ETHNOLOGICAL GEOLOGY.

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South American Indians in an abject condition compared to thoseof the North. Fitch’s Physical Geography , p. 194.

For highly important and philosophical observations regardingthe distribution, condition, and future prospects of the HumanRace, consult chap, xxxiii. of Mrs. Somerville’s admirable work onPhysical Geography .

The Chinese have large, fat bodies, and very little heard on thelip or chin. Buffon’s Natural History, vol . i., p. 62.

I quote further from the same author: “ In surveying the dif-ferent appearances which the human form assumes in the differentregions of the earth, the most striking circumstance is that of color.This circumstance has been attributed to various causes; but expe-rience justifies us in affirming that of this the principal cause is theheat of the climate.” . . . The varieties which are remarked

in Europe and Asia among the whites “ proceed solely from thosein the mode of living.” . . . “When cold becomes extreme,

however, it produces some effects similar to those of excessiveheat.” . . . “Violent cold and violent heat produce the same

effect upon the skin, because these two causes act by one quality,which they possess in common. Dryness is this quality.” . .

“ As the first, and almost the sole, cause of the color of man-kind, we ought therefore to consider the climate; and though uponthe skin the effects of nourishment are trifling, when compared withthose of the air and soil, yet upon the form they are prodigious.Food which is gross, unwholesome, or badly prepared, has a strongand a natural tendency to produce a degeneracy in the humanspecies; and in all countries where the people fare wretchedly, theyalso look wretchedly, and are uglier and more deformed than theirneighbors. Even among ourselves, the inhabitants of country-places are les 3 handsome than the inhabitants of towns; and Ibave often remarked that, in one village, where poverty and dis-tress were less prevalent than in another village of the vicinity, thepeople of the former were, at the same time, in person more shapely,and in visage less deformed.

“ The air and the soil have also great influence, not only on theform of men, but on that of animals and of vegetables. Let us,after examining the peasants who live on hilly grounds, and thosewho live embosomed in the neighboring valleys, compare them to-gether, and we shall find that the former are active, nimble, well-