Have the European races advanced in these latitudes in strength of mind
and body with equal ratio as the black man? We think not. Let us consider.
The qualities of plants and vegetables are often affected by external
influences, so as to assume different characters, and the impressions upon
the leaves and the fruits are distinctly marked. These alterations,
degenerations, and modifications may disguise the primitive type so far
that it is no longer recognizable. We observe these properties among all
organic bodies, among those of the animal and as well as of the vegetable
world. The vine and its golden extracts are very much dependent upon these
influences.
The exquisite bouquet, the soul-inspiring qualities of the best varieties
of wine, cannot be acquired by the efforts of man at pleasure; without the
generous nature of the soil, the rays of sunlight, and the inspiring
breezes of favored localities and climes, the extract of the pressed grape
is without that flavor and force which warm into life the brilliancy of
the imagination, the nobility of the soul.
There is also a marked effect of soil and climate upon the odor of
plants, and in their narcotic constituents. Does not the same law affect
man?
The Italian violets grow sweeter as we climb the Alpine slopes; the
mignonette blooms with greater perfection and perfume as we approach the
shores of the lowlands of the Mediterranean. We find the finest types of
the human race among the uplands and the mountains; below, on the low
coasts and river margins, where pestilences are generated, the physical
and mental forces do not fully expand, and we find there neither liberty,
virtue, nor science.
Dr. Rusdorf, in his work on the influence of European climate, regards the
temperate zone as the brain-making region, and attempts to prove it by
physiological deductions. The brain of the Caucasian, he says, determines
the superiority over the other races, and it is the standard of the
organism. This, he maintains, is produced by the richness of albumen in
the blood, which is also dependent upon the oxygen of pure air. The
extensive observations of the English Registrar-General show indisputably
that the elevation of the soil exercises as decided an influence on the
English race as it does on the native races of other climes and soils.
They also show that the finest animals are raised in the healthiest
districts. We see that certain heights above the plains are remarkably
exempt from maladies which devastate nations inhabiting lower levels.
Cholera, remittent fever, yellow fever, and plague, disappear at
well-defined degrees of elevation.
At Vera Cruz, and along its latitude, the yellow fever vanishes at the
height of three thousand feet above the Gulf shores.
The Prussian, in his "Medicinische Geographie," appears to indicate with
great degree of certainty the limits and altitudes of the three zones,
into which he classifies the catarrhal, the dysenteric, and the scrofulous
diseases. The scrofulous zone ceases at an altitude of two thousand feet
above the level of the sea, and here, he says, there is no pulmonary
consumption, scrofula, cancer, or typhus fever. "It is," says Babinet,
"the climate of each country which permits or arrests the development of
the human race, which, joined with the industry of populations, imposes
limits to the numerical force of each meteorological district, and which
subsists four million of men in fertile Belgium, which is no more than a
small fraction of the territory of France, whilst Siberia can with
difficulty nourish a part of that number with an extent which is
twenty-six times that of France." "All over the world, physical
circumstances," exclaims Draper, "control the human race."