THE WORLD AS IT IS.

CHAPTER I.

The Earth. Its extent. Geological divisions. Population. Average length of life. Extreme longevity. Causes favorable to longevity in the country. Diversity of color and feature. Its causes. Diversity of language. Various systems of religion. Polytheism. Sabeism. Dualism. Judaism, Christianity. Its principal Divisions. Mahometans. Estimated numbers of each. Different forms of government. Monarchy, absolute and limited. Representative Republics. Democracy.

THE EARTH. The surface of the earth is computed to contain two hundred millions of square miles, of which sixty millions, or something more than one fourth, is land. Mountains, deserts, and regions of perpetual frost constitute one third of this portion, leaving only forty millions for the sustenance and dwellings of men, averaging eighteen persons to each square mile of habitable territory. Little is or can be known relating to the internal structure of the earth, beyond the depth of a few hundred feet. Geologists have formed various conjectures with more or less probability, but with little certainty. Volcanic eruptions in different places indicate vast subterranean fires; and have led to the supposition that the whole internal matter of the earth is of a combustible nature, which will, at some future period, produce a general conflagration.

POPULATION. There are no data from which any thing approaching to a correct estimate of the whole number of the human family can be formed. The perfection to which navigation has been carried, and the extent of the researches which have been made in modern times, have brought into view countries and people unknown to Europeans in former periods. Many others, doubtless, remain for future discoveries. The highest estimate of the population of the world, is a myriad, or one thousand millions. Malte Brun, whose calculations are mostly to be relied on, assigns to

And to a fifth division of the world, which he calls Oceanica, embracing the Islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

20,000,000

Making an aggregate of

645,000,000

This may be considered a low estimate. Seven hundred millions is a mean calculation. The natural limit of human life in healthy positions, where the constitution is good, and not broken down by disease, is from seventy to ninety years, being the period at which the system wears out by natural decay. Instances of much greater longevity are not unfrequent. The oldest family of which there is an authentic account in modern times, is that of John Rovin, of Hungary, who, at the age of 172, had a wife of 164, and a younger child of 117. Of all new-born infants, one out of four dies the first year; two fifths only reach their sixth year, and before the twenty-second, one half of the generation is consigned to the grave. At this period the constitution becomes matured into manhood, and deaths are more unfrequent. The mean duration of human life is thirty years. In Europe and the United States, the average number of deaths annually, is one in forty. In Great Britain one in fifty-five. In Spain, Italy and Greece, one in thirty. In the tropical regions, one in twenty; making a general average throughout the world, of one in thirty. According to Doctor Price, an accurate English observer, the mortality in the large towns in that nation, is one in twenty annually; and in the country, one in forty. In a mountainous country in Norway, for ten successive years, one in seventy-four only died annually. The inhabitants of the country enjoy several advantages over those of cities conducive to longevity; the principal of which are pure air, more exercise, and a more sober and regular mode of living. The equality of numbers of the different sexes in all nations, clearly indicates a marriage connexion of one male with one female, as most conducive to the happiness, the good morals, and the population of any country; yet in nearly all nations except those under the influence of Christianity, polygamy, or the connexion of one man with a plurality of women, is allowed. The possessors of wealth and power, appropriate to themselves the greater number of females; the poor consequently have none. Chastity is not protected by any moral principle, but by the walls of the harem, and the guardianship of eunuchs. On the estimate of 700,000,000, as the whole number of the human race, and that the amount of one generation passes away in thirty years, sixty-four thousand persons die every day, and twenty-three millions annually.

COLOR AND FEATURE.

COLOR AND FEATURE. Of this population there is every grade of color, from the fairest European white, to the African jet black. This gradation is imperceptible, and any classification which can be made, so intermixes with the next above and below, as to be incapable of definition. The form and features are as various as the color. Although the difference between the fair European white man and the African negro is so obvious, yet in tracing this difference through its various stages, there is no point of division. Modern geographers, however, with a desire to classify every thing, have given five varieties of the human species, as to color and features: 1. The European white, embracing, besides the inhabitants of Europe, those of western Asia and northern Africa; 2. The eastern variety of Asia, comprising the Tartar, Chinese, Mongul and Hindostan races; the characteristics of which are a yellow color, black and straight hair, head almost quadrangular, face large and depressed, nose flat and small, and the chin pointed; 3. The American Indian, of a dark red, or copper color, with black and straight hair, short forehead, prominent cheek bones, and a tall and straight figure; 4. The Malay race inhabiting northern Oceanica, and a portion of eastern Asia. Their characteristics are a tawny color, head slightly sunk in, forehead bilging out, nose thick, wide and flat, the mouth large, and the upper jaw projecting. 5. The African negro, more distinctly marked than either of the others. These general classes admit of numerous subdivisions. This difference in the color and features of the human species presents two interesting questions. Are they all of one family? and to what causes is this diversity to be ascribed? The Mosaic account of the creation being admitted, it settles the first question in the affirmative. The fact, also, that the union of the sexes between the most dissimilar races, produces an offspring capable of propagation, tends to the same result. Two general causes are assigned for the difference in color, to wit, climate and manner of life. The negro exposed with little shelter to the scorching influence of the sun in the torrid zone, from one generation to another, becomes black; when removed to a more northern climate, and being more sheltered, the race in the course of time loses something of its dark shades; and on the other hand, the race of European whites residing in the torrid zone, gradually darkens. In respect to features, a third cause may be added, to wit, the different modes of treating infants and young children among different nations. The human form is capable of much alteration by different modes of treatment in infancy, and parents will endeavor to form their children upon what is considered in their own nation as the most perfect model of beauty. The Chinese, conceiving that female beauty consists in the smallness of the foot, compress that limb in their female children to such a degree, as almost to disqualify it for its proper use. In the negro race,