In treating of the different colours of men, particularly negroes, it appeared to be demonstrated that the strong tincture of brown or black depends entirely on the situation of the country; that the negroes of Nigritia, and those of the west coast of Africa are the blackest, because those countries are so situated as to contain more heat than any other part of the globe, from the east wind not reaching them until it had passed immense tracks of land; that the American Indians, under the line, are only tawny, and the Brasilians brown, though under the same latitude as the negroes, because the heat of the climate is not so great, and the east wind has been cooled with the water, and loaded with humid vapours. The clouds which intercept the sun, and the rains which refresh the earth, are periodical, and continue several months at Cayenne, and other countries of South America. The first cause renders all the east coasts of America more temperate than either Asia or Africa; this wind arriving in a cool state begins to assume a degree of heat in traversing the plains of America, but which is checked by the enormous chain of mountains of which the western part of the new continent is composed, so that it is less hot under the line at Peru and Cayenne, and the natives are of a less dark complexion. If the Cordeliers were reduced to a level with the adjacent plains, the heat would be excessive in the western territories, and there would soon be men as black at Chili and Peru, as on the western coasts of Africa. It is evident then that diminution of heat in the new continent is owing entirely to situation; and we shall now make it appear, that there is a much greater degree of moisture in America. The mountains being the most lofty of any upon the globe, and directly facing the east wind, they stop and condense the vapours of the air, and thus give rise to a number of springs, which, by their junction, form the greatest rivers in the world. In proportion, therefore, to its extent there are more running waters in the new continent than in the old, and which are augmented by their confined situations; for the natives having never checked the torrents, directed the rivers, nor drained the marshes, immense tracts of land are covered by the stagnant waters, by which the moisture of the air is increased and the heat diminished. Besides, the earth being every where covered with trees and coarse weeds, it never dries, but constantly produces humid and unwholesome exhalations. In these gloomy regions, Nature remains concealed under her old garments, never having received a new attire from the cultivation of man, but totally neglected, her productions languish, become corrupted, and are prematurely destroyed. It is principally then from the scarcity of men in America, and from most of them living like the brutes, that the earth has been neglected, remains cold, and is unable to produce the active principles of Nature. To develope the seeds of the largest