The Configuration of the Continents.
All the divisions of the earth, taken together in their internal and
external connections, in their mutual action and reaction, constitute
the unity of the globe, and make apparent that it is a simple organism,
designed and created by divine skill, and intended to be the home of a
race whose culture should, in the course of centuries, unfold from the
most simple beginnings to the most complex and elaborate perfection.
We have already seen that the surface of the earth is naturally divided
into three typical features—highland, lowland, and the transition
terraces between them. From the vertical and horizontal combination of
these result the most of the geographical forms which are the subject of
our study. They form what we may, for convenience, call the bas-relief of
the globe.
At the creation of the earth every great continental division received
(as every other organism has, regarded by itself, and not in relation to
the greater whole of which it forms a part) its own special form. Each
continent is like itself alone; its characteristics are not shared by any
other. Each one was so planned and so formed as to have its own special
function in the progress of human culture. This may be seen by reviewing
the history of the past; this may fairly be suspected yet to be in the
future. The individuality of each continent raises it to a place where
its characteristics give it an independent character, and a capacity of
development of itself, up to a certain point, but never beyond it. The
continents are never to be regarded as high, dead masses of land, but as
vital and effective instruments, working upon each other ceaselessly, and
helping each other to attain the consummation intended in the counsels of
the Divine Mind. The unity of the earth, the unity of the continents, the
unity of every physical feature of the continents, and the building all
up together in a perfect symmetry and mutual adaptation of parts, is the
crowning thought of Geographical Science.
The study of first causes has no less clear illustrations in the course
of our investigations than elsewhere. It is the task of science to show
the nature and mutual relations of all the subjects which fall within
the scope of Natural History. The nature of the parts is only understood
from a comprehension of the whole; not the reverse, however. That is a
most just saying of Plato. The knowledge of the universal cannot proceed
from a knowledge of the special. As the part is formed only in view of
and on account of the whole, in its study, dissociated from the whole,
it becomes a mere unit and independent existence. From understanding the
solar system, we might arrive at a knowledge of the motion of the earth;
and so, from a knowledge of the earth, we may advance to its continents,
their relations, the characteristics of the different natural divisions,
their subdivisions, their phenomena, and their living organization,
embracing man, animals, and plants.
The external formation of the globe, or what we may call the
configuration of the continents, rests upon two characteristics—the
horizontal and vertical dimensions.
1. The horizontal dimensions are designated by the sea-line boundary—the
geographical limitation.
2. The vertical dimensions—the physical limitation—are defined by the
elevation of terraces and highlands, and they exhibit the greatest
diversity of phenomena.
The horizontal dimensions supply most of the material for our elementary
compends for political geography, which seldom make much account of
vertical dimensions, and which, by no means, penetrate to their real
value. They are commonly held to be a side-matter, to be touched lightly
upon, or wholly cast aside. But both must be thoroughly studied; for
they are mutually dependent, and are never found divorced in nature. In
order to understand them in their true relations, we will look at them
in their general aspect, discussing first the horizontal extent of the
continents, then their vertical elevation, so far as that has not already
been treated. After this twofold investigation, the character of each
continent and its subdivisions will appear in its true light.
On account of the importance of thoroughly understanding the articulation
of great districts, in contradistinction to a mere division, which
implies no organic and living correlation of parts, and which gives over
to mathematics, political history, and fortuitous circumstances the duty
of explaining geographical phenomena, it is instructive to trace the
footsteps of our science back to some of the earlier conceptions.
Eratosthenes and Polybius were aware that the south of Europe was
a series of peninsulas, the first of the two speaking of the great
peninsulas of Spain, Italy, and the Peloponnesus, the latter adding
allusions to the smaller Grecian peninsula of Sunium, the Thracian
on the Bosporus, and the Tauric Chersonesus, now known as the Crimea.
Strabo got a clearer insight into the significance of these forms,
(whose meaning Hipparchus had already tried to explain,) by discussing
them according to the sea basins which they separate. Thus the Spanish
peninsula separates the Gulf of Cadiz, at the Pillars of Hercules,
from the Tyrrhene Sea; Italy separates the Sicilian Sea from the
Adriatic; the Peloponnesus separates the Adriatic and the Euxine.
This view, though apparently simple, was really profound; for it
hinted at the great significance of the maritime coast in developing
the civilization of those countries. And Strabo goes on to add that
Italy, with its southeastern and southwestern extremities, becomes
too pointed, (δικόρυφος,) and that the eastern peninsulas of Europe
are much more jagged and articulated (ποικίλαι καὶ πολύμερεῖς) than
Polybius had conceived them to be. He entered, therefore, upon a more
minute subdivision. Strabo had already (ii. 92) called the Peloponnesus
“many-parted,” (πολυ σχεδές,) as the Laconian peninsula (Tœnarum) is
separated from Malea, the Attic from Sunium, and all southern Europe
cannot, therefore, be laid out in six parts. Of the north of Europe,
Strabo was not in a position to gain any accurate conception. Toward
the end of his second book, where he gives his reason for beginning his
description at the West, he uses the awkward but significant phrase
“polymorphous formation,” to indicate the superiority which Europe
enjoys in its complex articulation over the other continents. The
passage in Strabo runs thus: “We begin with Europe, because it is so
intricately organized, and is the most favorable for human culture, and
has conferred upon the other continents the most of the advantages which
its position has secured for itself. It is habitable almost everywhere;
there is but a little portion of its territory too cold to be the home
of man, etc. It enjoys an admirable physical conformation, for it is so
perfectly harmonized in the mingling of plains and mountains, (ὅλη γάρ
διαπεποίκιλται πεδίας τε και ὅρεδιν,) that the city and the country are
brought together, and the people educated by equally favorable conditions
to habits of great bravery. Europe is, therefore, complete in herself,
(ἀμταρκεστάτη ἐστί.)” By this Strabo indicates the independent character
of Europe, and its equality with the other continents, despite its
smaller size.
Yet for long centuries this insight of that keen observer into one of
the most weighty of all the physical conditions of the globe was almost
wholly overlooked. At length, however, Humboldt brought it out into new
life in its climatological relations, and showed that it is one of the
most important considerations to base a study of the distribution of
plants and animals upon, as well as for the study of almost all kinds of
physical phenomena. In his very instructive paper on the most prominent
reasons for the variation in temperature on the globe, published in 1827,
he uses the significant expression: “Our Europe is indebted for its mild
climate, to its position, and its articulated form.” We have adhered to
the same view, and have expanded it in a paper[7] called The Geographical
Position and Horizontal Extension of the Continents, as well as in all my
lectures.
The Superficial Dimensions and Articulation of the Continents.
We proceed from the more simple to the more complex forms, and begin,
therefore, with Africa, which has the most uniform contour of all the
continents.
Africa, the true South of the earth, is distinguished from all the other
great divisions of the earth by its almost insular form and its unbroken
outline. It is separated from Asia merely by the Isthmus of Suez,
scarcely 70 miles wide. But it is of altogether more virgin a nature than
Asia, and has been encroached upon by scarcely any foreign influence.
Africa is a unit in itself; the most exclusive of continents, its
periphery is almost a perfect ellipse. With the exception of the single
Gulf of Guinea on the west side, the continent is a true oval. Its linear
dimensions are almost equal in length and breadth. It extends about 35°
on each side of the equator, and is about 70° of longitude in width. The
length and breadth are both about 5000 miles.
The periphery of its coast is the most simple and unbroken in the world.
A single glance at the map is sufficient to show this. Nowhere are there
the deep arms of the sea and the sinuous shores of other continents. The
Gulf of Guinea is all. The entire length of its coast-line is but 16,000
or 17,000 miles, not much more than the circumference of a circle whose
diameter is 5000 miles. Its coast-line, proportioned to its area, being
the shortest on the globe, gives Africa the least contact with the ocean
of all the continents, and subjects it to the least amount of oceanic
influences.
Thus all individualization of the various phases of life—vegetable,
animal, and human—is denied to this continent, whose extremities, on
account of the equality of its dimensions, lie equally far removed from
the central point. The similar size and configuration of the two lobes
north and south of the equator create no strong contrasts, and give
rise merely to tropical and sub-tropical conditions. All the phenomena
of this great division, the real South of the earth, in which all the
culminations of the tropical world are found, are therefore more uniform
than in any other part of the world. The characteristics of race remain
in their primitive condition, and have made no progress with the lapse
of time: this region seems to be kept as the refuge of a yet undeveloped
future. Only general, never individual and special development in the
world of plants, animals, nor man, appear upon this stationary soil; the
palm, the camel, and their natural companions appear in equal numbers
in the northern, southern, eastern, and western extremities; the negro
is almost exclusively the only inhabitant of the continent. There is no
striking individuality apparent in the culture, stature, organization,
nor popular characteristics of its various parts. Even a common
foundation language gives rise to mere dialectical differences. A mere
sporadic coast-culture gives rise to mere exceptions here and there, and
these are generally the result, not of inward progress, but of imported
foreign conditions.
Asia, the Orient, is wholly unlike Africa. On three sides it is entirely
sea-girt—the south, the east, and the north; on the west only partly,
about 1400 miles. On the west, too, it is connected with Africa, but not
in a way to insure any necessary relations between the two continents.
But with Europe it stands in the most intimate connection, forming a
single body with it, of which Europe is really but a great western
peninsula. Europe, the Occident of the Old World, is therefore for
less widely severed from its Orient than from its real South or Africa.
The history of Asia and that of Europe are woven with a twisted strand;
they form a single thread, and their populations are far more closely
connected in physical and spiritual organizations than are the people of
Asia and Africa.
Asia, instead of being a simple oval, approaches the trapezoidal form,
and consequently enters into a new set of relations resulting from its
configuration. With the deeply-penetrating gulfs and bays and seas
which sink into its trunk, the prominent peninsulas are in direct
correspondence, marking in an especial manner the eastern and southern
coast, but not lacking on the northern and western. These peninsulas are
to be regarded as the limbs of a great central continental trunk. The
eastern ones are the Tchooktchee foreland, the peninsulas of Kamtchatka
and Corea, and the Chinese foreland. The southern ones are the peninsula
of Farther India, including Tonquin, Siam, Malacca, and Birmah; the
peninsulas of Hindostan, or Deccan and Arabia. The western limb is the
peninsula of Asia Minor or Australia. The northeast of Asia is less
articulated; still it has a number of arms pointing southward—the Sea of
Kara, the Gulf of Obi and Yenisei, for example. The whole Siberian coast
even is far more serrated than that of Africa, where it is an almost
unbroken line.
Still, there remains in the interior of Asia a broad and long mass of
the continent, which is penetrated by no seas. It is to be regarded as
the real trunk, and preponderates immensely over the area of all the
confined projections. Asia is, therefore, a trunk with profuse richness
of articulation. Africa is a trunk without articulation: a mere compact
continental mass.
The immense influence which so complex a coast form has upon all physical
phenomena and on all organic life is evident. Far greater results must
come from the mutual influence of sea and land than from unbroken land;
far more numerous influences upon the climate, and upon plants, animals,
and man. Even the changing geological structure of the coast-line must
have an effect, when blending with all these other influences, greater
than it would have in the interior. Every part of the coast has become
different from every other part, with a different hydrographic and
climatic character; and the great increase of races of men, and species
of plants and animals, was a natural result. While Africa remained
limited in all its relations, and destitute of any richness of variety,
Asia has always enjoyed an amazing fertility of resources. Instead of
the three races or species of man found in Africa—Negro, Berber, and
Caffre—many are met in Asia, all different, Tchooktchees, Kamtchadales,
Coreans, Chinese, Malays, Bermese, Hindoos, Afghans, Persians, Arabs, and
Armenians. And these belong merely to the coast-line.
But the contrast of the great central region to the broken coast is so
great and complete, that the advanced culture along the sea-line has not
penetrated far into the interior, nor changed the habits of the nomadic
tribes which fill Central Asia, and whose representatives we have in
the Mongolians, Toorkomans, Kirgheez, Bukharians, Calmucks, etc. Still
less could it reach the distant north, to which, with all the splendor
which we associate with everything oriental, the civilization of the
southern coasts is utterly wanting. To this element of superficial size,
the immense and almost insuperable obstacles which Nature has placed so
thickly in Asia may be added, and also the immense variety of natural
productions which climates so different as those of the different parts
of the continent exhibit. Extending from the equator to the north frigid
zone, Asia affords a home for the most diversified kinds of plants and
animals, and shows, too, hardly less variety in its eastern and western
extremes than in its northern and southern. The characteristics of the
Chinese flora and fauna are very widely different from those of Hither
Asia. In the east, we have the sago-tree and the tiger; in the west, the
date-palm and the lion. The north gives us moss, the coniferæ, and the
reindeer, in contrast with the bread-fruit tree, the sugar-cane, the
broad-leaved banana, the elephant, rhinoceros, tapir, and monkey of the
south.
The inexhaustibleness of the Asiatic continent is not more visible in all
this wealth of productivity than in the abundance as well as the variety
of human life. Though Asia has been the mother of the world, and has sent
out so many and so eminent races, it has not been to the depletion of
the parent country. In race, figure, color, manner of life, nationality,
religion, political and social bonds of union, forms of government,
culture, language, it is so richly diversified, that no continent, viewed
historically, can be compared to it. Asia seems to have been created to
send forth its fruitful scions of life to all the other great divisions
of the earth.
Europe, the Occident. The smallest of the three continents of the Old
World, its superficial contents are the largest in proportion to the
amount of coast-line. Only on the east side has it a land frontier; and
there it has its widest extent from north to south. Like Asia, it is
bordered on three sides by the ocean. Asia seems like a mighty trunk,
at whose western extremity the broken and serrated Occident is found,
advancing in breadth from north to south, but articulating into arms of
various size from east to west, till it loses itself in the peninsulas of
the Atlantic coast. The nearer to Asia, the broader is Europe, and the
more akin to the Asiatic character; the farther from it, the more minute
become its subdivisions, and the more varied its character.
Taken in a general way, the proportion of the truly continental part of
Europe to the maritime districts is much less than is the case in Asia.
Its contrast with Africa is, of course, yet more striking.
Europe begins at the east, at the foot of the Ural and Caucasus, and
at the steppes of West Asia. It does not take, as Asia and Africa do,
(which are alike in this,) a trapezoidal or oval form, but in its linear
dimensions there is a great difference between its length and breadth. By
the diminution of its width, as we go westward, and by the increase of
its articulation, the number of its internal relations increases toward
the Atlantic. A great falling off in the oriental character which has
largely encroached upon Russia, and a constant increase of an independent
spirit, is the sure result of natural conditions, and is experienced
in all life and in things material as well as intellectual and moral.
The configuration here wins a palpable victory over mere quantity, and
the exceedingly varied coast gives to all European institutions their
distinctive character.
Beginning with a breadth of about 1400 miles at the east, the continent
gradually diminishes in width to 1000, 500, and even to 250 miles. Its
first narrowing is visible between the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of
Odessa; the next is between the Baltic and the Gulf of Trieste; the next,
between the Zuider-Zee and the Gulf of Genoa; the next, between the
English Channel at Calais and the Gulf of Lyons; and the last, between
Bayonne and Perpignan.
With almost three times as great a length as breadth, Europe extends for
a distance of over 300 miles from the southern part of the Ural chain
and from the Caucasus to the extremities of the bold coast of Spain and
Portugal, Capes Finistère and St. Vincent. In this way the continent
assumes very nearly the form of a right-angled triangle, the right angle
lying at the Caspian, the base extending westward to Cape Finistère,
the perpendicular running northward along the Ural Mountains to the
Vaigats Straits, and the hypothenuse connecting the two extremities.
The area embraced within this triangle would be not far from 2,200,000
square miles. Such a triangle, however, is not exact,—it is but an
approximation to mathematical precision; but it is clearly enough marked
to be traced upon our map, or, as a spherical triangle, upon our globes.
All geographical forms have only a more or less remote approach to
mathematical exactness, but enough to aid us very much in representing
them and showing their relations.
Almost all the greater and really important extremities of the continent
lie outside of the triangle above indicated; and this method of treatment
only serves to call attention to the great central mass, which would
otherwise be in danger of being overlooked, in view of the immense value
and influence of the countries on the coast and beyond the triangular
line of demarkation. It needs but a glance to see how the projecting
shores have marred all the theoretical precision of such a line.
The coast-line shows itself directly subject to almost boundless
diversity. Toward the west the independence of each peninsula increases,
the more evidently and prominently according to its distance from Asia.
Not articulated on two sides alone, like Asia, the east and south, but
on all three of its sides exposed to the ocean, the broken coast-line is
universal in Europe,—even toward the colder north, where its peninsulas
and adjacent islands almost inclose two seas, the North and the Baltic.
The advantage which this gives to Europe over Asia in respect to the
development of its more northern regions, is very great and evident.
We will enumerate the leading peninsulas of Europe:
Kola, on the White Sea, between Lake Enara, the Varanger Fiord, and the
Bay of Kandalaska, pointing westward.
Scandinavia, embracing Norway and Sweden, with an area of more than
350,000 square miles, a tenth of all Europe, connected with the main
land by the isthmus of Finland, but otherwise girded in a great bow by
the Atlantic, the North Sea, the Baltic, and the Gulf of Bothnia, and
pointing southward.
Jutland or Denmark, beginning at the Elbe and the Trave and running
north, embracing about ¹⁄₁₆₀ of Europe, between the North Sea and the
Baltic, low and flat.
The subdivided peninsula of Holland, between the Rhine and the Ems, a
flat plain, looking to the north.
The peninsula of Normandy and Brittany, between the Seine and the Loire,
a rocky granite formation, jutting out into the Atlantic and faced by
bold precipices.
Spain and Portugal, embracing about 220,000 square miles, about ¹⁄₁₆
of Europe, rhomboidal in shape, almost insular in position, turned
southwesterly, its surface a series of constantly rising terraces.
Italy, embracing ¹⁄₃₅ of Europe, between the Alps and Sicily, and
traversed by a mountain range.
Turkey and Greece, or summing it more strictly under one word, the
Grecian peninsula, between the Danube and the Morea, a most minutely
divided region of plateaus and mountain chains; in truth, the most
articulated peninsula in the world, and embracing ¹⁄₁₅ of Europe.
The Crimea, a rhomboidal peninsula, turned to the south—its northern
half a flat steppe, its southern a high plateau—the only peninsula of
southeastern Europe projecting into the Black Sea.
Every one of these peninsulas differs from every other in shape; every
one has a distinct individuality imposed upon it. Within the smallest
compass on earth, relatively speaking, there is found around Europe the
very largest variety in its articulations. The Grecian peninsula finds
its only superior on the northwest of Europe, in the coast of insulated
England.
By means of this characteristic separation of so many more or less
individualized parts of the continent through the agency of arms of the
sea, the coast-line of Europe has been prolonged to an extraordinary
length. The areas of the three continents of the Old World are as follows
in round numbers: Europe, 3,500,000 square miles; Africa, 11,800,000
square miles; and Asia, 19,300,000 square miles. Although the superficial
contents of Africa are three times that of Europe, the length of the
coast-line is so far from being equal, that that of Europe is much the
greater, being 25,400 miles. The Asiatic coast-line is about one-third
longer still, 32,900 miles; but, as the area of Asia is more than five
times that of Europe, a great part of the Asiatic coast-line, that on the
north, from Nova Zembla to Kamtchatka, must be considered as unimportant
in relation to the development of the resources of Asia.
Europe is, therefore, that continent of the Old World which has
relatively, and I might almost say absolutely, received the largest
coast-line of any, encompassing a distance of 25,400 miles. That is to
say, the coast-line of Europe, extended in a straight line, would pass
around the globe and coincide with the equator. To this admirable feature
may be added its favorable relation in situation to the various oceanic
and wind currents, and its magnificent supply of harbors, the result of
its articulated coast, all of which have made Europe the mistress of
the seas. Within modern times, the island group of Great Britain and
Ireland, the richest in harbors, is to the continent what, in ancient
times, the Greek peninsula was, with its wealth of inlets, which gave
it the command of the Mediterranean. A rich gift this has been to the
smallest of the continents of the Old World, to equalize its condition
with others. The providential wisdom which “sets one thing over against
another,” is clearly manifest in this. Europe, though in the center of
the great continental land-mass, becomes the most maritime of all, the
most approachable of all; or, in other words, its countries and its
peoples are the most closely connected with the sea of all in the Old
World, because they stand in the most unbroken contact with it.
Thus we discover the characteristic type which was impressed on Europe
from the very first. Its relation to the world could not be understood by
the ancients, as to them half of the earth lay in unbroken darkness. Only
by experience, only by the advance of civilization, and by comparison
with all the other continents, could this insight be gained. Doubtless
many similar relations yet remain unknown and unsuspected, which will
some day come to the light. The earth, as a planet, is only a grain of
seed-corn sown by the Creator, enriched with powers of unfolding to
infinite perfection in the unexplored future. What we now perceive are
only the elementary principles—our knowledge only a motley; but even this
is not without its uses, and is worthy of patient mastery.
Europe, so broken in its coast, and rifted far toward its center by arms
of the sea, has been affected in all its civil and social history to a
very great extent. This is the first natural condition of its progress,
the true physical basis of the fact that, upon the most limited of
the continents, the greatest historical diversity has sprung up. It
is not absolute size, but relative, which gives the pre-eminence; not
the raw material, the mere mass, but its articulation, its form, which
here, as everywhere, gives mind the mastery over matter. As in the
animal and vegetable world there is, amid all the diversity of forms,
a constant advance from a lower to a higher plane, manifesting itself
in the complexity of the organs; so, in the so-called unorganized side
of nature, we see the same characteristic as soon as we have grasped
the whole mutual system of adaptations. The most general study of the
differences between the continents exhibits an analogous harmony and
correlation. As the simple, broad-leaved, solid cactus, or bunch-trunked
euphorbia, (peculiar to the dry sand steppes of America and Africa,)
appear branchless and without foliage,—the lower and undeveloped forms
of vegetation,—so, too, the regions to which they are indigenous are the
unbroken plains of North America, or the plateaus of still less broken
Africa.
The broken coast-line of Asia and Europe is analogous to that higher
development which we find in the palm and in the full, round crown
of the European fruit-tree, which bears blossoms and fruit as far as
the very extremities of the branches. In the animal organization, the
articulation of Europe is to be compared with the complex hand of man,
so far superior to the prehensile organs of lower creatures, that Buffon
saw in that feature alone the manifestation of man’s place among the
animal kingdom.
If we look out over the earth, we see that the limbs of the continents,
so to speak, the coasts, the peninsulas, and the adjacent islands,
are the most favored places of all for civilization to find its true
home upon. With the degree of diversity in the structure of a country,
the value of its organisms advances. In this respect, Europe may be
considered as the branches and foliage of a great tree, whose trunk and
root are to be traced to Central Asia, Africa being a stunted side-shoot.
Or, to compare the continents to a still higher class of forms, Europe
may be called the Face of the Old World, out of which the soul of
humanity could look more clearly into the great and promising future.
We repeat it—it is not absolute size, it is not the mass nor the weight
of the material, it is the form, in its greater complexity, which
determines the fate of nations and decrees the advancement of man.
This gift, in its full measure, has been conferred on Europe. In its
complex articulation lies still another characteristic of Europe in
contradistinction to the other continents.
If in Africa the coast offers no contrast to the interior, and both
remain on the same low plane of development, Asia, on the contrary,
displays a perfect antagonism between its central regions and its
sea-board. The territory of the Mongolians, the Tartars, and Toorkomans
has always remained at the very lowest stage of civilization. The
sea-board, on the other hand, has witnessed the growth of a number of
isolated nations, who, without the help of mutual dependence, have
arrived at a considerably high degree of culture—the Chinese, Malays,
Hindoos, Persians, Arabians, Syrians, and Armenians. But their influence
could not penetrate to the compact interior, to transform its nature, nor
modify its nationalities. Individual progress in nations, however high it
may be carried, can never contribute much toward any real penetration of
the interior of so vast a region as Central Asia.
Europe shows in its construction and the relations to which it gives rise
characteristics exactly opposite. Being far less massive, the proportion
of its extremities to the undeveloped interior is much less great than
in Asia. From this, it results that the central part does not prove a
hinderance to civilization, viewed physically, hydrographically, or
historically; it nowhere serves as a barrier, but rather as a mediator,
and a means of communication between the extremities. This has given
Europe a character exactly opposite to that of Asia: its North and its
South are united, its East and its West; they are not like antagonistic
poles, but extend to each other friendly hands. In Africa, the greater
part of the interior lies absolutely without contact with and relations
to the coast. In Asia, there is a much larger portion of the interior
equally without connection with the sea-board, and remaining up to this
day in its primitive barbarism.
Symmetry of form gains in Europe a clear advantage over mere mass.
Europe, the smallest of the continents, was destined to gain precedence
over all the rest, Asia included. As Asia, lying within all the zones,
colossal in size, and most plentifully enriched with the gifts of nature,
was fitted to be the nursery of supply for all other parts of the world
without impoverishing itself; so Europe, limited in size and confined
to the temperate zone, but most complex in its subdivision, having a
great diversity in its ocean inlets, as well as in its hills, valleys,
plateaus, and mountains, yet, without great extremes, has been especially
fitted for the reception of stranger races, and for the development of
their energies and the advance of their culture. The symmetry and harmony
of Europe have constituted the true home of all varieties of national
character, and have adapted it to their mutual action, and to the
transfer of their distinctive character to one another.
Throughout the entire center of Europe there is an intimate connection
with the sea-coast and with the extremities, with the least possible
disadvantages. This is accomplished by those sinuous river-courses
whose analogies are to be found nowhere in the adjacent continents. The
very broadest part of Russia even is intersected with large navigable
rivers; and the west and center of Europe are not less richly supplied
with these lines of communication, whose starting-points lie often close
together, as in the case of the Danube, the Rhine, the Po, and the Rhone.
How different is this from the hydrographical system of Central Asia,
where the sources of the eastern rivers lie thousands of miles removed
from those of the western rivers, and where the rivers of the north are
separated by almost as great distances from those of the south!
To what nature has given to Europe man has largely added, seeking by
means of canals and railways to make the whole continent subject to him
and auxiliary to his needs. In this way the interior districts have
appropriated to themselves the advantages of the sea-coast, and the
distance which it has placed between itself and Asia and Africa has only
been increased. Nature first gave Europe its vantage-ground, and man has
gone on from that point and doubled the gifts of nature.
Great peninsulas stretch away into both the great inland seas of
Europe—that of the North and that of the South; the Danish and
Scandinavian peninsulas into the complex, and yet, physically speaking,
single body of water, embracing the North Sea, Baltic, and Gulf of
Bothnia; Spain, Italy, and the Grecian peninsula extending southward
into the Mediterranean. In the latter there is the greatest contrast
between the deeply-indented northern shore and the bare, sandy coast of
the African side. In just as great contrast is the uniformly unbroken
sea-line of northern Siberia, compared with the articulated shore of
northern Russia. How entirely different would the development of northern
Asia have been, if a Siberian inland sea had penetrated to the very foot
of the Altai, as the seas of northern Europe have pierced to the center
of the continent! And had the shallow Syrtis cleft northern Africa as far
as Lake Tchad, as the Adriatic has done on the opposite coast, Central
Africa would not now be a terra incognita.
The northern as well as the southern extremities of Europe, so far as
they are projected into inland seas, have received an equal size and
equal natural advantages, each of its own kind, so that, conditioned
by its own peculiarities, its population have helped it to attain
its rightful place, and an individuality independent of continental
influences. The abundant resources which each of these extremities
enjoys have insured it, in a physical as well as historical view, an
independence which has reacted favorably upon the whole continent. What
a debt does not Europe owe to the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Dutch,
Danes, Scandinavians! How entirely different would the whole development
of the shores of Europe have been, had they been bold, inaccessible
rocks, an unbroken line of coast, like Uralaska, or the smaller Asiatic
peninsulas of Kamtchatka and Malacca! And where would the accomplished
European stand to-day, in comparison with his black neighbor on the
south, were it not for the articulated coast-line of the continent which
gives him his home?
And still there remains, out of the inexhaustible richness of nature, one
leading feature to be taken into account. To estimate it properly, we
must pay attention briefly to the islands of the three continents of the
Old World.
Islands.
Europe, as a continent, is distinguished by its adjacent islands.
Following the irregular coast-line of its many extremities, they lie
along, in greater or less number, the satellites, so to speak, of the
main land. They are scattered almost everywhere, yet not distant from
the coast, like Iceland, but within sight of the shore. In character
they resemble the adjacent coast, and form a true part of the main land,
except in the one fact of separation. Strabo even called Sicily an
insular continuation of Italy, and discriminated between islands found
in mid-ocean and those found near the coast, calling the former pelagic
and the latter littoral islands. These he regarded as having been at
some previous period rent from the main land. The coast islands are by
no means, like many of the pelagic islands, mere rocky groups, thrown
up by volcanic convulsions, or small, desolate, barren ledges. They are
very diverse in character: some are fertile single islands, like Sicily,
Candia, Bornholm, Rugen, Negropont; some are double islands, like Britain
and Ireland, Zealand and Funen, Corsica and Sardinia; some are island
groups, like the 3 Balearic islands, the 3 Maltese islands, the 20 Ionian
islands, the 67 Orkneys, the 90 Shetlands, the still more numerous
Hebrides, the Aland group, and that of the Grecian archipelago. They are
generally of very large size, in comparison with the continent to which
they are adjacent; a characteristic not only very rare in islands, but
which must exert great influence. They are to be viewed, therefore, as
continuations of Europe, not as lands sundered from the main land; they
are to be considered as its sea-ports, and the mediators between Europe
and the other continents.
In round numbers, the islands of Europe embrace about 175,000 square
miles—a twentieth of the continent.
This amount of insular territory has given Europe a great diversity of
relations, and has contributed much to its ethnographical character.
Imagine only England and her whole group struck out of existence. What
impoverishment it would bring! The Danish peninsula, without the adjacent
islands of Funen and Zealand, were a mere tongue of sand. Without Sicily
to furnish grain, Rome’s history had been entirely different from what
it was. What a change it would have made in the development of Italy
and Greece, had the Cyclades and Crete not served as a bridge, over
which the civilization of Hither Asia might pass! Yet these islands,
with their inhabitants, do not stand in necessary dependence on the
contiguous main land; they have often in themselves the conditions of
independent growth and prosperity. And yet the geological qualities and
general features of islands may agree very closely with those of the land
hard by; as is the case with the British, Danish, Italian, and Grecian
groups. Southern England is a continuation of northern France, Picardy,
and the Netherlands, as the geology of these districts shows. Sicily is a
continuation of the volcanic soil of Calabria, and Candia of the Morea.
Hence the possibility, despite the separation of islands from the main
land, of a close connection in the habits, manners, and culture of the
people, thus separated, depending as they do on a common soil, and having
the same industries in common. It would be entirely different in Great
Britain, for example, if the south end of England were geologically
formed like the north end of Scotland. Instead of harmony there would be
repulsion, and that mutual interchange of relations would not exist which
has so powerful an influence on the whole course of European history.
The remarkable number of islands on the coast of Europe, and their
significance and value, formerly escaped attention; or rather their
influence on the development of that continent, in comparison with
others, was not made a matter of study.
Africa has never enlarged its domain through the aid of adjacent
islands. Poor as it is in all coast indentations, it is just as poor in
islands. Only a few insignificant ones, which have no close geological
connection with the shore, are found here. The sporadic groups found
in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are almost exclusively the product
of subterranean forces, and are entirely unlike the stratified lime
and sandstone formations of the coast. There is, therefore, no close
connection between the inanimate nature of continent and islands and
their respective populations; no physical conditions have imposed upon
them a common historical development. Only the Canary Islands, southwest
of the Atlas Mountain range, and Madagascar, could be regarded as at
all exceptional to this. But the nine Canaries are relatively extremely
small, embracing but about 3000 square miles in all; much too small to
exercise any important influence, or to harbor a large population.
Besides, they are separated from the main land by marine currents, which
would prevent any very important reaction, however large the islands in
themselves might be. The Cape Verd islands, embracing only about 1750
square miles, stand in yet more unfavorable relations to the main land.
So, too, the solitary islands of St. Helena and Ascension, and in the
Indian Ocean the scattered groups of the Camara, Amirante, and Seychelle
islands, embracing all together but 3300 square miles, and Socotra, about
1750 square miles. Only Madagascar would be large enough to enrich the
continent essentially, if it were nearer to the main land. But it is
separated from it by the broad and dangerous Mozambique Channel; both,
therefore, have remained without mutual relations; their populations are
entirely unlike, and there has been no exchange of productions between
them. Madagascar is, therefore, only apparently, and by the apparent
contiguity of the mass, a neighbor of Africa; but, in reality, _i.e._ as
it relates to the organic unity of all the various parts of the globe, it
is far more intimately connected by the system of marine currents to the
Malayan Archipelago, southeast of Asia, than to Africa.
Entirely different is it with the island system of Asia. The eastern and
southern sides are remarkably characterized by the profuse numbers of
islands found there. It might be said, that what Africa lacks in this
regard, Asia more than supplies. On the Asiatic coast they appear in such
vast numbers that they have been called, in contrast with the Old and New
Worlds, the Island World, or Polynesia. They appear under the most varied
conditions—in long rows, in massive groups, and here and there singly.
They begin with the North Polar islands, and pass southward in unbroken
succession past the equator as far as the tropic of Capricorn.
The Aliaska chain connects the northwest coast of America with
Kamtchatka; it comprises over 100 islands, and embraces about 7660 square
miles.
The Koorile island extends to the south as far as Saghalien and Yesso.
The Japanese chain runs southward as far as Cape Corea, and includes the
great island of Niphon with numerous smaller ones, embracing an area of
164,000 square miles.
Then follow:—
The Loo-Choo islands as far as Formosa.
The single island of Formosa, 13,000 square miles.
The coast island of Hainan, 16,450 square miles.
The numerous group of the Philippines, with the adjacent islands, 121,000
square miles.
The greater Sunda group, with its adjoining archipelago, 689,500 square
miles. Of these, Borneo embraces 295,600 square miles; Sumatra, 167,700
square miles; Java, 54,600 square miles; and Celebes, 72,600 square miles.
The smaller Sunda group, 29,200 square miles.
The scattered group of the Moluccas, with the Banda and Ternate islands,
7950 square miles.
The great island of New Guinea, 262,800 square miles, which forms the
transition of the Australian group.
On the south coast of Deccan, the great island of Ceylon, 25,860 square
miles.
These rows and groups of islands, embracing an aggregate of 1,095,000
square miles, form a kind of insular isthmus from the southeastern
extremity of Asia to the northwest of Australia, though broken by
unnumbered straits. If lines be drawn from Sumatra and from Hainan to
Cape York, on the north coast of Australia, an ideal isthmus would be
formed not unlike that which connects North and South America. If this
insular isthmus be further conceived to have been thrown up by volcanic
forces, as that of Panama seems to have been, an addition of 1,095,000
square miles has been made in this way to the most productive portions
of the world. So great is the accession of territory that it has become
the abode of a distinct race—the Malay—which hardly finds a home at all
on the Asiatic shore. Asia has received very little advantage from this
vast archipelago. Only the southeast coast has been affected by it; the
continent, as a whole, has not been reached by its influence. On the
contrary, Australia has been largely affected by it in its productive
and ethnographical character. Not only was it first discovered through
the agency of these islands, but it probably derives its population
from them; it has received many of its animals and plants from them—the
sugar-cane, the sago palm, the bread-fruit tree, the dog, and the swine.
In Polynesia, which, in point of size, far surpasses the Antilles
group north of South America, we have the most dismembered region on
the surface of the globe. It is the highest degree of insulation,
of individualization, and results from the extreme carrying out of
dispersing causes. The space occupied by the greater Sunda group, with
its five seas—the China, Java, Molucca, Celebes, and Mindoro—together
with the islands adjacent, the whole lying between longitude 110° and
160° east and latitude 10° south and 20° north, a tract 3525 miles long
and 2115 miles wide may worthily be compared with the area of Europe.
Such a mass of island groups and single isles, belonging not to Asia with
any strict right, but in truth a maritime world of itself, having but the
slightest connections with the adjacent continent, is not to be compared
with the island system of Europe, which is bound to the main land by the
closest ties.
Were a similar insular dismemberment the universal principle on which the
world is constructed, and were there no continents whatever, there would
be an entire want of direct dependence in nations upon each other, and a
degree of independence which would be fatal to the best interests of man.
Europe would be broken up into a number of great islands, like Borneo,
and into countless islets. In the conformation of Europe, however,
there is the happiest system of compensations, and the most harmonious
play of contrasts to be found in the world. The disadvantages of a too
great dividing up into islands, as in Polynesia, and of too compact and
unrifted a central mass, as in Africa, are alike shunned. Both extremes
could not fail to be injurious to the best interests of the population.
The fullness and richness of nature might, perhaps, be increased; but the
effects on human life could not fail to be bad. Man’s highest development
does not consist with any extreme in the natural world: it is linked
to the action and reaction of contrasts. In Polynesia, the district of
extreme dismemberment, the Malays are the least homogeneous of any race
on the earth. Malays, Battahs, Dakkas, Horasuras, and Papuas are all
engaged in destructive war on each other, and are among the most degraded
peoples on the globe. In this region there is the greatest diversity
in physical nature, but not in the essential characteristics of man.
One point of accord ought not to be passed by: there, where the forces
of nature, maritime and volcanic, are on the greatest scale known, the
warlike passions of man are on a not less consuming scale. In Polynesia
there are the rankest vegetation, the most fervid heat, the most
costly spices, animals very large and rare; but man attains to no such
superiority,—he degenerates in worth and takes a low place. Where the
three natural kingdoms attain their perfection, man seems to linger in
the rear.
In Africa, where there is perfect uniformity in nature, there is
uniformity in man; and the negro stock, though prolific, gives no race
of high development to the world. Both extremes are equally unfavorable
to the advance of man; he must have, in order to expand and take the
place to which his possibilities lead him, a sphere of mutual conditions,
to which a compact continent like Africa and Central Asia can lay no
claim, and at the same time be free from that extreme individualization
characteristic of the islands of Polynesia.
Europe lies between these extremes. Limited in area, diversified in
surface, and deeply indented in its coast-line, it has experienced all
the advantages which a continent needs for its development, and for that
historical greatness which Europe has won for itself. Less striking in
natural scenery and comparatively poor in resources, its contrasts in
respect mainly to the action of its inland seas and rivers over the main
land have conduced to the happiest results. It has become the school for
the Old and the New World, taking the vitality and the crude gifts of
Asia and turning them into channels where they could issue in new forms
for the advancement and the humanizing of the race.
The Results of the above Considerations briefly stated.
It will be seen, from what has now been said, that, with an area three
times less than that of Africa, Europe (including its adjacent islands)
has a coast-line twice as extended. Without the islands, it is 25,380
miles in length, or the circumference of the earth. The coast-line of
Africa extends 17,860 miles; that of Asia 32,900.
The exceedingly varying areas of the continents may now be passed in very
speedy review. Europe is but a fifth as large as Asia. It is somewhat
more than a quarter as large as Africa; it is almost of the same size
with Australia. In relation to America, it stands between Asia and
Africa; it makes about ¹⁄₁₅ of all the continents, and about ¹⁄₂₀ of all
the land surface of the globe; but it is not absolute size, but relative,
which determines the importance of a continent; and this twentieth part
of all the land on the globe has had paramount influence over all the
rest within the past few centuries. The ethnographical character of
its population has had great weight in securing this result, and other
reasons will doubtless be more apparent in the future.
One of the most important features in the study of the relative
importance of the continents is the comparative relation of the main
trunk, articulation, and island system to each other. The following table
presents this relation as it exists in the Old World:—
Africa: trunk 1, extremities 0, islands ¹⁄₅₀
Asia: ” 4, ” 1, ” ⅛
Europe: ” 2, ” 1, ” ¹⁄₂₀
These are but approximations to the exact mathematical statement; but
they serve to indicate comprehensively this important fact. No exact
canon now exists for the perfect expression of the relations of the
continents to each other, and their physical superiority and inferiority,
and its lack is no less felt than it has been in art to express the
comparative importance of the organs of the human body in giving a
representation of man.
The New World.
America is broken by the Caribbean Sea into a double continent, both
parts being of colossal magnitude, although the southern portion is about
2,000,000 square miles less in area than the northern. North America
contains 9,055,146 square miles. South America contains 7,073,875 square
miles; and both contain 16,129,021. The connecting link is found in the
tapering isthmus of Central America, with its 302,443 square miles of
surface.
But closely connected as is the northern part of the continent with
the southern, in a physical sense, in real connection, so far as man
is concerned, they are widely separated. During the three centuries
which have elapsed since the discovery of America, the Spanish and the
Americans have thought of breaking the connection—of sundering the
isthmus. All communication between North and South America takes place
by water, absolutely none by land. Even before the navigation of the
historical period, there seems to have been no land road opened along the
isthmus. The old race of the Caribs passed in boats from the Appalachian
mountain land of North America to South America and the West Indies. The
Toltecs and Aztecs—the oldest tribes which wandered southward—seemed to
have ended their march on the high plateau of Mexico and the vale of
Anahuac. The legends of the Incas give us no tidings of their traversing
the isthmus and reaching Peru on foot, and it is probable that they
reached that land otherwise. The isthmus seems never to have been a
bridge, but always a barrier. The great Antilles group of islands appears
to have served far more as a means of communication between North and
South America.
In respect of contour, both divisions have an unmistakable analogy, which
appears at first view. Both exhibit a triangular form, with the base at
the north and the apex at the south. Toward the south, too, rather than
toward the west, speaking in general terms, the gradual conquests of
man advance, and therefore there cannot be in the New World, as in the
Old, a striking contrast between the Orient and the Occident. East and
west, in the New World, are less dependent on each other; they have more
individuality, but with a great preponderance of importance in the east
over the west side, by reason of the more favorable situation in relation
to the sea, less sharpness and boldness of physical features, and a more
scanty population. The west side of America has by no means kept up with
the advance of its eastern side. Nor could the more southern shores
of America compete with those on the northeast, and supply an analogy
to the occident of the Old World; for North America stands related to
Europe by ties of the closest nature, by wind systems, currents, a not
dissimilar climate, and is far more nearly connected with it than with
South America: nor could the latter derive any real advantage from its
opposite neighbor, rude and undeveloped Africa; nor has the Caribbean
Sea performed any such service for America as the Mediterranean has for
Europe, being twice as large in area and far more unfavorably situated to
advance the interests of civilization. It is only within a recent period
that the Caribbean has become a valuable auxiliary to the culture of the
world.
South America is only a colossal right-angled triangle of land, with very
little articulation in its shores. The northwest and the eastern angles
are sharply defined, and the southern one is very acute, the continent
running out in the shape of a thin wedge. With some modifications, it
has the same form with its neighbor Africa, and is just as unvarying
in its want of a serrated coast, its sea-line being but 16,000 miles
in length, almost the same as that of Africa. Like Africa, too, South
America is destitute of peninsulas and adjacent islands; its coast is as
unindented as that of Africa and Australia, all three of these continents
of the southern hemisphere being in strict conformity. Yet South America
is capable of great progress: its conditions are very plastic; it is
characterized by the size and number of the great rivers which pass
through its very center; its flora and fauna are extremely rich. In
the fruitfulness of its soil, its division by mountains, and its water
system, it holds great pre-eminence over Africa. An effort to connect its
great rivers, and thus to make its immense natural advantages of mutual
service, seems to promise a far more prosperous future for South America
than can be predicted for Central Africa; yet the native population of
the country stand on a very low plane of manhood.
The wedge-shaped plateau of Patagonia is not at all benefited, as
previous analysis would lead us to expect, by its long coast and by
the nearness of the islands of Terra del Fuego. The fruitful island
of Tasmania is far more valuable to Australia than is this island to
Patagonia, and even Iceland is a more productive neighbor to Norway. The
Terra del Fuego group, embracing a territory of 29,000 square miles,
although hard by the South American coast, only injures it instead
of blessing it, for it imperils shipping and harbors a population
so degraded that they have no wants which can stimulate the rudest
civilization. With a precipitous, craggy coast, without trees and without
grass, covered only with moss, and belonging strictly to the polar
world, it must give a habitation to the very lowest and most degraded of
the human race, isolated from the world, and only casually visited when
winds and storms throw mariners upon its shores.
Not every island is to be considered, therefore, as a gain to the
adjacent main land. If Terra del Fuego lay at the mouth of the La Plata
River, it would have become a valuable auxiliary to Brazil. The worth of
an island is relative, not absolute.
The Antilles group is the great insular formation contiguous to
Central America. Its area, though comprising 94,700 square miles, is
not one-tenth as great as that of the great Sunda group. By situation
and physical conditions, it is much more closely connected with North
than with South America. The Caribbean Sea is twice as large as the
Mediterranean, the one having 801,800 square miles, and the other
1,675,800 square miles. It has been, therefore, more difficult to make
the larger tributary to the advance of civilization than the smaller.
North America has entirely taken the palm from South America in the
progress of its culture, just as has uniformly been the case with all the
continents of the northern hemisphere compared with the southern; and yet
the tropical southern continent is far more profusely endowed with the
gifts of nature than the temperate northern one. The northern half, on
the other hand, enjoys a far greater advantage in its broken coast-line,
numerous bays, gulfs, islands, peninsulas, harbors, as well as by reason
of its greater want of conformity to a rigid triangular form.
Enlarging, as it does, toward its southern extremity, North America
approaches a trapezoidal shape, like Asia, and, as in Asia also, the size
of the main body preponderates greatly over that of the extremities.
Several of these extremities, too, extend toward the east and south, and
only a few toward the west. To the North American peninsulas and islands
belong the northeasterly island group of Greenland, (which for centuries
was considered to be a peninsula, but which, since Parry’s discoveries in
1820, has been known to be a group of independent islands,) Bank’s Land,
Boothia Felix, Cockburn, Melville’s Peninsula, Labrador, New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, and Florida, the latter 59,000 square miles in area.
The northeast of North America is everywhere much cut up by inlets of the
ocean, larger bays, gulfs, and sounds. This is the main characteristic
of the shore of the northern United States and Canada. As all these open
toward Europe, the situation of this whole region has been especially
adapted to the most speedy advance in civilization. The pride of the
American can no more plume itself on an independent progress than can
that of the European; to the former, Europe is the Orient from which he
receives, in an already advanced stage, what the European receives from
Asia, his own Orient.
The less important peninsulas of North America, and the side most
destitute of them, are turned toward the northern Pacific. To this region
belong the Russian possessions, the desolate wastes of Aliaska, and,
farther to the south, the peninsula of Old California, which has begun,
within the last ten years, to play an active part in the world’s affairs.
But all three of these are capable at present of little independent
advance. They must wait till they feel the impulse of the civilization
of the older American States, before they take that place to which the
newly-organized commercial relations with China and Japan seem to be
leading the way.
North America enjoys a great advantage over Europe in the possession
of large inland lakes or seas. The prevalence of articulation and of
the adjacent islands is not toward the south, but toward the polar and
sub-polar regions, (from 40° to 50° N. lat.,) as in Europe. And although
many of these islands and peninsulas are as yet but little known, still
the progress of discovery has been so rapid within the past few years,
that it would seem, by European analogies, that an important history
is yet in store for them. For there is a great kinship between these
northern regions of America and the Scandinavian and North Russian
domains of Europe. And we know well that no degree of cold has ever
intimidated civilization from penetrating in the latter to the very
confines of the polar world.
As the White Sea, (48,500 square miles in area,) the Baltic, (167,000
square miles,) and the yet greater North Sea, have broken through the
northern regions of Europe, so on a far more gigantic scale have the
inroads of the ocean rifted and sundered North America. This we have
learned in our recent frequent voyages to the Esquimaux regions. Baffin’s
Bay, Lancaster Sound, Smith’s Sound, Jones’ Sound, Barrow Strait, Fox’s
Channel with its uncounted islands, Hudson’s Bay with its 499,000 square
miles of surface, Boothia Gulf, Victoria and Georgia Seas, Wellington’s
Channel, Melville Sound, Prince of Wales Straits, and very many other
water passages and basins divide those northern districts into a vast
mesh of islands and peninsulas. The superficial area of all these tracts
is on a colossal scale; even the Greenland group is estimated to include
766,500 square miles. Within the past few years this whole Arctic Sea has
been the scene of numerous expeditions of discovery, some of them on a
princely scale.
All this shows that North America is fashioned much more after the
analogy of Europe than of South America. The analogy would be much more
close, if North America were as favorably affected by climatic conditions
as Europe. Both continents are washed at the south as well as at the
north by great inland seas, and divided up by them in a manner peculiar
to them among all the continents. Of this articulation, America, less
favored by climate, has much the larger share. By its admirable harbors,
and by the action of the Gulf Stream crossing the Atlantic in two
directions, America has been specially fitted to receive the population
and civilization of the Old World, and to stand in the closest relations
with it. In this, united with the arrangement of its mountain chains
and the happy characteristics of its river systems, America bears the
palm completely away from Asia. In that continent the colossal rivers
of the north have no connection at their sources with the head-waters
of the great Chinese, Indian, and West Asiatic rivers. It is entirely
different in North America, where the St. Lawrence, Mackenzie, Columbia,
Colorado, Mississippi, and Missouri flow from the same region, as from a
common center, not separated at their sources by an immense plateau, but
forming a single river system, from the mouth of one to that of another,
flowing in just the contrary direction. We find, therefore, that there,
as in North Europe, civilization has followed the water-courses, and has
planted colonies as far north as 70° on the coast of Greenland; while in
Asia human habitations cease with 65° N. lat.
America seems to be appointed, by its physical conditions, to plant the
banner of human progress at the most northern parts of the globe, and to
do for the northern hemisphere what Great Britain, through her colonies
in Tasmania and South Australia, with their admirable harbors, is doing
for the southern.
Northern Asia seems to have no future indicated for her beyond the
sources and upper courses of her great rivers; she seems to depend upon
Central Asia and upon Russian Europe for all the scanty culture which
she may possess. In its south and east it seems to have within its
Chinese and Indian populations the seeds of an independent development,
whose results, like those of Arabia, have been transferred to Europe to
become improved there, and then to be given to the world. The form of the
three great peninsulas, which were the home of Asiatic culture, has been
repeated in Europe,—but with how great a difference! The three European
peninsulas are not in the tropical zone and near the equator, but are
1400 miles farther north. The two groups—the eastern one in South Asia,
the western one in South Europe—each consisting of three peninsulas, are
the most valuable auxiliaries the world’s civilization ever had. Through
their agency Asia in the torrid zone and Europe in the temperate have
become what America and Australia are yet to be to the extreme north
and the extreme south. The former were for the past, the latter for the
present and the future. South America, and yet much more Africa and
Australia, seem to be held in reserve for the need of a home where the
civilization of centuries yet to come shall expand into perfection. They
now are in their infancy; the day only begins to break in them. Furnished
as they have been with the most liberal gifts of nature, they must
receive a culture of which we as yet have little conception. In what way
this can be done, the history of the past reveals. The art of navigation
has, within the past three centuries, given to islands and to continents
a new life, and developed relations unknown till then. The very touch of
European civilization has already wakened the world to new life; and the
oceans, which were once the most impassable of barriers, have become the
closest of bonds to draw the earth together, and to further its progress
toward the consummation of all history.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Prof. D. C. Gilman, of Yale College.
[2] Meteors, which are nightly visible, are different from the periodic
phenomena, seen in August and November, in different localities over the
earth, and called falling stars. These exist outside of our atmosphere,
and belong not to the earth, but rather to the great solar system.
[3] The English does not convey adequately, certainly as idiomatic
English, the fullness of the German classes, Berge, Vorberge,
Hochgeberge, Alpen, and Riesenberge.
[4] Not inappropriately has geology been called the Anatomy of mountain
ranges. The more mountains are studied geologically, the more safe become
the conclusions that are drawn from them. The smaller and more scattered
ridges of central Europe have become the chief quarries for geological
discovery, because of the rich variety which they afford to the student,
and also because of their accessibility.
[5] In exact correspondence with the historic progress of upheaval is the
internal and external aspect of the result. In direct connection with the
extent, course, grandeur, succession of oceanic and volcanic forces, and
in constructing new geological formations, is the inexhaustible variety
of structure, in respect to continuity, degrees of fracture, as well as
the more or less rich prodigality of mineral treasure brought to light.
The later formations—the masses injected to fill up huge chasms opened by
volcanic pressure from below—are easily distinguished from the primitive
formation. These courses are usually the depositories of minerals, which
the great internal heat has apparently sublimated and crystallised,
giving us our gold-sand, rock-salt, and the precious metals.
[6] See Fr. Hoffman’s Uebersicht der orographischen und geognostischen
Verhältnisse des nordwestlichen Deutschland. Introduction.
[7] This paper may be found in my earlier translation from Ritter.
Geographical Studies, page 177.—ED.