The influence of long continued impression, constituting instinct or habit of breed, is a curious phenomenon in the animal economy. Our population in the eastern maritime districts of Britain, descended principally from the Scandinavian rover, though devoted for a time to agricultural or mechanical occupation, betake themselves, when opportunity offers, to their old element, the ocean[68], {370} and launch out upon the “wintry wave” with much of the same home-felt composure as does the white polar bear. They roam over every sea and every shore, from Behring’s Straits to Magellan’s, with as little solicitude as the Kelt over his own misty hill, overcoming, in endurance, the native of the torrid zone under his vertical sun, and the native of the frigid among his polar snows. To what may we ascribe the superiority of this portion of the Caucasian breed,—may it arise in part from its repeated change of place under favourable circumstances? Other races have migrated, but not like this, always as conqueror. The Jew has been a stroller in his time; but he has improved more in mental acumen and cunning—not so much in heroism and personal qualities: his proscribed condition will account for this. The Caucasian in its progress, will also have mingled slightly, and, judging from analogy, perhaps advantageously, with the finer portion of those whom it has overwhelmed. This breed, by its wide move across the Atlantic, does not seem at all to have lost vigour, and retains the nautical and roving instinct unimpaired, although the American climate is certainly inferior to the European. It is there rapidly moving west, and may soon have described one of the earth’s circles. A change of seed, that is, a change of place, within certain limits of latitude, is well known {371} to be indispensable to the more sturdy growth and health of many cultivated vegetables; it is probable that this also holds true of the human race. There are few countries where the old breed has not again and again sunk before the vigour of new immigration; we even see the worn out breed, chased from their homes to new location, return, after a time, superior to their former vanquishers, or gradually work their way back in peace, by superior subsisting power: this is visible in France, where the aboriginal sallow Kelt, distinguished by high satyr-like feature, deep-placed sparkling brown or grey eye, narrowed lower part of the face, short erect vertebral column, great mental acuteness, and restless vivacity, has emerged from the holes of the earth, the recesses of the forests and wastes, into which it had been swept before the more powerful blue-eyed Caucasian; and being a smaller, more easily subsisting animal, has, by starving and eating out, been gradually undermining the breed of its former conquerors. The changes which have been taking place in France, and which, in many places, leave now scarcely a trace of the fine race which existed twenty centuries ago, may, however, in