The possibility of man living and prospering in other regions than those in which his fathers lived, has been denied in a more or less emphatic manner by the greater number of polygenists. Without going as far as this, certain monogenists have held that a human race, when constituted for given conditions of life, was, so to speak, a prisoner to them, and could not effect a change without losing his life. Other writers have maintained precisely opposite opinions, and have held that any human group could at once become acclimatised in any given spot. There are exaggerations and errors in all these extreme doctrines. II. In spite of the assertions of Knox, Frenchmen can live perfectly well in Corsica, provided only, that they avoid the marshes of the eastern coast, which the islanders themselves cannot inhabit. After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the fugitives from Provence and Languedoc founded villages in the valley of the Danube, thus contradicting beforehand one of the assertions of the English doctor. English and French emigrants to the United States, and to Canada, have not degenerated, in spite of the assertions of the same author. Though modified, often in a very striking manner, as we shall presently see, the Yankee _squatters_ and the Canadian _backwoodsmen_ are certainly not inferior to the first colonists who planted the European standard in the midst of the Red-Skins. Knox, and the anthropologists who agree either entirely or partially with him, attribute to emigration alone the maintenance and growth of the white population in America and elsewhere. In their opinion the European emigrant loses, after several generations, the power of reproduction. If the human current, which sets from Europe towards the Colonies were to be stopped, they maintain that the population would rapidly diminish, and the local races regain the ascendancy, that the United States would return to the Red-Skins, and Mexico to the descendants of Montezuma. This assertion will easily be answered by a few statistics. They are taken from the history of French races, which, since the treaty of Paris in 1763, have, although in a slight degree, directly contributed to the peopling of Canada. There were in this country: In 1814 275,000 inhabitants of French origin. In 1851 695,945 ” ” In 1861 1,037,770 ” ” In Ottawa State there were: In 1851 Total population 15,000 ” French ” 5,000 In 1863 Total population 25,000 ” French ” 15,000 The history of the Acadians furnishes statistics which are quite as convincing. From the information obtained by M. Rameau, it appears that the entire population was descended from forty-seven families, numbering 400 souls in 1671. In 1755 there were 18,000. Dispersed and driven out by the English they were reduced to only 8,000. In 1861, the number rose to 95,000 persons.