AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 481 



resemblance and generally differs so much from that of his neigh- 

 bors as to be easily distinguished. Yet, where two calves are 

 mated when young, and subjected to the same tasks and fed in 

 the same manner, they resemble each other through life as much 

 as if both had been " to the manor born." The uniformity of 

 color, size, and general appearance of wild animals also occurs 

 from the same cause. That climate has nothing to do with it 

 we know from the fact that domesticated animals in the same 

 regions with those which have escaped from man, are subject to 

 all the variations of form common to their condition of servitude. 

 Thus the wild horses and cattle of South America differ in 

 appearance from the domestic stock of the same countries though 

 both are of common origin. The same is also true of the wild dogs 

 of Contantinople. .The life of the sailor, aside from casualties, 

 has never been regarded as unhealthy while he is confined to ship 

 fare, but when in port and surfeiting on foreign productions he is 

 peculiarly liable to disease. We never hear of the mariner 

 degenerating from the influence of climate. 



As further evidence of the direct effect of food rather than cli- 

 mate in modifying animals, we may notice that the climate of the 

 earth has not varied for three thousand years. We know this not 

 only from astronomical observations but from observations in our 

 own science. The grape and the date both grew in Palestine, in 

 the earliest historic periods, and both grow there still, although 

 a variation of one degree of average climate would have carried 

 this common margin on which they meet, to the north or south by 

 some hundreds of miles. And yet, as there have been great 

 changes in the character of the different races of men who have 

 inhabited the different eastern countries, these changes must be 

 due to progressive improvement in their food. Tacitus speaks of 

 the Germans as a wild race, inhabiting dens and swamps and liv- 

 ing on the coarsest kind of food. But these same Germans are 

 now the most metaphysical nation on the face of the earth. The 

 same is true of the English and French nations as described by 

 ancient historians. 



With the acquisition and general use of the cereals the process 

 of amelioration seems to have commenced. And the same thing 



