounds is undeniable. A dog's bark, his howl, his M^hine, his 

 yelp of joy or of pain, are all perfectly intelligible to themselves and 

 even to us. But these are instinctive cries, the natural expression of 

 their appropriate aflections, and are the same in all dogs, being made ex- 

 actly in the same manner by one who never was in the company of an- 

 other individual of his species. Human language is a system of arbi- 

 trary sounds, received by common agreement as the representatives of 

 certain ideas, and varying endlessly. The knowledge of this language 

 can be derived only from a long pupilage, increasing the dependance of 

 the child upon its parents : that of animals is innate. 



Man is found distributed over the ivhole globe, retaining in every 

 fart Ms distinctive character. This is the case with no wild animal, all 

 in their natural state being confined to a comparatively small space. The 

 zoology of the western hemisphere differs widely from that of the east- 

 ern, — that of Africa from that of Asia. Tlie Spaniards, on landing in 

 America, found not a single animal with which they were acquainted. 

 The same is true of marine animals. It is asserted by the highest au- 

 thority that there is no well-known animal of the northern hemisphere 

 that is not specifically distinct from every well-known animal of the 

 southern. Every zone has its peculiar inhabitants. The human family 

 is spread equally over and flourishes alike in all. Man can bear the ver- 

 tical sun of equatorial regions with the lion, and has wintered in Nova 

 Zembla, where even the polar bear departed in search of a more genial 

 clime. This is not the case with men in their original site only, nor are 

 the means of adaptation to circumstances furnished by reason alone suf- 

 ficient to account for it. Tropical animals frequently perish here during 

 our winter, notwithstanding every care. The anthropomorphous mon- 

 keys always sicken and soon die. The white bear with diiTiculty sup- 

 ports the heat of our summer : yet the British government have at this 

 moment native soldiers and colonists, scattered over the whole earth, 

 from Calcutta to Van Dieman's Land and from Sierra Leone to Hudson's 

 Bay. The human body will bear very various degrees of atmospheric 

 pressure. At the level of the sea, the average pressure upon an ordinary 

 sized body may be estimated at 32,000 pounds. Yet large districts of 

 South America are thickly inhabited, where the barometer stands habitu- 

 ally at 20|, and the pressure is consequently less than 22,000 pounds. 



