GENERAL VIEW. 153 



the intricate conditions of the distribution of land and 

 water, the general form of the surface, and the direction of 

 isothermal lines, or zones of equal mean annual tempera- 

 ture, it is far otherwise when we view the human race, the 

 last and noblest subject in a physical description of the globe. 

 The characteristic differences observed in the races of men, 

 and their numerical distribution on the face of the earth, 

 are influenced, not alone by natural relations, but also, and in 

 a higher degree, by the progress of civilisation, and by moral 

 and intellectual culture, on which the political superiority 

 of nations depends. Some races, clinging, as it .were, to 

 the soil, are supplanted and gradually annihilated by the 

 dangerous vicinity of others whose social state is more ad- 

 vanced, and leave behind them but a faint historical trace 

 of their existence ; whilst other races, not the strongest in 

 point of number, navigating the liquid element in every 

 direction, have spread themselves over the whole surface of 

 the earth, and have thus been the first to attain, though late, 

 a graphical knowledge of the surface of our planet, or, at 

 least, of its coasts, from pole to pole. 



Here, then, and before we enter on individual features of 

 that part of the contemplation of nature which embraces tel- 

 luric phenomena, I have shown generally in what way, from 

 the consideration of the Earth's form, and the ceaseless action 

 of the forces of electro-magnetism and subterranean heat, 

 we may embrace, in one view, the configuration of the 

 surface of the land both in horizontal extent and elevation, 

 the types of different geological formations, the liquid 

 ocean, the atmosphere with its meteorological processes, the 

 geographical distribution of plants and animals, and, finally, 

 the physical gradations of the human race which is exclu- 



