warmed by the slow accumulation of the heat of the summer. In some deep lakes, in high latitudes, for example Lake Seneca in New-York, the surface is not frozen during the coldest winters, when the thermometer ranges near zero during a large portion of a month.
Moscow lies in 55° 45', and Dunfermline in Scotland lies in 56° 5' north latitude. The mean temperature of the winter in Moscow is 14° Fahr., and of Dunfermline 36°. Moscow is placed in the centre of a vast area of almost unbroken land surface. Dunfermline lies in an Island—surrounded by the German and Atlantic oceans. It is evident that the difference of the mean temperature of their winters, some 22°, is in favor of the superior physical development, and therefore mental endowments of the Scot; and this difference is wrought entirely by Geographical position.
Hence we perceive the vast illimitible ocean, the emblem of eternity, tempering the earth in every zone, and rendering its aid to the development of those powers in man which are essential to his advancement. And it is the power of the ocean, which together with the prevalence of westerly winds in nothern latitudes, renders the eastern coasts of continents milder in temperature than the western.
We next proceed to consider the influence of Geographical position on the faculties or hinderances to the intercourse of variously endowed races or people. If civilization be the result of the assembling together of men, then, whatever favors such assembling is an essential condition towards civilization.
It is a seeming parodox, that man, an inhabitant of the land, should be more readily assembled with his fellow man by the juxtaposition of water; yet this seeming paradox, within certain wide limits, is sober truth. A cluster of islands, even at a great distance from continents, produce that free intercourse which stimulates human ingenuity, in a larger degree than central positions in the heart of large continents. Compare the New Zealanders with the Tartar hordes of the steppes of Asia. But, insular position in the neighborhood of a well indented continent, seems the very best assemblage of Geographical advantages for the production of civilization. If New Zealand be compared with Italy, we find them almost exact antipodes, with a most perfect similitude of outline. The New Zealanders are the Romans of the South Pacific, the conquering race, the most energetic of that region in body and mind. But New Zealand had no neighboring continent on which to send her resistless cohorts, else there would have been reenacted in the South-western what long ago occurred in the North-eastern hemisphere. The New Zealanders have made good fight, nay, successful fight against the inroads of European civilization, and against the superior discipline of British troops.
The prevalence of large and navigable rivers, of inlets or gulphs, virtually converts a continent into so many aggregate Islands with easy intercommunication. Traffic, intercourse, civilization follow, under such geographical circumstances. But why? Why should the inhabitants of half insular Europe, germinate and develope a more perfect and rapid civilization than that of the myriads who people the vast unbroken spaces of continental Asia?
The idea of frequent intercourse alone, will scarcely answer this question; for the Nomadic and semi-Nomadic tribes of Asia, in changing their pasture grounds, travel in the course of a few years over an area more extensive than Europe, and meet, in their migrations, and have temporary intercourse with many other tribes, moving in opposite directions. These tribes have not advanced in civilization, and for sufficient reasons. The wild freedom of the Nomadic life naturally scorns and even abhors the acts to which men must resort in order to embrace a stationary life, whether
