text:  For instance what lies at the bottom of that question which is now being discussed every where the question of the corn-laws but the geological fact that England is more richly supplied with coal-mines than any other country in the world? what has given a peculiar interest to our relations with China but the physiological fact that the tea-plant which is become so necessary to our daily life has been cultivated with equal success in no other climate or country? what is it which threatens the permanence of the union between the northern and southern states of the American confederacy but the physiological fact that the soil and climate of the southern states render them essentially agricultural while those of the northern states combined with their geographical advantages as to sea-ports dispose them no less naturally to be manufacturing and commercial? The whole character of a nation may be influenced by its geology and physical geography