The British Quarterly Review Volume 46 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ... There is a distinct unity in the structure of the land mass of the globe. It has a form of its own as marked as the structure of man. Land and water are not distributed at random over the surface of the sphere. The land in its main masses is gathered closely around the Northern Pole, the waters around the Southern. A few miles south of Falmouth lies the point which is really the pole of the land hemisphere of the earth. New Zealand is the centre of the world of waters. The land holds itself together, as it were, in a citadel, which the waters--and this is no mere image--are ever besieging with their wanton, enervating breath. But the land is dual, like man. Two great systems of continents, in whose structure and climate it is not difficult to trace the masculine and feminine forms and temperaments as respectively predominant, hang together to a common centre; but they sweep away from each other into forms and climates which present very marked contrasts--and strong contrasts within the dome of an overarching unity are the conditions of all the nobler developments of life. The old world, with which alone in these volumes Mr. Philip Smith concerns himself, forms in the main one grand continental mass, whose citadel is the lofty central desert plateau of Asia, from which the land-slopes, supported by ribs of mountain, sweep down with infinite variety of form in every direction, until their shores are clasped by the all-embracing sea. But the ground plan of the old world is not a simple central mass, with sweeping slopes, whose physical structure and temperament show a tolerable uniformity. If it had been so, man would have had a widely different history. A close study of the great continent, Asia-Europe-Africa, will show that its form approximates...