Both of the two great land divisions of the earth, it will thus be seen, have their peculiarities. But there is a great equalizer of their diversities, found in a great coast-belt, of which I must briefly speak. It passes from the Cape of Good Hope northeasterly at an angle of 45°, passing through the Mozambique channel, thence skirting the entire southeastern and eastern coast of Asia, taking in China, Corea, Japan, and South Kamtckatka; thence it turns southward, following the whole western shore of America to Cape Horn. This belt is broken at only two points—a brief break at the north, at Behring’s Straits, and a large one between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope; in other words, at the points nearest to the North and the South Poles respectively. This coast belt has a relation to the habitable world similar to that held by the temperate zone as a mediator between the torrid and the frigid. It partakes of the character of the sea and the land, and shows the advantages of both. It does not run parallel with the lines of latitude, but crosses them diagonally, in the same direction with the ecliptic, though at a more acute angle. This belt moderates all extremes. Coincident with it are the paths of the sea and land winds, the course of the monsoons, the most fertile shores of the whole globe. It divides the surface of the globe into three great divisions, the two great bodies of water, and the great, and, comparatively speaking, unbroken (for the break at Behring’s Straits is of little importance) land-mass. On the great coast line referred to above is the center of the great natural acclivities of the globe. It is the most varied, the most stimulating, and the most productive in all departments of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The Atlantic coast belt, which also has great influence on the eastern districts of the new world and the western districts of the old, crosses the great coast belt at almost right angles at the place of its great sundering between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. If the contrast between the sea and the land has the effect indicated above on the general development of organic life, it must of course have great effect also on the life and character of man. Man eminently depends upon the conditions amid which his lot is cast. The inhabitant of one of the Pacific islands dwelt in a world whose utmost possibilities to him lay in the adjacent islands within view, and which his canoe could reach in a few hours’ sail. The difference in culture between him and those whose range of observation has been greater, must be immense. The compacted land division of the globe, the solid cluster of continents, must be the source of stimulus and culture, of which the isolated inhabitant of the Pacific islands knew nothing, till commerce had at length linked the world together. Only with the improvements in navigation could civilization reach him. The European had to carry his culture to the New Zealander, his antipode.