Physical Geography as a Popular Study. 65 



the important cultivation and vegetation of the continent being 

 dependent on the broad, rich, level tracts that reach for thou- 

 sands of miles in successive terraces, almost unbroken by hills, 

 through a large part of both divisions of America." 



Europe is the most complicated of continents. America 

 and Australia are both simple, the one with its great mountain 

 system in an almost continuous line, and its chief drainage in 

 one direction; and the other with its prosaic destitution of 

 great features, either mountain, lake, or river. 



Variety of conditions and influences being essential to the 

 progress of civilization, it is interesting to observe the tendency 

 of different regions of the globe to assist or to hinder human 

 advancement. Monotonous climates and monotonous countries 

 tend to induce a stationary and conservative condition of the 

 human mind, and had it not been for the warlike irruptions 

 made from time to time by more impetuous mountain races, 

 the inhabitants of great plains would have suuk into a state of 

 vegetative repetition of the same forms of life, and of the same 

 habits. The existence of variety to stimulate, and of difficulty 

 to render industry indispensable, both of which arise, to a 

 great extent, out of conditions of physical geography, exert the 

 most powerful influence on the education of the human race; 

 and if we understand the structure and position of different 

 countries, we can easily see where civilization can be an 

 early, and where it must be a late condition of the in- 

 habitants. 



A school of imphilosophers has lately been trying to grow 

 up amongst us, who caricature the doctrine of race, and who 

 think themselves wiser than other persons, because they are 

 unable to perceive that the mobility of certain races and the 

 stationary character of others are intimately connected with 

 the conditions under which they have existed. Such shallow 

 reasoners feel no scruples in laying down the law that certain 

 races must be extirpated, and that certain others must be en- 

 slaved, and they raise a sort of hyena laugh against those who 

 believe that, by applying principles of justice, benevolence, 

 and industry, all the great branches of the human family may 

 be at last raised to a participation of the blessings of liberty 

 and civilization. The unchangeable habits of savages are 

 paralleled by the unchangeable habits of the pauper and cri- 

 minal class in European countries, and yet there is no distinc- 

 tion of race between the tramp and the tradesman, the here- 

 ditary pickpocket and the thriving artizan. If a large portion 

 of Africa is pointed out as the abode of races who do not 

 improve, we ask, why should they ? "When have they been 

 subjected to the operation of causes similar to those which have 

 led Europeans in their progressive career ? And if we look a 



VOL. XII. — NO. I. P 



