Asia, instead of being a simple oval, approaches the trapezoidal form, and consequently enters into a new set of relations resulting from its configuration. With the deeply-penetrating gulfs and bays and seas which sink into its trunk, the prominent peninsulas are in direct correspondence, marking in an especial manner the eastern and southern coast, but not lacking on the northern and western. These peninsulas are to be regarded as the limbs of a great central continental trunk. The eastern ones are the Tchooktchee foreland, the peninsulas of Kamtchatka and Corea, and the Chinese foreland. The southern ones are the peninsula of Farther India, including Tonquin, Siam, Malacca, and Birmah; the peninsulas of Hindostan, or Deccan and Arabia. The western limb is the peninsula of Asia Minor or Australia. The northeast of Asia is less articulated; still it has a number of arms pointing southward—the Sea of Kara, the Gulf of Obi and Yenisei, for example. The whole Siberian coast even is far more serrated than that of Africa, where it is an almost unbroken line. Still, there remains in the interior of Asia a broad and long mass of the continent, which is penetrated by no seas. It is to be regarded as the real trunk, and preponderates immensely over the area of all the confined projections. Asia is, therefore, a trunk with profuse richness of articulation. Africa is a trunk without articulation: a mere compact continental mass. The immense influence which so complex a coast form has upon all physical phenomena and on all organic life is evident. Far greater results must come from the mutual influence of sea and land than from unbroken land; far more numerous influences upon the climate, and upon plants, animals, and man. Even the changing geological structure of the coast-line must have an effect, when blending with all these other influences, greater than it would have in the interior. Every part of the coast has become different from every other part, with a different hydrographic and climatic character; and the great increase of races of men, and species of plants and animals, was a natural result. While Africa remained limited in all its relations, and destitute of any richness of variety, Asia has always enjoyed an amazing fertility of resources. Instead of the three races or species of man found in Africa—Negro, Berber, and Caffre—many are met in Asia, all different, Tchooktchees, Kamtchadales, Coreans, Chinese, Malays, Bermese, Hindoos, Afghans, Persians, Arabs, and Armenians. And these belong merely to the coast-line.