MAN. 271 the offspring of the animal which the Spaniards introduced into America from Europe, now rove wild in immense herds over the llanos, pampas, and prairies of the continent. The brief survey now taken of the facts of zoological geography amply justifies the conclusion, that certain tribes or groups of the animal creation were originally placed in particular regions to which they are specially adapted, and have since remained, for the most part peculiar to them, though in some instances slightly dispersed by natural means, according as their own powers of locomotion, their capacity to endure change of climate, and the absence of physical obstacles to migration have enabled them to enlarge their area. All scientific observation is totally opposed to the idea once generally entertained, that the entire animal kingdom was created at a single centre, from which its members radiated at different periods in varying directions. Widely distinct faunas are found in each grand division of the globe, fitted to inhabit it by their organisation and habits corresponding to the conditions of climate, supply of food, and natural features of mountain, plain, or desert. Thus the quadrupeds of highly-heated regions are furnished generally with a coating of short, thin hair, while those of cooler climes are commonly supplied with soft and abundant fleeces, and in still colder latitudes, the characteristic animals, as the beaver, ermine, sable, and bear, are clothed with the thickest furs. Powerful herbivorous animals, like the elephant and rhinoceros, which roam the plains where the vegetation is rank, are specially qualified to do so, though possessing no great capacity for rapid locomotion, with only a limited range of vision, being sufficiently able to defend themselves, while the mountain dwellers, as the ibex and chamois, surrounded with dangerous declivities, and comparatively feeble, are adapted to their station, being astonishingly far-sighted, sure-footed, and agile. But man has contributed largely to extend certain races useful to him in a state of domestication beyond their natural limits, -the horse, ass, ox, hog, dog, cat, sheep, goat, reindeer, camel, llama, alpaca, and others of a less important class-while, on the contrary, the range of various animals, both of the serviceable and the dangerous kind, has been immensely restricted or modified by the diffusion of the human race, the spread of cultivation, and the destruction wrought by the hunter's rifle. III. MAN. Members of the human family, distinguished from the ordinary animal creation in varying degrees by the faculties of reason, conscience, and speech, are found in connection. with every variety of climate from the hottest to the coldest, occupying the most discordant stations, both dense forests and treeless wastes, fertile plains, sandy deserts, and high mountain chains, maritime and inland countries. Owing mainly to the flexibility of his physical constitution, although obtaining much artificial aid, man can exist under the greatest climatic extremes, protecting himself by fire and clothing in the rigorous winter of polar latitudes, and avoiding direct exposure to the scorching glare of the vertical sun in tropical regions. The same pliancy enables him to extract nourishment with equal facility from very varying kinds of food, and thus subsist in strikingly-contrasted circumstances. In high latitudes, where a mantle of snow covers the ground through the greater portion of the year, and vegetation is very scantily developed, entire tribes live on fish and seals; towards the equator, where vegetable forms are most varied and exuberant, vast numbers thrive with no other aliment than cocoa-nuts, bananas, yams, and rice; in the intermediate districts, which are the special region of the cereals, and where animal food can as readily be procured, nations flourish on a mixed diet. Man is thus adapted for a very wide geographical range, and has, in fact, extended himself far into the arctic zone, or up to the parallel of 75°, where hordes of Esquimaux are found on the shores of Baffin's Bay. The most southern dwellers are met with at the parallel of 55°, the Pecheres or Fuegians, inhabiting Tierra del Fuego. Few intermediate lands of any extent have been encountered in the course of modern maritime and inland discovery without an indigenous human population. The principal examples are Iceland, Nova Zembla, Madeira, the Azores, St Helena, the Falklands, the Galapagos islands, and other islets of the Pacific Ocean, most of which have since been colonised. Remarkable differences characterise the human race as to stature, conformation, and complexion, mainly referable to very different physical and social conditions operating through a long series of ages. Naturalists comprehend the principal varieties as to anatomical structure in three primary divisions, the Indo-European, the Mongolian, and the Negro. 1. The Indo-European division includes all the Europeans with a few exceptions; the south-western Asiatics within a line drawn from the Caspian to the mouth of the Ganges; and the northern Africans to the parallel of 20°, distinguished generally by the features being symmetrical, the forehead high, and the form of the skull elliptical. 2. The Mongolian group comprises all the Asiatics not included in the preceding division; the Finns, Samoiedes, and Magyars, in Europe; the Esquimaux and Indians in America; and the dark brown inhabitants of the islands in the Pacific Ocean. These are characterised by a broad, flat face, small eyes, lank hair, and the skull of a pyramidal form. 3. The Negro group embraces the African negroes, and some Australasian tribes frequently styled Pelagian or Oceanic negroes, who have woolly hair, thick lips, projecting cheek bones, with the form of the skull narrow and elongated. But it is impossible for any strictly exact classification of this kind to be made, owing to varieties existing with very unequal degrees of development, one passing gradually into another. The diversity of the human race, both as to cranial conformation, colour, and other physical features, however remarkable, is not at variance with the idea of its specific unity, or descent from a single pair, since precisely parallel or even greater differences appear in many of the lower animals undoubtedly descended from a common stock, and specially distinguish the domesticated breeds from their congeners running wild. Very marked changes have taken place in the domestic animals transported from Europe to America, and thus introduced to new conditions of existence, within the limited period of a few centuries; and during the historical era, it is certain that tribes and nations of men have been similarly affected by altered physical circumstances. The Magyars, a race of the Mongolidæ, since their migration from the steppes of Western Asia and settlement in Hungary, have so far deviated from the conformation characteristic of their origin, espe cially those of the higher class, as not to be distinguishable from Indo-Europeans. The Turks, a settled race in Europe, have become widely different from the nomadic clans of their family in Western and Central Asia, to whom they once corresponded; while the peculiar negro physiognomy has in many instances been softened down, in the case of those taken from African to Trans-Atlantic countries, and long settled in association with the whites, without any intermixture of race. It is a well-known fact, that hybrids are produced both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms by the union of two species, but the hybrids themselves are never reproductive; whereas the very opposite is the case with the races of men, and tends strongly to sustain opinion in favour of their identity as a single species. The union between individuals belonging to different varieties of the human family, as that of the European and the Negro, or of either of these and the American Indian, is not only in general as prolific as if the individuals belonged to the same variety, but the offspring perpetuate themselves like their parents. Uralskaya Sopka, copied, by permission, from Sir R. I. Murchison's work on the Geology of the Ural Mountains. PART I. DESCRIPTIVE GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.- GENERAL VIEW OF EUROPE. UROPE, one of the principal divisions of the earth, commonly styled a continent, is more properly a northwestern peninsula of the great eastern continent, or the Old World, as it is washed on three sides by the ocean and its arms, while of scanty area when compared with the mass of land more or less directly associated with it, apportioned to Asia and Africa. It has not only more contracted limits, but is far inferior to them in the magnitude of its rivers, the height of its mountains, the beauty, variety, and profusion of the forms of animal and vegetable life; and America-the western continent of the geographer, the New World of the historianhas immensely the superiority in extent, and in the development of physical features. But when these prime divisions of the globe are viewed in their social, intellectual, and political Elizabethopol aspects, the decided pre-eminence belongs to the smallest. Its nations are entitled to the first rank in industry, arts, and arms. Their influence has the widest extension and the greatest power. Their languages are the most widely diffused; and enunciate all that is valuable in philosophy, science, history, poetry, and religion. The present civilisation, predominant races, and tongues of America, are entirely of European origin; and while no inconsiderable portion of its area, with that of Asia, Africa, and Oceania, is under the direct control of European governments, whatever of improvement is exhibited by their independent coloured people and nomadic tribes, is largely due to the enterprise, intelligence, and skill of European settlers and visitors. The name of Europe first occurs in one of the hymns attributed to Homer, addressed to Apollo. Mythology derives it from the nymph Europa, the broad-browed' daughter of a Phoenician king, but throws no light upon its meaning. According to some authorities, the word is from a Semitic root, and signifies the place of sunset.' Assuming this origin, it is supposed to have come into use as applicable to the country westward of Greece, just as that portion of the Mediterranean basin lying to the eastward is known as the Levant, the region of sunrise,' or the east,' a denomination which arose with the Italian navigators of the middle ages, and is still retained. Others refer the term to two Greek words meaning the broad land,' one of the ancient names of Thrace. It is descriptive of the appearance presented by that territory to the old inhabitants of Greece, to whom it had no known inland limit, and might be thence extended indefinitely to the lands continuous with it. So late as the Byzantine empire, one of the six dioceses of Thrace was called Europa, a vestige of the primitive designation of the entire country. This last explanation is the most probable. The northern boundary 275 BOUNDARIES OF EUROPE. is formed by the Arctic Ocean; the western by be hailed as a pleasing sign of the greater facility of movement which is |