conferred upon the other continents 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. It enjoys an admirable physical conformation, for it is so perfectly harmonised in the mingling of plains and mountains (ön γὰρ διαπεποίκιλται πεδίος τε και ὄρεσιν), that the city and the country are brought together, and the people educated by equally favourable conditions to habits of great bravery. Europe is, therefore, complete in herself (auragxeorárn ori)." 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." I have adhered to the same view, and have expanded it in a paper 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 land, 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 a more virgin 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 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.

are both about 5000 miles.

The length and breadth

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 individualisation 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, 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, or 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 inhabitant of the continent. There is no striking individuality apparent in the culture, stature, organisation, or popular characteristics of its various parts. Even a common foundation language gives rise to mere dialectical differences. A mere sporadic coast-culture only originates 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 with it a single mass, of which

Europe is really but a great western peninsula. Europe, the Occident of the Old World, is therefore far 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 organisations 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, especially on 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 Tchuktchee 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 Burma; the peninsulas of Hindostan or the Deccan, and Arabia. The western limb is the peninsula of Asia Minor or Anatolia. The north-east of Asia is less articulated; still it has a number of arms of the sea trending southward-the Sea of Kara, the Gulfs of Obi and Yenisei, for example. Even the whole Siberian coast is far more serrated than that of Africa, which presents 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 limited projections. Asia is, therefore, a trunk with profuse richness

N

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, is 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, Tchuktchees, Kamtchadales, Coreans, Chinese, Malays, Burmese, 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, Turkomans, Kirgheez, Bukharians, Calmucks, &c. Still less could it reach the distant north, to which, with all the splendour which we associate with everything Oriental, the civilisation of the southern coasts is utterly wanting. To this element of superficial size,