THE STUDY OF CLIMATOLOGY. IN studying Climate we study man; for in tracing its effects in all their variety on the human frame and mind, we make ourselves acquainted with his laws, customs, psychical and physical capabilities, vices, virtues, and all that appertains to that protean animal. We find it in one region depressing, and in another elevating his various attributes: here it seems to endue his person with capacity for excessive delight, there it blunts his nerves and reduces his psychical sensibility; in one region is it an element in the cause of slavery, in another does it invigorate man, and stimulate him to stand up for his own freedom, and to obtain redress for others. In an analysis of its power, we are struck with the relation that it bears to the diseases and morals of nations: with the former from the earliest periods has it been associated, and the great Hippocrates drew a graphic description of its influence in moulding the latter. But to follow climate through all its innumerable effects on man would be to attempt his history, to trace the progress of his mind, and to show how the arts, sciences, ethics, religion, war, and servitude have been regulated by it,-in fact, to write everything that we know about him. No author has given more than a scanty outline of this comprehensive subject: a skeleton picture, that has never been filled up, is all, perhaps, that it will ever be. The greatness, however, of the undertaking must not deter the reflecting student from entering the arena: the least fact will be acceptable, for it is alone by such means that we may hope to fill up the gigantic void. The climatic laws that regulate or seem to influence the features and growth of man in different latitudes, is a subject fraught with interest and difficulty; and it is only when we regard the vastness of the subject that we feel convinced how few our chances are of ever being able to grasp it. To know that perfection cannot be attained never acts as a log to the enlightened inquirer, who ever is found from age to age pursuing his investigations, and feeling contented and well rewarded if he can only add his mite to the treasures of science. "Hope springs eternal in the human breast," and buoys up the philosopher through all the tedium of research, inspiring him with the dream that he may yet discover something which will bring him nearer the goal that his predecessors have failed to reach. From the ephemeral change that takes place in the persons of individuals on account of the diurnal variations in the weather, to the indelible mark estamped upon large families by the permanent climatic influence under which they have lived for a lengthened period, there is a chain of phenomena so long that it is impossible for us to view all its links at once: many are evident, and have been long observed, whilst others probably will for ever remain hidden, like the subterraneous courses of those vast rivers, which lose themselves in the trackless desert. Let us, however, study those phenomena that are within our reach; let us group them together, and perchance we shall be able to make use of, for our benefit, what the Divine Author of all evident and hidden things has allowed us to observe for our good. Let us not worry ourselves because we cannot know all, but let contentment ever tranquillise the true philosophic mind, and lead it to make the most of what it has; and if it be permitted to add an atom more to the treasures of science, let it be grateful, and not allow itself to forget the purposes of such a grant. From the most remote period of the history of this earth, we find that animated nature has always been more or less subject to external agencies, whether atmospheric or otherwise; although Sir Roderick Murchison has remarked, that during the formation of the silurian rocks there was but little, if any, difference between the species of mollusks that inhabited the seas that once flowed over the site of the Alleghany Mountains, the hills of Herefordshire, and that which covered the land where now the Ural Mountains rear themselves into the barriers that separate Europe from Asia; for in the upper silurian the brachiopod, the trilobite, and the orthoceratite (cephalopod) are uniformly distributed, and are the characteristic fossils of this formation, wherever it may be found. In explanation of this uniformity of life in the primeval seas, it has been suggested that there might have been a greater uniformity of temperature resulting from the as yet unspent heat of the surface, arising from internal incandescence; at the same time the same author thinks that the more probable cause was the comparative newness of life upon earth, and its little experience of those external agencies by which it is liable to be affected, and which we shall see reason to believe have conduced to the production of the many shades of variation which now mark the organic kingdom."* Such an uniformity affords a strong contrast to what now obtains both in the animal and vegetable life of this globe. How one continent differs from another in its fauna! and in the case of man, how strange a contrast is brought about by the metamorphosing power of climate! How great are the changes effected by heat and cold; and how, in exalting and depressing the sensitiveness of man's nature, do these prominent climatic agents draw the line between man and man! "Comme on distingue les climats par les dégrés de latitude, on pourroit distinguer, pour ainsi dire, par les dégrés de sensibilité," wrote Montesquieu.† Could a man be suddenly transported from the snowy pole to the glowing zone, what strange emotions would arise on beholding the immense contrast! Assuredly would he think, had he not witnessed the gradations betwixt these extremes, that he had been wafted to another world; for how could he in his ignorance reconcile the * Vestiges of the Creation, 10th ed. gorgeous colours of the plants, insects, and animals of the zone-its cloudless sky, its glowing sun, the perfume of the flowers in the air, and the activity of life-with the dull, grey, monotonous north, where vegetation is at its lowest ebb, and man with his attendant animals slow, blunted, and benumbed? Yet such a contrast would he behold, and such is the effect of climate. But with all this vast difference, the inhabitant of one region envies not his remote brother. The Esquimaux would not change with the Indian, for each is adapted to his peculiar circumstances; and so perfect is the harmony of nature, that general discontent against the Great Disposer has no existence in the minds of his creatures, whom He has distributed as it seemed best to Him, and whom He has made to feel a kind of happiness in their lot, which unanswerably proves His infinite benevolence. HIPPOCRATES. HIPPOCRATES was an original observer, and throughout his works, especially those that we are about to discuss, he is careful to give his readers the full result of his experience, without troubling them much with theory. The student is therefore left to himself to compare what was written two thousand two hundred years ago with what daily passes under his own eyes; and it will not be a fruitless task for him to take Hippocrates as his text, and unravel the connection that obtains between the results of modern investigation and these antient monuments of a mind whose just appreciation of nature in all her different forms led him to watch her narrowly, and make the knowledge that accrued to him from this contemplation subservient to the grand duty of his life, the advancement of medicine. He travelled through different regions, and as he wandered accumulated knowledge of persons, places, and things: at once did his keen eye perceive the changes that climate produces in the human race. Like Prichard of the present century, he accounted for the physical difference among nations by connecting them with certain climatic influences: he saw that diseases assumed different forms under varied circumstances. Everything connected with life inspired him with a deep interest. With his profession ever before him, he laboured throughout a long career to make it as perfect as was possible. To benefit man was to him a clear duty, and he never rested content whilst any phenomenon of nature that might tend to throw light upon his diseases remained unstudied, and therefore unapplied to man's use. As to whatever might have been observed in after ages, supposing Hippocrates had never lived, we can only say that even when this great author had pointed out to posterity so |