Effect of Climate on Human Development [pp. 495-504]

DE BOW'S REVIEW,
ESTABLISHED JANUARY, 1846.
MAY, 1860.
VOL. XXVIII., O. S.] ENLARGED SERIES. [VOL. III., No. 5., N. S.
ART. I.-EFFECT OF CLIMATE ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT,
STEAM-POWER is opening a new era in the career of man. It
is soon to give him a power of locomotion beneficial beyond
the reach of calculation. On the land and on the water, it
will enable him to move rapidly over the face of the earth,
from clime to clime.
The physical localization of his body has, hitherto, made
him, in mind as in body, a comparative fixture, rooted to the
soil on which he was born. In the little circle of his neighborhood, his ideas have revolved, and little of this great world has
he known. If his good. fortune brought him into the light of
life, where the soil and climate were fitted to produce the best
of his species-there, he grew up, married, reared his family,
and was gathered to his fathers. If, on the other hand, he
first saw the light where nature had(l all the characteristics of
a step-mother-in a scorching or bleak climate, scarcely allowing, thile means of civilized support, and forbidding the healthy
development of body or mind, unknowing any better region,
or, if knowing, unable to transport his household gods thitherhe has gone on, from generation to generation, to perpetuate an
inferior race. All this is being changed. The hills or mottntains, the boundaries of the valley, where his body and mind
are developed, no longer circumscribe or confine him within
their limits. For the first time in human progress, the whole
earth, in all her greatness, her utility, and beauty, is brought
under view of the human intellect. Her heights and depths are
measured-her mountains, plains, valleys, oceans, seas, lakes,
rivers, are spread out before him. The minerals, that have been
VOL. III. NO. V.
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