FOOTNOTES:

[A] The Greeks used to say that reeds had contributed to subjugate a people, by furnishing arrows; to soften their manner, by the charm of music; and to develop their intelligence, by offering them the instruments proper for the formation of letters.—Humboldt’s Personal Narrative.

“The reed presents itself as an object of peculiar veneration, when we reflect that it formed the earliest instrument by which human ideas, and all the charms of literature and science were communicated, and which has handed down to us the light of religion and the glow of genius from the remotest ages.”—Drummond’s First Steps to Botany.

[B] “The Guaraons, a free and independent people, dispersed in the Delta of the Oronooko, owe their independence to the nature of their country; for it is well known that, in order to raise their abodes above the surface of the waters, at the period of the great inundations, they support them on the cut trunks of the mangrove tree, and of the Mauritia flexuosa.”—Humboldt, Personal Narrative, vol. iii. p. 277. The same people make bread of the medullary flour of this palm, which it yields in great abundance, if cut down just before going to flower.—Ibid., vol. iii. p. 278. To these circumstances Thomson alludes:—

“Wide o’er his isles the branching Oronooque
Rolls a brown deluge, and the native driven
To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees,
At once his home, his robe, his food, his arms.”

[C] The connection of navigation with the progress of civilization is most intimate, as may be understood from the following passage:—

“Among the circumstances which have contributed to retard the progress of civilization in Africa, one of the most important and influential is the compact and undivided form of the African continent, and the natural barriers which render access to the greater regions of the interior so remarkably difficult. It has been observed by Professor Ritter, that the civilization of countries is greatly influenced by their geographical forms, and by the relation which their interior spaces bear to the extent of coast. While all Asia is five times as large as Europe, and Africa more than three times as large, the littoral margins of these larger continents bear no similar proportion to their respective areas. Asia has seven thousand seven hundred geographical miles of coast; Europe four thousand three hundred, and Africa only three thousand five hundred. To every thirty-seven square miles of continent in Europe, there is one mile of coast; in Africa, only one mile of coast to one hundred and fifty square miles of continent. Therefore the relative extension of coast is four times as great in Europe as in Africa. Asia is in the middle between these two extremes. To every one hundred and five square miles, it has one mile of coast. The calculation of geographical spaces occupied by different parts of the two last-mentioned continents, is still more striking. The ramifications of Asia, excluded from the continental trapezium, make about one hundred and fifty-five thousand square miles of that whole quarter, or about one-fifth part. The ramifications of the continental triangle of Europe form one-third part of the whole, or even more. In Asia the stock is much greater in proportion to the branches, and thence the more highly advanced culture of the branches has remained, for the most part, excluded from the interior spaces. In Europe, on the other hand, from the different relation of its spaces, the condition of the external parts had much greater influence on that of the interior. Hence the higher culture of Greece and Italy penetrated more easily into the interior, and gave to the whole continent one harmonious character of civilization, while Asia contains many separate regions which may be compared, individually, to Europe, and each of which could receive only its peculiar kind of culture from its own branches. Africa, deficient in these endowments of nature, and wanting both separating gulfs, and inland seas, could obtain no share in the expansion of that fruitful tree, which, having driven its roots deeply in the heart of Asia, spread its branches and blossoms over the western and southern tracts of the same continent, and expanded its crown over Europe. In Egypt alone it possessed a river-system, so formed as to favor the development of similar productions. Die Erdkunde von Aslen, von Carl Ritter. 2. Band. Einleitung. §24, 25. Berlin, 1832.”—Pritchard, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind. Third Edit. Vol. ii., p. 354.

[D] “Was it not for the manifestation of this brighter era, and the realization of its promised blessings, that all else which preceded it was overruled by divine Providence, as subservient and preparatory? All things being now ready, there began to spring up in the bosom of the British churches, a wide and simultaneous sense of the solemn responsibility under which they had been laid by the events of Providence, to avail themselves of so favorable an opening for the diffusion of the gospel throughout the eastern world. Men, qualified to undertake the high commission, must be sent across the ocean—and have not the toils, and perils, and successes, of Vasco de Gama, and other navigators, opened up a safe and easy passage? That their labours might pervade the country, and strike a deep and permanent root into the soil, they must be delivered from the caprices of savage tyranny, and the ebullitions of heathen rage; and have not our Clives and our Wellingtons wrested the rod of power from every wilful despot; and our Hastings and our Wellesleys thrown the broad shield of British justice and British protection alike over all? In order that they might the more effectually adapt their communications to the peculiarities of the people, they must become acquainted with the learned language of the country, and through it, with the real and original sources of all the prevailing opinions and observances, sacred and civil. And have not our Joneses and our Colebrookes unfolded the whole, to prove subservient to the cause of the Christian philanthropist? In this way have our navigators, our warriors, our statesmen, and our literati, been unconsciously employed, under an over-ruling Providence, as so many pioneers, to prepare the way for our Swartzes, our Buchanans, our Martins, and our Careys.”—Duff’s India and India Missions.

[E] The relative proportions of starch and gluten in rice, wheat, and other seeds, not only confirm the views respecting design, in determining their geographical distribution, but merit notice, as influencing their nutritive qualities, and fitness or unfitness as food in different countries.

Starch.Gluten.
Wheat,according toProust74.5 12.5
———Vogel68.0 24.0
Winter wheat—Davy77.0 19.0
Spring wheat70.0 24.0
Spelt—Vogel74.0 22.0
Barley—Davy79.0 6.0
Rye—Do.61.0 5.0
Oats—Do.59.0 6.0
Rice Carolina—Vogel85.073.60
Maize—Bizio80.920.
Tartarian buckwheat52.2910.47