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tibly changed within the last thirty years. The CHAP. winters are neither so long and severe as formerly, and there is a proportional abatement in the heat.

THE causes of this change are obvious. The earth formerly covered with forest and choaked with leaves, weeds and underwood, is now turned up with the plough, and its chilled surface warmed by the beams of the sun. Channels are now in all directions cut through the forests, which afford a passage and circulation to the stagnant air. There is moreover a vast increase in population. It is difficult indeed to explain by those causes the decrease of heat. Forests absorb the rays of the sun and intercept their progress to the

even in our southern colonies. Hence, if all the woods in that continent were cleared, Canada and Nova Scotia would be as inhabitable as Hudson's Bay, our northern colonies as cold as Canada, and our adjacent southern colonies in the situation of the northern. Let us not deceive ourselves therefore with the vain hopes of mending nature and abating the rigour of those inhospitable climes; that is not to be done but by cutting off twenty degrees of that continent in the north and leveling the innumerable snowy mountains.

No part of the world can be compared to this in point of climate but the eastern parts of Asia, which are almost contiguous to America in the north, and are exposed to this cold wind from the continent. Hence it appears from comparing many observations in both, that our colonies enjoy the same climate with East Tartary, China, Corea and Japan, the products of which are so rich and valuable. Here then we might have many of the most valuable commodities for the colonies, and as they are so entirely different from any thing which Britain produces, they might for ever keep the colonies from interfering with the mother country, and preserve a lasting connection and correspondence be→ tween them. Most of the staple commodities of America come from the east, as sugar, rice, cotton, coffee, indigo, &c. Wynne's British America

B

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CHAP. earth: But at the same time it is suggested that it must have impeded the progress of the cooling winds and the free circulation of air, which have since received freedom and activity. It is not inconsistent too with the laws of our atmosphere to suppose that the heat is qualified by new currents of air and partial changes in their direction generated by itself.*

further westward.

THIS curious change in the climate of Vir

gina naturally suggests a question of some in. They will terest-What would be the probable effects of a extend still general cultivation of the several regions of the earth on the climates of those places? Would the progress of cultivation, which shall every where be equal, abate the rigour of a torrid zone or the intense severity of polar ice? Would it increase or diminish the advantages of temperate climates t THE various nations, which by the first set

The eastern and south eastern breezes come on generally in the afternoon. They have advanced into the country very sensibly within the memory of people now living. They formerly did not penetrate above Williamsburg. They are now frequent at Richmond and every now and then reach the mountains. They deposit most of their moisture before they get that far, as the land become more cleared it is probable they will extend fart.er westward.

† By the following extract it appears that a revolution of this kind was not unknown among the ancients. "Naturalists affirm, says the ingenious author of Anacharsis, speaking of Larissa, that since a passage has been formed to let off the stagnant waters, which covered the environs of this town in many places, the air is become more pure and colder. They allege two reasons in support of this opinion; olive trees were formerly very numerons and flourishing in this district; at present they are unable to endure the severity of the winters: The vines too are often frozen, which in former times was never known to happen.

Vol. 2. p. 284-5%

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Indians in

tlers were found dispersed over the American CHAP. continent, in the unvaried sameness of their appearance and manners, and the almost infinite The same variety in their languages, present an interesting ness of subject of speculation to the philosopher: But American inquiry is embarrassed in the outset by a con- dress,shape tradiction so extraordinary. The old world is in and comvain resorted to for the solution of this phaenome- plexion. non. Although divided often by seas and almost inaccessible mountains, and still farther removed from each other by the restraints of policy; their several languages discover numerous and striking affinities. But the Indians of North America, living in the neighbourhood of each other; divided by no seas: although often at peace and alliance, and not unfrequently meeting during their hunting, have almost as many languages as there are tribes; and the affinities between their languages are neither striking nor nu

merous.

their lan

guage.

THE formation of language is a process which The almost requires time and labour. Man arbitrarily gives infinite vanames to the external objects which meet his riety of senses: But there is yet (although not always noticed by him) a connection between the names he assigns them and the most obvious properties of the objects; and this is more frequently the case with savages, who, overlooking nice and fanciful refinements, attend only to what is clear and expressive. Is it then credible that the Indians once possessing a common language, after branching out and dividing themselves into colonies for the greater convenience of hunting and fishing, should deliberately abandon their mother tongue, and each tribe or confederacy frame for itself a new language; and this too when the manners and customs of their fathers in other respects were religiously observed, and

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Indians

CHAP. the sensible objects to which new names were given remained the same. Yet the Americans, spite of this contradiction, had certainly a common original. Their nations are too numerous, and their manners, laws, customs and appearance too uniform to admit a different conclusion.

have a common origi nal,

Mr. Jeffer

Mr. JEFFERSON reckons up no less than forty nations, which at the first settlement of this state inhabited the country from the sea coast to the mountains; and from the Potomac to the most southern waters of James river. But what are these to the innumerable swarms scattered over this continent, or even that inconsiderable portion of it which constitutes the American confederacy. These are all alike distinguished by their straight black hair; their erect and well formed stature; their grave and taciturn deportment; their war whoop, war dances and war feasts; their songs when preparing for battle: By their skill and indefatigable patience in tracing and sur prizing an enemy; by the use of the tomahawk, and their custom of scalping the dead and wounded: But above all, by their incredible fortitude under torture. These are proofs too decisive of a common original to admit a doubt on this head, and against them, the varieties of language are but dust in the balance.

WHENCE then can have arisen this variety of language? Is it the work of time? On such a supposition, reasoning from circumstances in Europe, which attach more forcibly from the nature of their lives to the Americans, their antiquity rises higher than even the Chinese æra of creation; and America is the cradle of the hu

man race.

THIS opinion Mr. Jefferson appears not unson's hypo- willing to adopt; but respected as must be the authority of a man who has bestowed so much

thesis.

I.

attention on this subject, and who has contrived CHAP. to illumine every subject of which he treats with the mild radiance of a rational philosophy, this opinion will scarcely keep its ground against the numerous and forcible objections to which it is exposed; and he will doubtless feel less reluctance in seeing it refuted, when he reflects how powerfully such a conclusion would go in sup." port of the charges of Raynal, Robertson and Buffon of an original defect in the moral and physical faculties of the Indian.

INNUMERABLE tribes, enjoying a luxuriant

ted

soil, and distributed through a great variety of Why it climate, preserving their barbarism from the be- should not ginning of the world; treading on mines of gold be admit and iron, without having made a single improvement in the useful or mechanic arts, would but too fatally countenance such an imputation. The native American would be the most degraded animal of the human race; and his conquerors would have but too much reason to fear for their children and posterity.

THE naturalist who shall attempt to account for the moral phenomena which every where prcsent themselves in this region, by analogies drawn from civilization, must infallibly be disappointed. We must not argue from cities to the wilderness; from the philosopher instructed in the knowledge of ages, to the savage, whose experience is bounded by the forest in which he is imprisoned. Arts and civilization are the off spring of hard necessity; of a confined territory; of hunger and of thirst. They are nursed and brought to maturity by luxury and wealth. If the earth spontaneously and regularly produced every thing wanting and desirable to man, he doubtless would not permit his animal enjoyments to be interrupted by labour.. What then were the in

met be ?