Besides the division quantitatively, the division in respect to symmetry of shape is entirely irregular. Symmetry, as we usually use the word, consists in the arrangement of parts at equal distances, or two sides at least, from some central point or line. Mineral crystals are regarded in relation to the point where crystallization began; plants are viewed in relation to the stem-axis; animals in relation to the symmetry of the entire structure. A similar law of symmetry is entirely wanting to the globe; its arrangement is altogether unlike this; it is not nearly so perceptible at first glance, yet it is far more profound in design and comprehensive in its relations. The land is broken up into masses, varying in size, and called, arbitrarily, continents and islands. Strictly speaking, there are but two continents, the old world forming one, the new world the other. Australia may be called the smallest continent or the largest island; it is the connecting link between the forms, and shows at a glance the arbitrary distinction. We might easily go further and call New Guinea, Borneo, Sumatra, Great Britain, and Java, continents, and, on the other hand, we might designate the old and the new world as islands. There is nothing absolute here but the usage of speech. The continents and islands lie mainly in the northern hemisphere, (38,341,600 square miles,) scarcely a third part of their superficies (12,847,200 square miles) being in the southern. The continents are so situated also that the eastern contains by far the largest body of land, (36,760,800 square miles,) the western being only about one-third as large, (13,628,000 square miles.) America, the western, it will be seen, has no first-class island lying near it; it stands isolated. It is seen by this that the greatest mass of land lies in the northern hemisphere, dividing the earth in one way, and in the eastern dividing it in another; the smallest mass in the southern and the western. In the northeast the watery realm is the most contracted, in the southwest the least. We are thus enabled to speak of the land side of the globe, the land hemisphere, and a water side, the water hemisphere. The central point of the water hemisphere is at the island of New Zealand. Toward this the points of all the continents are directed. The center of the land hemisphere is in the northwest of Europe, at a point near southeast of England, the northeast of France, and the coast of Holland. The dwellers around the North Sea are the antipodes of the New Zealanders. Great Britain is the country which, as a whole, is the middle point of the continental world. In the oceanic world, the islands lie like scattered dots, insignificant in respect to area, in comparison with the waste of waters which surrounds them, while, on the other hand, the land hemisphere is so solidly compacted, that even the Arctic Ocean becomes merely a broad channel.