with which, in Egypt, the upper classes squandered away the labour and the lives of the people. In this respect, as the monuments yet remaining abundantly prove, they stand alone and without a rival. We may form some idea of the almost incredible waste, when we hear that two thousand men were occupied for three years in carrying a single stone from Elephantine to Sais;126 that the Canal of the Red Sea alone, cost the lives of a hundred and twenty thousand Egyptians ;127 and that to build one of the pyramids required the labour of three hundred and sixty thousand men for twenty years.

128

If, passing from the history of Asia and Africa, we now turn to the New World, we shall meet with fresh proof of the accuracy of the preceding views. The only parts of America which before the arrival of the Europeans were in some degree civilized, were Mexico and Peru;129 to which may probably be added that long and narrow tract which stretches from the south of Mexico to the Isthmus of Panama. In this latter country, which is now known as Central America, the inhabitants, aided by glauben und der Gedankenlosigkeit sowohl der Armen, die da baueten, als der Ehrgeizigen, die den Bau befahlen." Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. iii. pp. 103, 104: see also p. 293, and some admirable remarks in Volney's Voyage en Egypte, vol. i. pp. 240, 241. Even M. Bunsen, notwithstanding his admiration, says of one of the pyramids, "the misery of the people, already grievously oppressed, was aggravated by the construction of this gigantic building. . . . The bones of the oppressors of the people who for two whole generations harassed hundreds of thousands from day to day," &c. Bunsen's Egypt, vol. ii. p. 176, a learned and enthusiastic work.

126 Καὶ τοῦτο εκόμιζον μὲν ἐπ ̓ ἔτεα τρία, δισχίλιοι δέ οἱ προσετετάχατο ἄνδρες ayoyées. Herodot. book ii. chap. clxxv. vol. i. p. 879. On the enormous weight of the stones which the Egyptians sometimes carried, see Bunsen's Egypt, vol. i. p. 379; and as to the machines employed, and the use of inclined roads for the transit, see Vyse on the Pyramids, vol. i. p. 197, vol. iii. pp. 14, 38.

127 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. p. 70: but this learned writer is unwilling to believe a statement so adverse to his favourite Egyptians. It is likely enough that there is some exaggeration; still no one can dispute the fact of an enormous and unprincipled waste of human life.

128 Τριάκοντα μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἓξ μυριάδες ἀνδρῶν, ὡς φασι, ταῖς τῶν ἔργων λειτουργίαις προσήδρευσαν, τὸ δὲ πᾶν κατασκεύασμα τέλος ἔσχε μόγις ἐτῶν εἴκοσι dieλOóvrov. Diod. Sic. Bibliothec. Hist. book i. chap. lxiii. vol. i. p. 188.

129

"When compared with other parts of the New World, Mexico and Peru may be considered as polished states." History of America, book vii. in Robertson's Works, p. 904. See, to the same effect, Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. v. p. 355.

the fertility of the soil,130 seem to have worked out for themselves a certain amount of knowledge; since the ruins still extant, prove the possession of a mechanical and architectural skill too considerable to be acquired by any nation entirely barbarous.131 Beyond this, nothing is known of their history; but the accounts we have of such buildings as Copan, Palenque, and Uxmal, make it highly probable that Central America was the ancient seat of a civilization, in all essential points similar to those of India and Egypt; that is to say, similar to them in respect to the unequal distribution of wealth and power, and the thraldom in which the great body of the people consequently remained. 132

But although the evidence from which we might estimate the former condition of Central America is almost entirely lost,133 we are more fortunate in regard to the

130 Compare Squier's Central America, vol. i. pp. 34, 244, 358, 421, vol. ii. p. 307, with Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. iii. p. 59, vol. viii. pp. 319, 323.

131 Mr. Squier (Central America, vol. ii. p. 68), who explored Nicaragua, says of the statues, "the material, in every case, is a black basalt, of great hardness, which, with the best of modern tools, can only be cut with difficulty." Mr. Stephens (Central America, vol. ii. p. 355) found at Palenque elegant specimens of art and models for study." See also vol. iii. pp. 276, 389, 406, vol. iv. p. 293. Of the paintings at Chichen he says (vol. iv. p. 311), "they exhibit a freedom of touch which could only be the result of discipline and training under masters." At Copan (vol. i. p. 151), "it would be impossible, with the best instruments of modern times, to cut stones more perfectly." And at Uxmal (vol. ii. p. 431), “throughout, the laying and polishing of the stones are as perfect as under the rules of the best modern masonry." Our knowledge of Central America is almost entirely derived from these two writers; and although the work of Mr. Stephens is much the more minute, Mr. Squier says (vol. ii. p. 306), what I believe is quite true, that until the appearance of his own book in 1853, the monuments in Nicaragua were entirely unknown. Short descriptions of the remains in Guatemala and Yucatan will be found in Larenaudière's Mexique et Guatemala, pp. 308-327, and in Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. iii. pp. 60-63.

132 See the remarks on Yucatan in Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol. v. p. 348: "a great and industrious, though perhaps, as the writer above cited (Gallatin) observes, an enslaved population. Splendid temples and palaces attest the power of the priests and nobles, while as usual no trace remains of the huts in which dwelt the mass of the nation."

133 Dr. M'Culloh (Researches concerning the Aboriginal History of America, pp. 272-340) has collected from the Spanish writers some meagre statements respecting the early condition of Central America; but of its social state and history properly so called, nothing is known; nor is it even certain to what family of nations the inhabitants belonged, though a recent author

histories of Mexico and Peru. There are still existing considerable and authentic materials, from which we may form an opinion on the ancient state of those two countries, and on the nature and extent of their civilization. Before, however, entering upon this subject, it will be convenient to point out what those physical laws were which determined the localities of American civilization; or, in other words, why it was that in these countries alone, society should have been organized into a fixed and settled system, while the rest of the New World was peopled by wild and ignorant barbarians. Such an inquiry will be found highly interesting, as affording further proof of the extraordinary, and indeed irresistible, force with which the powers of Nature have controlled the fortunes of Man.

The first circumstance by which we must be struck, is that in America, as in Asia and Africa, all the original civilizations were seated in hot countries; the whole of Peru proper being within the southern tropic, the whole of Central America and Mexico within the northern tropic. How the heat of the climate operated on the social and political arrangements of India and Egypt, I have attempted to examine; and it has, I trust, been proved that the result was brought about by diminishing the wants and requirements of the people, and thus producing a very unequal distribution of wealth and power. But, besides this, there is another way in which the average temperature of a country affects its civilization, and the discussion of which I have reserved for the present moment, because it may be more clearly illustrated in America than elsewhere. Indeed, in the New World, the scale on which Nature works, being much larger than in the Old, and her forces being more overpowering, it is evident that her operations on mankind may be studied

can find "la civilisation guatemalienne ou misteco-zapotèque et mayaquiche vivante pour nous encore dans les ruines de Mitla et de Palenque." Mexique et Guatemala par Larenaudière, p. 8, Paris, 1843. Dr. Prichard, too, refers the ruins in Central America to "the Mayan race:" see Prichard on Ethnology, in Report of British Association for 1847, p. 252. But the evidence for these and similar statements is very unsatisfactory.

with greater advantage than in countries where she is weaker, and where, therefore, the consequences of her movements are less conspicuous.

If the reader will bear in mind the immense influence which an abundant national food has been shown to exercise, he will easily understand how, owing to the pressure of physical phenomena, the civilization of America was, of necessity, confined to those parts where alone it was found by the discoverers of the New World. For, setting aside the chemical and geognostic varieties of soil, it may be said that the two causes which regulate the fertility of every country are heat and moisture.134 Where these are abundant, the land will be exuberant; where they are deficient, it will be sterile. This rule is, of course, in its application subject to exceptions, arising from physical conditions which are independent of it; but if other things are equal, the rule is invariable. And the vast additions which, since the construction of isothermal lines, have been made to our knowledge of geographical botany, enable us to lay this down as a law of nature, proved not only by arguments drawn from vegetable physiology, but also by a careful study of the proportions in which plants are actually distributed in different countries.135

134 Respecting the connexion between the vegetable productions of a country and its geognostic peculiarities, little is yet known; but the reader may compare Meyen's Geography of Plants, p. 64, with Reports on Botany by the Ray Society, 1846, pp. 70, 71. The chemical laws of soil are much better understood, and have a direct practical bearing on the use of manures. See Turner's Chemistry, vol. ii. pp. 1310-1314; Brande's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 691, vol. ii. pp. 1867-1869; Balfour's Botany, pp. 116-122; Liebig and Kopp's Reports, vol. ii. pp. 315, 328, vol. iii. p. 463, vol. iv. pp. 438, 442,

446.

135 As to the influence of heat and moisture on the geographical distribution of plants, see Henslow's Botany, pp. 295-300, and Balfour's Botany, pp. 560-563. Meyen (Geog. of Plants, p. 263) says, "I, therefore, after allowing for local circumstances, bring the vegetation of islands also under that law of nature, according to which the number of species constantly increases with increasing heat and corresponding humidity." On the effect of temperature alone, compare a note in Erman's Siberia, vol. i. pp. 64, 65, with Reports on Botany by the Ray Society, pp. 339, 340. In the latter work, it is supposed that heat is the most important of all single agents; and though this is probably true, still the influence of humidity is immense. I may mention as an instance of this, that it has been recently ascertained that the oxygen used by seeds during germination, is not always taken from the air, but is obtained by decomposing water. See the curious experiments of

A general survey of the continent of America will illustrate the connexion between this law and the subject now before us. In the first place, as regards moisture, all the great rivers in the New World are on the eastern coast, none of them on the western. The causes of this remarkable fact are unknown:136 but it is certain that neither in North, nor in South America, does one considerable river empty itself into the Pacific; while on the opposite side there are numerous rivers, some of enormous magnitude, all of great importance, as the Negro, the La Plata, the San Francisco, the Amazon, the Orinoco, the Mississippi, the Alabama, the Saint John, the Potomac, the Susquehannah, the Delaware, the Hudson, and the Saint Lawrence. By this vast water-system the soil is towards the east constantly irrigated: 137 but towards the west there is in North America only one river of value, the Oregon;138 while in South America, from the Isthmus of Panama to the Straits of Magellan, there is no great river at all.

But as to the other main cause of fertility, namely heat, we find in North America a state of things precisely

Edwards and Colin in Lindley's Botany, vol. ii. pp. 261, 262, London, 1848; and on the direct nourishment which water supplies to vegetables, see Burdach's great work, Traité de Physiologie, vol. ix. pp. 254, 398.

136 There is a difference between the watersheds of the eastern and western ranges, which explains this in part, but not entirely; and even if the explanation were more satisfactory than it is, it is too proximate to the phenomenon to have much scientific value, and must itself be referred to higher geological considerations.

137 Of this irrigation some idea may be formed from an estimate that the Amazon drains an area of 2,500,000 square miles; that its mouth is ninetysix miles wide; and that it is navigable 2200 miles from its mouth. Somerville's Physical Geography, vol. i. p. 423. Indeed, it is said in an Essay on the Hydrography of South America (Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. ii. p. 250), that with the exception of one short portage of three miles, water flows, and is for the most part navigable, between Buenos Ayres, in 35° south latitude, to the mouth of the Orinoco, in nearly 9 north. See also on this river-system, vol. v. p. 93, vol. x. p. 267. In regard to North America, Mr. Rogers (Geology of North America, p. 8, Brit. Assoc. for 1834) says, "the area drained by the Mississippi and all its tributaries is computed at 1,099,000 square miles." Compare Richardson's Arctic Expedition, vol. ii. p. 164.

138 The Oregon, or Columbia as it is sometimes called, forms a remarkable botanical line, which is the boundary of the Californian flora. See Reports on Botany by the Ray Society, p. 113.