ilization in Africa, one of the most important and influential
is the compact and undivided form of the African continent, and the
natural barriers which render access to the greater regions of the
interior so remarkably difficult. It has been observed by Professor
Ritter, that the civilization of countries is greatly influenced by
their geographical forms, and by the relation which their interior
spaces bear to the extent of coast. While all Asia is five times as
large as Europe, and Africa more than three times as large, the
littoral margins of these larger continents bear no similar proportion
to their respective areas. Asia has seven thousand seven hundred
geographical miles of coast; Europe four thousand three hundred, and
Africa only three thousand five hundred. To every thirty-seven square
miles of continent in Europe, there is one mile of coast; in Africa,
only one mile of coast to one hundred and fifty square miles of
continent. Therefore the relative extension of coast is four times as
great in Europe as in Africa. Asia is in the middle between these two
extremes. To every one hundred and five square miles, it has one mile
of coast. The calculation of geographical spaces occupied by different
parts of the two last-mentioned continents, is still more striking.
The ramifications of Asia, excluded from the continental trapezium,
make about one hundred and fifty-five thousand square miles of that
whole quarter, or about one-fifth part. The ramifications of the
continental triangle of Europe form one-third part of the whole, or
even more. In Asia the stock is much greater in proportion to the
branches, and thence the more highly advanced culture of the branches
has remained, for the most part, excluded from the interior spaces. In
Europe, on the other hand, from the different relation of its spaces,
the condition of the external parts had much greater influence on that
of the interior. Hence the higher culture of Greece and Italy
penetrated more easily into the interior, and gave to the whole
continent one harmonious character of civilization, while Asia
contains many separate regions which may be compared, individually, to
Europe, and each of which could receive only its peculiar kind of
culture from its own branches. Africa, deficient in these endowments
of nature, and wanting both separating gulfs, and inland seas, could
obtain no share in the expansion of that fruitful tree, which, having
driven its roots deeply