169 



every coast, and the railway and electric telegraph 

 are spread like a network over every continent ? If 

 the limited emigration of a former century has already 

 done so much to change the natural aspects, and in- 

 fluence the aborigines of America and Australasia, 

 how shall we estimate the results of quadrupled 

 numbers and a tenfold tide of trade and commerce 1 

 And when the white man has taken full possession 

 of the New World, of Australia, and New Zealand, 

 his influence will be felt (it is already felt) on the 

 eastern frontier of the Old — on the Mongol and 

 Malay elements of his race, which are evidently 

 destined in turn to make way for the higher and 

 more progressive. As he has already crossed the 

 Atlantic, so will he cross the Paciflc, carrying with 

 him augmented energies and higher conceptions of 

 his functional relations. We say augmented energies, 

 for it is a curious fact — ^however we may try to 

 account for it — that the men of North America, and 

 especially those on the Pacific side, as well as the 

 settlers in Australia and New Zealand, seem to 

 acquire new elasticity of mind and muscle — a greater 

 rapidity of progression as it were — by transference to 

 their new localities. Be it the result of external 

 conditions or of the interfusion of dififerent but nearly 

 related bloods, such is the fact, and such will be its 

 accelerated results on the conterminous territories of 



