Certain branches of the human family present physical peculiarities and aptitudes for certain climates which others do not. The one thrives and arrives at perfection, whilst the other languishes and dies.
Floras and Faunas have well-defined limits of latitude, beyond which they decline and become extinct, and in some countries we observe certain limitations as to longitudes. “There are tropical trees that become shrubs in our zone, and the flowers of our meadows have their types in the tapering trunks of other climes.”
How rapidly the beautiful varieties of domestic animals deteriorate and disappear when removed from the localities and conditions in which they attained their excellence. The handsome Swiss cattle when carried to the plains of Lombardy, and the remarkable varieties of the English herds when removed to Central France, quickly lose their characteristics of form and superiority. Under the tropics the sheep loses its silken fleece, and the noble qualities of the dog greatly change.
Even the insect world changes greatly in every twelve degrees of latitude, and an alteration, almost total, appears in double the space.
The influence of climate and locality, which exercises so positive a power in the vegetable kingdom and animal reign, affects man likewise, and would be as distinctly marked were it not resisted by the forces of the intelligence. We find under certain parallels of latitude more energy of mind and greater activity of body than at others; we observe this more distinctly with particular races or varieties than with others, thus indicating that all have not the same aptitudes: again, through a combination of organic and social laws, types adapted to certain pursuits spring up in every civilized country, these types distinct from either varieties or species. We also see the sharp characteristics of races, when migrating, become less distinct, and mixtures increase, and the inferior races disappear, like “the elementary language or the primitive forms of the social state.”
The observed limit of range of the Hindoo and the African, in the Old World, is not beyond 30° of the equator, and in a lower latitude than 36° the European colonies have never prospered, never succeeded, in their attempts for empire. Where now are the countless hosts of Romans, Gauls, and Vandals that have occupied Northern Africa in past times? The ethnologist of to-day cannot discover a feature, hardly a trace even, of the language of the conquerors remaining among the present tribes of occupation. Even the Roman has vanished, and the only vestige of the Carthaginian and Numidian is shown by the scattered and diminished Bergers. These varieties contended with the climate, and were gradually absorbed by the stronger native tribes.
The Mongols once held Central Europe, the Goths ruled Italy. Where are they? There is no longer Vandalic blood in Africa or Gothic blood in Italy.
In later times the strong, the fierce and dauntless Northmen held the Sicilies, and as the incorruptible Varingar guarded and upheld with their fearless swords the waning empire of the effeminate Greeks at the Dardanelles. Where are they and their descendants? The only traces are seen among the tombstones at Palermo, or in the Runic inscriptions which they sacrilegiously sculptured with their long blades of steel upon the flanks of the marble lion of the Piræus.
II.
In the year 1600 hardly a European family could be found along the headlands and indentations of the coast which form the southern limit of the Slave States of America.