In Africa, where there is perfect uniformity in nature, there is uniformity in man; and the negro stock, though prolific, gives no race of high development to the world. Both extremes are equally unfavorable to the advance of man; he must have, in order to expand and take the place to which his possibilities lead him, a sphere of mutual conditions, to which a compact continent like Africa and Central Asia can lay no claim, and at the same time be free from that extreme individualization characteristic of the islands of Polynesia. Europe lies between these extremes. Limited in area, diversified in surface, and deeply indented in its coast-line, it has experienced all the advantages which a continent needs for its development, and for that historical greatness which Europe has won for itself. Less striking in natural scenery and comparatively poor in resources, its contrasts in respect mainly to the action of its inland seas and rivers over the main land have conduced to the happiest results. It has become the school for the Old and the New World, taking the vitality and the crude gifts of Asia and turning them into channels where they could issue in new forms for the advancement and the humanizing of the race. The Results of the above Considerations briefly stated. It will be seen, from what has now been said, that, with an area three times less than that of Africa, Europe (including its adjacent islands) has a coast-line twice as extended. Without the islands, it is 25,380 miles in length, or the circumference of the earth. The coast-line of Africa extends 17,860 miles; that of Asia 32,900. The exceedingly varying areas of the continents may now be passed in very speedy review. Europe is but a fifth as large as Asia. It is somewhat more than a quarter as large as Africa; it is almost of the same size with Australia. In relation to America, it stands between Asia and Africa; it makes about ¹⁄₁₅ of all the continents, and about ¹⁄₂₀ of all the land surface of the globe; but it is not absolute size, but relative, which determines the importance of a continent; and this twentieth part of all the land on the globe has had paramount influence over all the rest within the past few centuries. The ethnographical character of its population has had great weight in securing this result, and other reasons will doubtless be more apparent in the future. One of the most important features in the study of the relative importance of the continents is the comparative relation of the main trunk, articulation, and island system to each other. The following table presents this relation as it exists in the Old World:— Africa: trunk 1, extremities 0, islands ¹⁄₅₀ Asia: ” 4, ” 1, ” ⅛ Europe: ” 2, ” 1, ” ¹⁄₂₀