Interesting for its historical value and outdated ideas, How the World Was Peopled represents one manis attempt, from a nineteenth-century perspective, to assimilate the stories of the Christian Bible with the study of natural history. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Edward Fontaine, a clergyman, politician, author, and amateur naturalist, was born in Virginia, and lived most of his life in the South. He was very active in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, served as chief of ordinance of the Mississippi Army during the Civil War, and was a member of the New Orleans Academy of Science.