60 



BOREAL PROVINCE. 



effect on the intellectual and the physical energies of 

 man ; it depresses and overpowers, and instead of 

 profusion being a blessing, it is too often a curse 

 upon his exertions. Thus, in the wide expanse of 

 South America, we find the regions where vegetation 

 exhibits a luxuriance, and the soil a richness 

 beyond that of every other country in the world, 

 where the earth and the waters alike teem with food, 

 man, whether the aboriginal savage or the invading 

 settler, sinks into an animal, who makes no effort 

 towards improvement, and takes no thought of the 

 morrow. But in the most dreary, and unpromising 

 districts of the same great continent, the very cheer- 

 lessness and absence of attractions and comforts 

 generate energy and success in the inhabitants. To 

 some comparable influence on man's mind may we 

 not attribute the intellectual energy of northern 

 men as compared with southern, and the superior 

 acuteness of their observing powers, and conse- 

 quently of their abilities and knowledge as natural- 

 ists 1 The mould in which the character of a nation 

 is cast, is like most moulds, a mineral one, — the soil 

 and its properties, — and the power which melts the 

 metal, and shapes it to the mould, is the influence 

 of temperature, whether it be a man cast by God, 

 or a spoon cast by man. The sun and the earth, 

 climate and soil, are the great ethnogenitors. 



To the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties 

 may fairly be attributed the bias of Scandinavian 

 minds towards the study of Nature, in all her 



