creation by sheer intellectual power, that of having “dominion over the fowl of the air, and over the fish of the sea, and over the cattle, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth.” The human population of the globe has been commonly rated at eight hundred millions, but this is probably an error in excess. The statements of geographers vary considerably, as appears from the following estimates of two of the most distinguished, MM. Malte Brun and Balbi. The former justly remarks, that all the calculations that have been made upon the subject are chimerical, and that it is impossible to state any which shall even approximate to the truth. Malte Brun. Balbi. Population of Europe 170,000,000 227,700,000 Asia 320,000,000 390,000,000 Africa 70,000,000 60,000,000 America 45,000,000 39,000,000 Oceanica 20,000,000 20,300,000 ----------- ----------- Total 625,000,000 737,000,000 ----------- ----------- But however uncertain the numbers of the human race, maritime and inland discovery show the wide dispersion of the species, to the extreme bounds of vegetable life; and the extraordinary facility of the human frame in accommodating itself to diverse circumstances. There are but few tracts of land which have not within their limits an indigenous human population. The antarctic continent, the Falkland Isles, and Kerguelen’s Land, with Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen in the northern zone, are the principal exceptions. St. Helena is also another; for when that island was discovered, in 1501, it was only occupied by sea-fowl, occasionally visited by seals and turtles, and covered with forest-trees and shrubs. However small the coral islands of the Pacific, and remote from continents, they have in general their families of men. The New World, though very scantily peopled, has the Esquimaux at its northern extremity, within ten degrees of the pole, and the Fuegians at its southern end, perhaps in the lowest condition in which humanity exists upon the face of the globe. In the Ancient World, we every where meet with traces of man and of his works, except in the zone of deserts; and even here he has planted his race in the oases, the verdant islets of the great ocean of sand. In situations high and low, dry and moist, cold and hot, we find members of the family to which we belong, enduring the extremes of temperature; a degree of heat which on the banks of the Senegal causes spirits of wine to boil, and of cold in the north-east of Asia which freezes brandy and mercury. [Illustration: =Esquimaux Hut.=]