x]

DISTRIBUTION OF MAN.

149

able ice-bound shores of the Arctic Sea, and the isolated islands of New Zealand and the Pacific, were occupied by man long before the dawn of history, or the date when the very existence of these lands was first known to the races of Europe: and those parts of Europe itself which were in the condition of arctic Greenland, at an epoch long anterior to tradition, were no sooner denuded of their ice-sheet by the return of a milder climate, than they were occupied by a rude race of men, ignorant of iron, and at times probably resorting to the habits of cannibals to support a precarious existence.

It is only when man comes to contend for his existence with creatures of his own kind, that the struggle becomes fierce and critical. An invading race must be either very decidedly superior in physical power and energy to that which it invades, or at least physically equal and far more advanced in intelligence and civilization, to make rapid progress in dispossessing the latter. It is only within the last four centuries, and more especially the last century, that as in America, the West Indies, Australia and New Zealand, the highly advanced races of Europe have begun to take possession of ground in distant parts of the world, already occupied by races in a low stage of development, the latter disappearing before them. Until the means of locomotion were developed by modern invention and enterprise, one race might press upon another in its neighbourhood, overcome it, and occupy its territory; but the disparity of the contending races was less, and the progress of the conqueror was slower and sooner checked. Hence it arose that, until modern times, the world was partitioned out between a few well-marked varieties of mankind, each having pretty definite and circumscribed limits, which changed but slowly.

Nearly the whole of Europe, with a part of Western and Southern Asia, was occupied, as it still is, by different nations of the Aryan race. With a trivial exception, the remainder of the Europo-Asiatic continent was divided between the Semitic race in the south-west corner of Asia, Arabia and Syria (which also extended to Northern Africa),

150

RACES OF MAN.

[CHAP. X. and the Turanians, which include all the people of Northern, Central, and Eastern Asia, Lapland, Finland, and Hungary, and the conquerors of Turkey. But in Turkey, as in India, the blood of the Aryan and Turanian races has been largely intermingled; in the former by intermarriage with women from the neighbouring Caucasian tribes; in the latter by the intermingling of the conquering and conquered races, so that only in North-Western India is the Aryan stock to be found in comparative purity. The exception noticed above is that of the Malay race, which occupies the extremity of the peninsula of that name, and extends thence through the Eastern Archipelago, and over a great part of Polynesia, reaching as far as New Zealand. The greater part of Africa was occupied by the Ethiopian race, characterized by a dark skin and woolly hair, and but little advanced in civilization, as indeed is its condition in its native home, up to the present day. One tribe, that of the Bosjesmans, must rank among the lowest of mankind, unless indeed the Australians, whose affinities are scarcely yet known, take a lower place. America, up to its discovery by Columbus, was occupied by a distinct race, including savages of the rudest type, and nations such as the Mexicans and Peruvians, who had advanced to a high degree of civilization, and had developed many curious and luxurious arts.

How and when these several races originated, we do not know. Despite the difference of race characters, and that developed by varying degrees of civilization, climate and the like, they have so much in common, that it cannot be doubted that they sprang originally from a common stock, far back perhaps in Tertiary times. The skulls and bones of the ancient inhabitants of Europe exhumed from river gravels and burial-places of post-glacial date, are as distinctly human as those of any existing race, and they throw but little light on the question of man's origin and diversity.

CONCLUSION.

From

WE have now completed our survey of those simple and more striking phenomena which we had in view at the outset. It has not been my object, nor would it have been possible, in a little elementary treatise such as the present, to do more than glance at the several objects of interest that have successively presented themselves to our notice, and to give a brief commentary on their nature and relative importance in the economy of the world: but enough has, I think, been said, to give my readers some idea of the richness of the field we have traversed; not to speak of those that lie beyond, and over the borders of which we have not ventured. Physical Geography is not an independent science, but draws its materials from many distinct sources. Chemistry it borrows the knowledge of the simple forms of matter, the chemical elements, of which every material object is made up, and of the laws according to which these combine together and separate; and from Mineralogy it derives the knowledge of the appearance and nature of the natural compounds that form stones and rocks, and the conditions under which they are met with in nature. From Physics it learns how matter is affected by heat, light, and electricity; from Mechanics, the laws of motion and rest; and from Astronomy, how our earth, in obedience to those laws, is affected by the other orbs of space.

From Geology it takes the ascertained

facts of the past history of the earth, furnishing in return the key by which it reads that history in the stony masses now exposed on its surface. From Zoology, Botany and Paleontology, the description, structure and habits of the animals and plants that now live, or that have lived in distant ages and have long since passed away; and finally, Ethnology furnishes that knowledge of the various races of men and their mutual relationship, as indicated by their physical peculiarities, their habits, superstitions and languages, that enables the Physical Geographer to study man in his relation to other animals, and the manner in which he influences, and is influenced by, the geographical circumstances of his position. While the cultivators of these special branches of science concern themselves with some one selected class of objects, or of effects, it is the business of the Physical Geographer to regard nature as a whole; to take, as the objects of his study, the earth and its inhabitants in all the varied and complex phases that present themselves to his observation, and to seek their explanation in the facts furnished to him from the storehouses of the special sciences. But this he cannot do, unless he has himself gained a considerable acquaintance with the matter and methods of those sciences, or at least with such of them as have an important bearing on that part of Physical Geography to which his attention is given. For the thorough comprehension of the subjects discussed in the foregoing pages, some knowledge of Chemistry, Mechanics and Physics is indispensable; and to these subjects, before all others, the student's attention should be turned.

On the other hand, Physical Geography itself furnishes the key to which the Geologist, the Naturalist, and the Historian must have recourse, for the explanation of much that concerns the objects of their special study. The first interprets the relics of the past, by observing the changes that are now in progress around him, and noting their permanent effects. The second has recourse to the facts furnished by Physical Geography, to explain the distribution of animals and plants, and to determine what circumstances

are favourable and what are adverse to their extension; and the Historian discovers, in the fertile arable plains of great rivers, the conditions essential to the development of early civilizations, and at a later time the lure that has attracted the inroads of poor and hardy races, when ease and plenty have enfeebled the earlier settlers and rendered them an easy prey. In fact, many of the more important facts of the history of nations, most of the more salient peculiarities of national character, are traceable, in a large measure, either directly or indirectly, to the physical circumstances of their position.

And the science has a present and future, not less than a retrospective interest. In all conditions of life we seek to our convenience and advantage the spontaneous gifts and conditions of nature; and our power to do this, to utilize her resources, to abstain from wasting them, and to fortify ourselves against those adverse occurrences that we cannot prevent or control, will be in exact proportion to our knowledge of natural laws. The History of Engineering abounds in instances of the successful controlling of powerful natural agents, to accomplish important ends. In Tuscany, the deadly marshes of the Maremme and the Val de Chiana have been converted into salubrious and fertile plains, by turning on them and confining the silt-laden waters of local streams, in such manner that the surface has been continuously raised by their sediment. The Mahánadi river, which, for some years prior to 1857, was gradually deserting that branch which flows north of Cuttack, and by unduly filling the southern channel, threatened the safety of the town, was forced back into the former, by a small spur of stones and tree trunks so laid as to determine the formation of a sand bank by the river itself, which maintained the current in the required direction. Any engineer of experience would be able to cite numerous similar examples.

On the other hand, the disastrous consequences of igncrance have already been illustrated in the case of reckless forest clearings, by which, in some cases, large tracts have been rendered uninhabitable, and many a useful perennial