130 REPORT 1861. 



zation of animals ; but there has been great exaggeration as to what has been 

 really effected. 



No one will attempt to deny that, physically, mentally, and morally, there 

 does exist a very considerable difference between the denizens of different 

 parts of the earth ; and it is not proposed to inquire whether the various 

 agents which constitute climate, and their collateral effects, are sufficient to 

 produce the changes in physique, mind, and morals which we find ; but, 

 simply taking the various types of man as they now occur on the earth, we 

 have to determine whether we are justified in assuming that man is a cos- 

 mopolitan animal, and whether the power of acclimatization be possessed 

 equally by all the races of man known to us. 



The conditions which prevent or retard the acclimatization of man are 

 physical, mental, and moral. It is, however, impossible to discuss the effect 

 of climate only on man, because we find that food is inseparably connected 

 with climate, and that both are modified by the physical conformation of the 

 districts inhabited. The exercise or neglect of mental culture must also be 

 considered. It is therefore nearly impossible to decide to Avhich class we 

 must ascribe certain effects ; but there can be little doubt that all these causes 

 act in harmony, and are insensibly bound together. In speaking, therefore, 

 of climate, I use the word in its fullest sense, and include the whole cosmic 

 phenomena. Thus, the physical qualities of a country have an important 

 connexion with climate ; and we must not simply consider the latitude and 

 longitude of a given locality, but its elevation or depression, its soil, its 

 atmospheric influences, and also the quantity of light, the nature of its 

 water, the predominance of certain winds, the electrical state of the air, &'C., 

 atmospheric pressure, vegetation, and aliment, as all these are connected with 

 the question of climate. 



Now we find man scattered over the globe, and existing and flourishing 

 under the most opposite circumstances. Indeed, there seems no part of the 

 earth in which man could not, for a period at least, take up his dwelling. 

 When Capt. Parry reached Si" of north latitude, it was the ice, and not 

 the climate, which prevented him from reaching the pole. Man may live 

 where the temperature exceeds the heat of his blood, and also where mer- 

 cury would freeze ; so man may exist where the atmospheric pressure is 

 only one-half of what it is at the level of the sea. Men have been found 

 permanently residing 12,000 feet above that level. 



There is a difference between the climate of the N. and S. hemispheres 

 under apparently the same circumstances. Thus, the European cannot live 

 for any time at any great elevation in the northern hemisphere. The 

 highest inhabited place of Europe has generally been considered to be the 

 Casa Inglese, a small building of lava on Mount Etna, near the foot of the 

 uppermost crater, 9200 feet above the level of the sea. There is, however, 

 a house in the Theodal Pass, between Wallis and Piedmont, at an elevation 

 of 10,000 feet*. These buildings are, however, only inhabited during the 

 summer months. In the southern hemisphere there are permanent inhabit- 

 ants in regions from ten thousand five hundred feet to twelve thousand feet 

 above the level of the sea. Dr. Tschudi, who has himself resided in these 

 regions, describes what is known as the " Puna sickness," which is what may 

 i)e called a mountain-sickness, and very much resembles sea-sickness. The 

 Peruvians live and thrive well at elevations of from seven to fifteen thousand 

 feet above the level of the sea — heights said by some ob.-ervers to be often 

 destructive to the whites. This difference between the north and south 

 hemispheres is caused, perhaps, by the difference in attraction at the north 



* Perty, Vorschall der Natunvissenschaften, 1853. 



