FIGURE OF THE EARTH. 



Himalaya chains, even to the regions of eter- 

 nal snow, produced new admixtures and new 

 textures in the rocky masses, and altered the 

 strata which had been thrown down at earlier 

 periods, from waters teeming with life and or- 

 ganized matters. We recognize here the suc- 

 cession of formations, separated according to 

 their age and superposed, in their dependence 

 upon the alterations in form of the surface, 

 upon the dynamical relations of the upheaving 

 forces, upon the chemical actions of outbreak- 

 ing vapours upon the fissures. 



The form and distribution of continents — in 

 other words, of the dry land— of that portion of 

 the crust of the earth which is susceptible of 

 the vigorous evolution of vegetable life, stands 

 in intimate relationship, and potential recipro- 

 city of action, with the all-surrounding sea. In 

 this the organizing force is almost wholly ex- 

 pended upon the animal world. The liquid el- 

 ement, again, is invested by the gaseous atmo- 

 sphere, an aerial ocean, into which the mount- 

 ain chains and lofty plateaus of the dry land 

 rise like reefs and shoals, induce a vast variety 

 of currents and changes of temperature, collect 

 moisture from the region of the clouds, and by 

 the running streams that furrow their sides, 

 spread motion and life over alJ. 



If the Geography of Plants and Animals de- 

 pends on these intricate contrasts in the distri- 

 bution of sea and shore, in the formation of the 

 surface, and the direction of isothermal lines 

 (or zones of mean annual temperature), so, on 

 the other hand, are characteristic differences 

 in the races of men and their relative numeri- 

 cal distribution over the face of the earth — the 

 last and noblest object of a physical description 

 of the globe — influenced not. by these natural 

 relations alone, but at the same time, and es- 

 pecially by progress in civilization, in mental 

 improvement, in political superiority grounded 

 upon national cultivation. Some races, cling- 

 ing to the soil, are supplanted and annihilated 

 by the dangerous vicinity of more politic com- 

 munities : a faint historical trace is soon all 

 that remains of them ; other races, in numbers 

 not the strongest, put forth upon the liquid ele- 

 ment ; and almost omnipresent by means of 

 this, have they alone, though late, attained to 

 a general graphical knowledge of the surface, 

 of all the seaboards at least, of our planet from 

 pole to pole. 



Here, then, and before I have touched upon 

 the individual, in our natural picture of the 



TELLURIC SPHERE OF PHENOMENA, I haVO ShOWU 



in General, how from considerations on the form 

 of the globe, and on the ceaseless manifesta- 

 tions of force in its electro-magnetism and sub- 

 terranean heat, the relations of the earth's sur- 

 face in horizontal extension and elevation, the 

 geognostictype of mineral formations, the realm 

 of the ocean, and of the atmosphere with its 

 meteorological processes, the geographical dis- 

 tribution of plants and animals, and, finally, the 

 physical gradations of the human race, alone, 

 but in all circumstances susceptible of spiritual 

 culture, may be comprised in one and the same 

 contemplative survey. This unity of contem- 

 plation presupposes an enchainment of phenom- 

 ena according to their intimate connections. 

 A mere tabular arrangement of phenomena 

 "W )uld not accomplish the purpose I prescribed 



myself; it does not satisfy the want of that 



COSMICAL REPRESENTATION whicll thC aspCCt of 



nature by sea and land, the diligent study of 

 formations and forces, and the lively impression 

 of a natural whole, which has been made upon 

 my mind in the course of my travels in various 

 and dissimilar climates of the globe. Much 

 that in this essay is so exceedingly defective, 

 with the accelerated rate at which knowledge 

 of all the departments of physical science ad- 

 vances, will probably ere long be corrected and 

 filled up. It lies, indeed, in the path of devel- 

 opment which every science pursues, that that 

 which long stood isolated, becomes connected 

 by degrees and subjected to higher laws. I but 

 point out the empirical way, along which I, 

 and many minded like myself, advance, full of 

 expectation that "Nature," as Plato tells us 

 Socrates once desired, " shall have interpreta- 

 tion according to*reason"('®). 



Our account of terrestrial phenomena, in their 

 principal features, must begin with the form 

 and relations in space of our planet. And here, 

 too, it may be said, that not merely does the 

 mineral constitution, the crystalline, the gran- 

 ular, the dense masses filled -with petrefactions, 

 but also the geometrical figure of the earth it- 

 self, bear witness to the mode of its origin ; its 

 figure is its history. An elliptical spheroid of 

 rotation indicates a once soft or semi-fluid mass. 

 To the oldest geognostic incidents, writ down, 

 and clearly legible to the understanding eye, in 

 the book of nature, belongs the flattening [of 

 the poles of the earth], and to adduce another 

 and nearly related instance, the perpetual di- 

 rection of the greater axis of the moon's spheroid 

 towards the earth ; i. e. the accumulation of mat- 

 ter upon that half of the moon which we see, and 

 which determines the relation between the peri- 

 od of rotation and that of revolution. And the 

 same law extends to the oldest formative epochs 

 of all the satellites. " The mathematical figure 

 of the earth is that which it would have were 

 its surface covered with water in a state of re- 

 pose ;" to this are referred all geodetic meas- 

 urements of degrees reduced to the sea-level. 

 From this mathematical surface of the earth, 

 the physical one, with all its accidents and in- 

 equalities of the solid, difFers("). The whole 

 figure of the earth is determined when the quan- 

 tity of oblateness and the magnitude of the 

 equatorial diameter are known. To obtain a 

 complete picture of the figure, however, it were 

 necessary to have measurements in two direc- 

 tions perpendicular to each other. 



Eleven measurements of degrees, or deter- 

 minations of the curvature of the earth's sur- 

 face in different countries, of which nine belong 

 exclusively to the present century, have given 

 us accurate information on the dimensions ol 

 the earth, which Pliny long ago designated as 

 " a point in the infinity of space^'(")- 1^ these 

 measurements do not agree in the curvature of 

 diflferent meridians under the same degrees of 

 latitude, this very circumstance vouches for 

 the sufficiency of the instruments and of the 

 methods employed, for the accuracy of partial 

 results true to nature. The inference from 

 the increase of attractive force proceeding from 

 the equator towards the pole, in reference to 

 the figure of a planet, depends on the distribu- 



