the difference between vegetation in valleys and upon mountains. In
the valley you find the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly
to the storm, and as you advance up the mountain side the hemlock, the
pine, the birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little
dwarfed trees, that look like other trees seen through a telescope
reversed--every limb twisted as though in pain--getting a scanty
subsistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. You go on and on,
until at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of moss, and
vegetation ends. You might as well try to raise oaks and elms where
the mosses grow, as to raise great men and great women where their
surroundings are unfavorable. You must have the proper climate and soil.

A few years ago we were talking about the annexation of Santo Domingo
to this country. I was in Washington at the time. I was opposed to it.
I was told that it was a most delicious climate; that the soil produced
everything. But I said: "We do not want it; it is not the right kind
of country in which to raise American citizens. Such a climate would
debauch us. You might go there with five thousand Congregational
preachers, five thousand ruling elders, five thousand professors in
colleges, five thousand of the solid men of Boston and their wives;
settle them all in Santo Domingo, and you will see the second generation
riding upon a mule, bareback, no shoes, a grapevine bridle, hair
sticking out at the top of their sombreros, with a rooster under each
arm, going to a cock fight on Sunday." Such is the influence of climate.

Science, however, is gradually widening the area within which men
of genius can be produced. We are conquering the north with houses,
clothing, food and fuel. We are in many ways overcoming the heat of the
south. If we attend to this world instead of another, we may in time
cover the land with men and women of genius. I have still another
excuse. I believe that man came up from, the lower animals. I do not
say this as a fact. I simply say I believe it to be a fact. Upon
that question I stand about eight to seven, which, for all practical
purposes, is very near a certainty. When I first heard of that doctrine
I did not like it. My heart was filled with sympathy for those people
who have nothing to be proud of except ancestors. I thought, how
terrible this will be upon the nobility of the old world. Think of their
being forced to trace their ancestry back to the