had any faith in it; wherefore, I am by so much more indebted to them, as well as because they have since also much favored and promoted me. Item. I also require of Diego, or whosoever may be in possession of the estate, that in the case of any schism taking place in the church of God, or that any person of whatever class or condition should attempt to despoil it of its property and honors they hasten to offer at the feet of His Holiness, that is, if they are not heretics (which God forbid), their persons, power and wealth, for the purpose of suppressing such schism, and preventing any spoliation of the honor and property of the church. Item. I command the said Diego, or whoever may possess the said estate, to labor and strive for the honor, welfare and aggrandizement of the city of Genoa, and to make use of all his power and means in defending and enhancing the good and credit of that republic, in all things not contrary to the service of the church of God, or the high dignity of the King and Queen, our lords and their successors. Item. The said Diego, or whoever may possess or succeed to the estate, out of the fourth part of the whole revenue,* from which, as aforesaid, is to be taken a tenth, when Don Bartholomew or his heirs shall have saved the two millions, or part of them, and when the time shall come of making a distribution among our relations, shall apply and invest the said tenth in providing marriages for such daughters of our lineage as may require it, and in doing all the good in their power. Item. When a suitable time shall arrive, he shall order a church to be built in the island of Espanola, and in the most convenient spot, to be called Santa Maria de la Concepcion; to which is to be annexed an hospital, upon the best possible plan, like those of Italy and Castile, and a chapel be erected to say mass in for the good of my soul, and those of my ancestors and successors with great devotion, since no doubt it will please the Lord to give us a sufficient revenue for this and the afore-mentioned purposes. Item. I also order Diego my son, or whosoever may inherit after him, to spare no pains in having and maintaining in the island of Espanola, four good professors in theology, to the end and aim of their studying and laboring to convert to our holy faith the inhabitants of the Indies; and in proportion as by God's will the revenue of the estate shall increase in the same degree shall the number of teachers and devout persous increase, who are to strive to make Christians of the natives; in attaining which no expense should be thought too great. And in commemoration of all that I hereby ordain, and of the foregoing, a monument of marble shall be erected in the said church of La Concepcion, in the most conspicuous place, to serve as a record of what I here enjoin on the said Diego, as well as to other persons who may look upon it; which marble shall contain an inscription to the same effect. Item. I also require of Diego, my son, and whosoever may succeed him in the estate, that every time, and as often as he confesses, he first show his obligation, or a copy of it, to the confessor, praying him to read it through, that he may be enabled to inquire respecting its fulfillment; from which will redound great good and happiness to his soul. S. X. M. Y. EL ALMIRANTE. XXV.-MOUNTAINS AND HISTORY. By Prof. EDMUND KIMBALL ALDEN. Near the present Hotel Gibbon, in Lausanne, the historian of the "Decline and Fall" sat in his garden and put the finishing touches on his monumental work. His laboratory was almost within sight of the summit of Mont Blanc, and as he completed the story Balmat and De Saussure were making the first ascents of the monarch of mountains. De Saussure was the pioneer of the Tyndalls, Whympers, and Alpinists of to-day. The rage for climbing, a passion almost unknown to our ancestors three generations removed, has led to many vagaries, to many conquests of difficult summits for the honor of a "première ascension," but it has thrown a flood of light on the mountains, primarily of central Europe, and then of the world, and it has added to the thoroughness and grasp of the school so worthily represented by Gibbon the freshness and illumination that come from outdoor life. Orography, indeed, is the most attractive branch of topography. No thesis is needed to prove the increasing importance of the latter subject. So rich is its part in the modern historic field that we are inclined to forget its little prominence in the earlier study of history. Says a late essayist,' "Hume hardly notices a single fact with regard to the physical geography of England between the Roman invasion and the rebellion of 1688." So far was this neglect of environment carried that, to quote from the same writer, not a few histories "might have been read almost as profitably without a map as with one." Taine, Buckle, and Draper may have pushed to excess the correlation of man and nature. The eye of the thoughtful topographer interpenetrating the work of the trained historian is seen in the writings-so widely differEdward T. Vaughan, in Contemp. Rev., V., 229. ing-of Green, Merivale, Curtius, and Duruy. A good recent instance is the illumination cast on the familiar pages of ancient Greek history by the keen-eyed Mahaffy, a service gratefully acknowledged by Freeman in his last contribution, "Studies of Travel." The wide subject of the relation of topography to history has never yet been adequately handled. Even a slight sketch of the field would be out of place on this platform, but an idea of the matter may be gained by confining one's thoughts to the branch of the topic the most fascinating of all-mountains. Let us glance at the elements of their value and influence, premising our brief survey with a concise enumeration of the peaks and ranges which have entered most conspicuously into man's history. The long, low system of the Appalachians has been the most momentous on this continent, as a whole, and through such parts as the Highlands, the Green Mountains, and the Virginian Blue Ridge. Of far greater altitude and extent, but not of greater import, are the North American Cordilleras, the Sierra Nevada, and the Andes. In the British Islands the historic groups are the Welsh Highlands, the Pennine Chain, the uplands of southwestern England, the Cheviots, and those confused knots that lie westward and make up the district anomalously called the Scottish Lowlands, the Grampians, and Highlands generally. On the Continent the number is bewildering, but the leaders from our point of view are the members of the central vertebra, mountains of Asturias, Pyrenees, Cevennes, Jura, Alps, Balkans; then the Vosges, Black Forest, Thuringian, and Sudetic Mountains, Carpathians, Scandinavian system, Apennines, Scardus, Pindus, and the infinite ramifications of the Greek peninsulas and islands. The Dark Continent has many isolated peaks and extended chains, but towering Ruwenzori and Kilima-Njaro need not detain us. The Drakenberge and other ranges of south Africa are of some importance, as are the Abyssinian Highlands and the Atlas. But Asia will attract us with its mighty masses, preeminent in height and extent, and not without absorbing human interests-Caucasus, Taurus, Elbruz, the Himalayas (rightly named the abode of snow), Kuen-Lun, Thian Shan, Hindu-Kush, Altai, Zagros, Lebanon, and Sinai. And lastly we can draw for illustrations on such less familiar regions as the mountain lands of Japan and New Zealand and the islands of the sea. The value of mountains is dependent on their structure, height, average height, width, length, relation to lowlands and to the coast, direction, and grouping. Their influence is seen in the natural resources which they furnish to man, in their modifications of climate, in their action as barriers, as conservators of the past, as aids in the development of freedom, as powerful stimulants of the imagination. The structure of mountains, of vital interest to geologists, is of far less importance to the historian. If he were concerned with eons instead of centuries, then problems of limestone and gneiss, of upheavals and faults, might be of the utmost mo But as long as ranges and peaks of vastly dissimilar origin apparently play substantially the same part in human economy, he must be content to touch but briefly on this brauch of the subject. Yet even in this line we may indicate the field of inquiry by pointing out the relations of formation to mineral supply, to position near the coast line or in the interior. Most suggestive for their light on prehistoric man are those maps which show areas like the Jurassic and Triassic seas of central Europe. Of vaster import is the height, relative and absolute. Among the historic systems there stands forth preeminent for towering altitudes the Alps, Caucasus, Cordilleras of North and South America, and the vertebral mass of Asia which culminates in the Himalayas. All these ascend far into the region of perpetual snow. The two first and the last have been of the greatest importance in the history of the race. Obvious as is in many respects the superiority of a range of 15,000 feet over a range of 5,000 feet, mere size should not delude us into sweeping generalizations. Olympus and Etna, the giants of India, and the Bernese Oberland should not dwarf Parnes and the Grampians, the Ardennes and the Alleghanies. The average height is of equal, perhaps of greater, value. And here is conspicuous the striking contrast between the Alps and the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Caucasus. From the times of Gallic invasion in the fifth century, before our era, the Alps furnished no real barrier to invaders. Not a few of our frequented passes, like the Mont Genèvre, Little St. Bernard, Splügen, and Brenner, were in use in the Roman Empire. So numerous were the ways by which a considerable body of men might penetrate into Piedmont that the route of the Hannibalic passage was already a mooted question in classical |