DISTRIBUTION OF THE RACES-AMALGAMATIONS AND EX

TINCTIONS.

This point, really one of the most curious and important connected with man's physical history, may be illustrated by further references to the changes in geographical position undergone by the five great varieties of mankind now described from the earliest periods. Very few portions of the earth have retained the inhabitants by whom they are known to have been first peopled. With respect to Europe, it seems extremely probable, as Dr Prichard and others admit, that the Celtic and Germanic races were not the earliest settlers upon its territory. They pushed out, from some parts at least, a previous race, of which the Fins and Laplanders may perhaps be held to give us some idea.

through the Cimmerii, who then inhabited the shores of the Caspian, to European Scythia, finally brought the eastern Celts, in the central parts of Europe, into contact with the western, one of the results of which event was the incursion of the Galli into Italy.'*

It has been seen that this great wave of colonisation, not itself the first, was afterwards followed by another composed of the Germanic tribes. Dr Prichard considers it most probable that this new influx also came in two streams, one proceeding through the regions to the north of the Caspian, and the other across the Hellespont. Of late years, some curious light has been brought to bear upon the early history of these peoples, from the many tombs and tumuli scattered through the north of Asia. In these are found implements and ornamental articles, with which scholars endeavour to associate different sets of people, referred to three different eras. The oldest are the relics of a people with round heads, having the transverse diameter of the cranium large in proportion to the longitudinal. The implements and ornaments which are found in the tombs of this race indicate the greatest rudeness. They consist of tools and the heads of arrows and lances made of stone and bone, but nothing indicating a knowledge of the use of metals. Whether these oldest tombs were the sepulchres of a Celtic race, is a question not yet decided. It seems to be the opinion of Retzius and that of Nilsson, who has written a learned work on the antiquities of Scandinavia, that they were the burial-places of a people much older than the Celts. Similar remains more recently discovered in France have been supposed by MM. Robert and Serres to be referrible in like manner to different eras, but to what successive races they respectively belonged is as yet only matter of conjecture. It seems, however, to have been observed in many parts of Europe, that the skulls which, from their situation, and from the ruder character of the implements and ornaments buried with them, may be supposed to have belonged to the most ancient class, are of a rounder and broader form than the crania discovered in tombs of a later date; and this observation tends to support the notion entertained by many persons, that the west of Europe had inhabitants previously to the arrival of Celtic colonies, and that these earliest people belonged to a family of different physical characters from those of the IndoEuropean race, and were more nearly allied to the nations of Northern Asia.'

As to this early Celtic migration, it may be worth while to adduce the view of its details which is given by one of the more modern and enlightened ethnographers, Dr Charles Meyer. The Celtic nation is regarded by this writer as, owing to its migratory habits and instincts, one of the most widely-spread of all the nations of ancient and modern history, having at various periods covered with its settlements, and perhaps even simultaneously possessed, a space of country extending from the Pillars of Hercules [Gibraltar] to Asia Minor and beyond the Caspian.' 'It seems to me,' says Dr Meyer, that the Celtic nation transported itself from Asia, and more particularly from Asiatic Scythia, to Europe and to this country by two principal routes, which it resumed at different epochs, and thus formed two great streams of migration, flowing, as it were, periodically. The one, in a south-western direction, proceeding through Syria and Egypt, and thence along the northern coast of Africa, reached Europe at the Pillars of Hercules; and passing on through Spain to Gaul, here divided itself into three branches, the northern of which terminated in Great Britain and Ireland, the southern in Italy, and the eastern, running along the Alps and the Danube, terminated only near the Black Sea, not far from the point where the whole stream is likely to have originated. The other stream, proceeding in a more direct line, reached Europe at its eastern limit, and passing through European Scythia, and from thence partly through Scandinavia, partly along the Baltic, through Prussia and through Northern Germany, reached this country, and hence to the more western and northern islands across the German Ocean. Of these two streams or lines of Celtic migration, The Celtic population of the south of Europe were which, with reference to this country, we may distin- in a great measure overwhelmed by the Germanic tide guish by the names of the western and eastern stream; from the north, and though centuries of confusion folthe former, although the less direct, seems to be the lowed the collision, the good ultimately effected by the more ancient in history, and to have reached this coun-intermixture was immense. It appeared, indeed, as if try several centuries before the other. The principal nations belonging to it are the Keltai of Spain (to whom this name particularly refers) and the Galli. As the nations and tribes of this western migration are those to which the name of Celts and Gauls more particularly refers, so to them belong most of those characteristics and institutions of the Celtic race-including the important one of Druidism-with which we are made acquainted by the writings of Cæsar and Strabo. The language of the western Celts is in its most distinctive features represented by the British or Gallic branch of the modern Celtic.

Of the nations and tribes of the eastern migration, the most celebrated are the so-called Picti and Scoti, who, from the close of the third century of our era, have for a long period held a leading place in the history of this island. . . . The time when the stream of this eastern migration first reached this island seems to have been the sixth century A.C., at which epoch, as we learn from Herodotus (iv. 13), a general commotion took place amongst the different tribes and nations of Asiatic Scythia, similar to that which 400 years later became the primary cause of the great migration of the Teutonic tribes in the fourth and fifth century. This great commotion described by Herodotus, precipitating the eastern on the western tribes, and extending itself

a savage people there crushed a civilised one, but the result, in reality, consisted in the infusion of healthy blood into a vitiated frame. At this day there is but one important part of Europe in the hands of the pure Mongolian race-namely, Turkey. But at this very hour the once formidable power of the Ottomans appears verging to extinction. The Caucasian states around it have gradually seized province after province, and jealousy of each other has alone prevented them, on various recent occasions, from annihilating the petty remnant of the Mongols left in Europe. The power of the empire is not only going to decay, but, as M. Lamartine has lately shown, the Turks are in reality becoming extinct as a people. They are sinking beneath the pressure of the superior or superiorly - cultivated nations around them.

In Africa, the Negroes have already been stripped of a large portion of their continent by the Syro-Arabian and European nations, and are likely to be ultimately extinguished by them. If the climate of the same great country had been more favourable to the whites than it is, they would assuredly have taken a larger share in the occupation of it than they have done. As the case stands, their aggressions have been considerable.

* Dr Meyer on the Celtic Language, Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1847.

Not to speak of their coast stations, they have colo- | nents, and it is of importance to notice the issue in the nised the southern extremity of Africa, and the Caffres and Hottentots are falling before them, or are receding to the interior, to be finally crushed between the opposing forces of the Arabs and Europeans.

In Asia, the conquering Mongols long held extensive rule; but the semi-Caucasian power of Russia in the north, and the British in the south, have torn from them immense territories, and every few years behold additional losses on their part. Even at this time, the great Mongol power of China, which, by a policy cautious to an extraordinary degree, maintained for ages its independence, has been obliged to yield an admission to European settlements, which may be regarded as only the first footsteps of an invasion by which their power will be overwhelmed.

respective cases. In North America, we must ere long find the aborigines extinct; and in the place of hordes of savages, stationarily pursuing the wild and warring life led by their fathers from time immemorial, will be found a great and improving race, cultivating the arts of peace, carrying civilisation to the highest pitch, and extracting from their vast continent all the physical blessings with which the Creator has so liberally endowed it, and which He certainly meant not to lie unused.

DIFFERENCES IN ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE.

The Skin.

It has been already seen, that the Caucasians are The truth of the view now taken is more remarkably generally distinguished by a white or fair skin, while borne out by the history of the Transatlantic continent the Mongolians are yellow, the Ethiopians black, and than by that of any other country. Rapidly indeed the Americans red or copper-coloured: The black races have the Red Men of North America fallen before the are localised in the warmest regions of the globe, and march of Caucasian colonisation. The numerous islands their skin and constitution are fitted for their allotment. of the Mexican Gulf have been so completely cleared A black man can lie exposed to the hottest sun, without of all traces of native population, that it has become a injury, while the skin of the white man, if exposed to matter of doubt whether, on several of these islands, similar heat, breaks out in blisters. The black man can any native population ever existed. South America labour under a burning sun with impunity; but the has been largely subjected to the same influences, and white sinks under exertion made in such circumstances; would have suffered more from them, had the Cauca- and this is well known to be the cause why slaves were sians who went thither been a branch specially adapted introduced from Africa into the settlements of Eurofor the business of colonists, and had not a consider-peans in tropical America. Sir Everard Home, who able admixture of races peculiarised that colonisation. made some laborious investigations into this subject, As it is, the natives have been thinned, though the was puzzled by the obvious physical fact, that the black amalgamation alluded to, arising from the comparative skin must absorb more heat than the white. But it has similarity between the races, renders the truth difficult since been suggested by Dr John Davy that the black of discovery. In short, if we look at the whole course perspires most readily. In the Negro,' he says, 'the of the past history of mankind, we shall find the Cau- blood flows more readily through the vessels, so as to casian race through some of its families everywhere promote perspiration, and by that means contributing gaining the ascendancy, and slowly but surely reno-to the cooling of the surface, it contributes again, when vating the population of the world. it flows back to the heart, to the cooling of the internal parts.' After quoting this remark, Dr Glover of Newcastle says- Were the inhabitant of the tropic not possessed of this organisation, his system could not respond to the stimulus of heat, by a determination of fluid to the surface of the body; and the heat absorbed by the skin being prevented from entering the system by the perspiratory process, the greater radiating power of a dark_skin must be beneficial in cooling. Again, the dark skin places the Negro in the conditions of his climate, by causing him to radiate heat at night, and become at that time cooler than a white under the same circumstances.' Hence the love of the Negroes for night dancing and exercise.

In those instances where an amalgamation of varieties of men has taken place to a considerable extent (and there are a few prominent cases of the kind to be observed at present on the face of the globe), a people of a heterogeneous kind has been the result. In parts of South America and Mexico, not only Europeans and native Americans, but also Negroes and Malays, transported thither chiefly as slaves, have contributed to form the existing population. Europeans and Negroes produce a race called Mulattoes; the children of Europeans and native Indians are termed Mestizoes; and those of Negroes and Indians are styled Zamboes. Of course the subvarieties are numerous-indeed almost numberless. The European and the Mulatto produce Tercerons; the children of the Terceron and the European are called Quarterons or Quadroon; and those of Quadroons and Europeans are Quinterons. In the Quadroon, little or no vestige of dark blood is visible; but in most countries where these admixtures take place, the rights of pure white blood are only assigned to the Quinteron. Mexico, and the greater part of the states of the South American continent, including Peru, Chili, and Brazil, with the colonies and islands of the West Indies, are the chief scenes of these amalgamations of blood. Undoubtedly their immediate consequences are pernicious. The white blood is everywhere haughtily disposed towards the dark, and all the jealousies and oppressions of caste are accordingly displayed to a dreadful extent. Whether, out of the numerous varieties and sub-varieties of species there at present to be beheld, one perfect and homogeneous race shall ever be formed, is rendered doubtful by the undiminished, if not increased, eagerness with which the purity of the white blood continues to be maintained. If we could suppose that the amalgamations of different varieties of mankind were never to produce happier consequences than in these instances, we might question whether such admixtures be desirable. The experiments of amalgamation and non-amalgamation may be said to have been tried on great scales in the two American conti

In former times, when only two varieties, the white and black, were recognised or thought of, it was supposed that complexion was simply a result of the action of the sun's rays. This idea would naturally arise from its being observed that exposure to the sun darkened a white person, while seclusion tended to bleach or whiten him; and that the black nations were those which chiefly occupied tropical countries, while the whites were placed in the temperate zone. The views of naturalists on this subject were recently disturbed by the investigations of M. Flourens concerning the actual structure of the coloured skin.* The white was represented as having a skin composed of three integuments. First, the outer or scarf-skin, a thin transparent pellicle, seemingly secreted by the parts below, and devoid of recognisable vessels or nerves; next below the rete mucosum, a soft pulpy net-work; next, or undermost, the cutis or true skin, a strong layer, abundantly vascular, and very sensible. It was supposed that the colouring matter of the dark races lay in the rete mucosum, and that the only difference between the two races in that respect lay in the one having a mucous integument charged with globules of colouring matter, and the other a mucous integument in which there were no such globules. Flourens asserted the difference to be considerably greater. He * On the Natural History of Man. By M. Flourens. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, July 1839.

horny covering, and an internal pith, constitute the body of each hair, and the pith is to some extent vascular, because liable to disease. It is doubtless in this vascular pith that the colouring principle lies. The fact of the pith being supplied both with vessels and nerves, is further proved by the effect which great grief can produce upon the colour of the hair. Dr Prichard had personally observed one case in which the hair grew white in a single night through grief, and many similar cases are on record. One distinguished French anatomist went so far as to assert, that in the bulbs of the hair lay the whole colouring matter of the skin; but admitting that minute hairs exist on the general

states that, in a sufficient variety of experiments | vessels supply them with nourishment. An external upon the skins of Negroes and red Americans, he has found beneath the rete mucosum two distinct additional layers, capable of being detached, and the outer of which is the true seat of the colour of those races. The discoverer considers this as a difference much more important than any depending on form. Being a structural difference, he thinks it should be held as one of the first class, while differences of shape ought only to be considered as secondary. Without following him in these speculations, we may readily allow the importance of a peculiarity which consists in a distinct and additional part. M. Flourens, it may be remarked, has found the two layers also in Mulattoes. He had not had an opportunity of ex-frame, we could not thus explain the black hue of the perimenting upon Mongolians or Malayans; but he infers from the other cases that in them also the extra integuments would be found.

M. Flourens adds, that in the case of Europeans tinged by exposure to the sun's rays, the mucous web is what is affected, becoming, as it were, slightly dyed. No degree of exposure can, he thinks, confer the colouring layers of the Negro and other dark races. He remarks, that the African Moors, who have lived beside the Negroes for centuries, have never acquired the colouring apparatus of that race; and it has been observed by travellers (Captain Lyon among others) that the Tuariks, a race of African Caucasians, of a dark-brown complexion, are nearly as white on those parts of their bodies covered up from the sun, as most Europeans. It is also well known that the progeny of a European, however much he may have been tinged by the sun of a tropical climate, is invariably as white as he himself was at first.

inside of the Negro's lip, which is free from hair. However, when we consider that the woolly hair is usually connected with the jetty skin of the Negro, and the lank straight hair with the red skin of the Indian, we must believe in the existence of some strong bond between these physical characteristics.

In like manner do we trace a general correspondence between the colour of the eye and the skin and hair. The hue of the eye depends on a pigment or dye, lining the choroid coat or membrane. According to the tint of this pigment, is the eye blue, gray, brown, hazel, or black. Generally speaking, light-coloured eyes are conjoined with fair complexion and light hair, and the converse holds as commonly good. To this rule, it is well known, there are exceptions; yet Mongols, Ethiopians, Malays, and Americans, in ninety-nine cases in the hundred, show the extent of its applicability. The Caucasians display in this respect greater variations. Albinoes are individuals whose peculiarities depend

features, though these features vary a little according to the race to which the individual belongs; and there are Albinoes to be found in almost all countries. The redness of the eye depends on the absence of pigment on the choroid coat, permitting the red blood-vessels to be seen. From a deficiency in the power of absorbing the rays of light, which purpose is served by the pigment, the eyes of Albinoes are weak. The Albinoes of the black race are called white Negroes, from the colour of their skin, and they have white woolly hair. Among the copper-coloured natives of the Darien isthmus, Albinoes are common. Their bodies are of a milk-white tint, covered with a short down; and they have white hair, with red eyes. They love such light as the moon gives, and by night are all life and activity, while by day they are miserable, the rays of the sun making their weak eyes stream with water. The connection between skin, hair, and eyes, and the unity of the source of colour for all these parts, is very strikingly exemplified by the peculiarities of the Albino.

M. Flourens deems the difference of structure be-on defects. Red eyes and white hair are their chief tween the white and coloured races as sufficient to prove that they are of different stocks, and he accordingly speaks of them as essentially distinct races.' But there are some considerations which greatly confound all such conclusions, as drawn from differences of colour alone. Colours, it is to be observed, are not invariable characteristics of particular races. Most Caucasians, it is true, are white; but then there are also black Caucasians. The Hindoos are undoubted Caucasians, being proved to be so by many characters of form, as well as by the infallible test of language; yet the Bengalees and Malabars, varieties of the Hindoos, are often as black as the generality of Negroes. Caucasians of similar colour are spread through Persia and Western Asia, into Northern Africa. It has indeed been said that the Hindoo branch of the Caucasians alone includes every variety of colour, from the deepest black to something very nearly white. There are similar variations in at least one of the other four races. Although the Americans,' says Dr Morton, possess a pervading and characteristic complexion [which he describes as more brown or cinnamon-coloured than red], there are occasional and very remarkable deviations, As, beyond all doubt, we ought to consider the form including all the tints from a decided white to an un- of the skull as in some degree indicative of the intelequivocally black skin.' The white tribes have been lectual powers, the distinctions in this organ necessarily found chiefly in the high regions in the northern part become of great importance. The most perfect type of of South America. These facts are themselves suffi- the Caucasian skull was alleged by Blumenbach to be cient to show that the colour cannot be, as represented found in the modern Caucasians-proper, such as the by M. Flourens, an essential or specific distinction; and Georgians. The head [of a female Georgian, described their purport is confirmed by some more recent investi- by the philosopher] is of the most symmetrical shape, gations, which result in showing the so-called rete muco-almost round; the forehead of moderate extent; the sum as nothing but an inner layer of the epidermis, cheek-bones rather narrow, without any projection, but liable to continual renewal as the outer is worn away, having a direction downwards, from the malar process just like the bark of the tree. The hue of the Negro is of the frontal bone; the alveolar edge well rounded; now believed to depend on the presence of colouring the front teeth of each jaw placed perpendicularly.' matter in the cells of the epidermis itself, and to be a variable phenomenon, exactly like the appearance of freckles under the influence of sunlight.

Hair and Eyes.

The hair is a strong individual characteristic in man. Its colouring principle is evidently the same, speaking comprehensively, with that of the skin. The hairs issue from bulbs or roots beneath the true skin, where

Skulls and Heads.

The head of the perfect Mongolian type is described by Blumenbach as almost square; the cheek-bones projecting outwards; the nose flat; the nasal bones, and the space between the eyebrows, nearly on the same horizontal plane with the cheek-bones; the superciliary arches scarcely to be perceived; the nostrils narrow; the maxillary pit slightly marked; the alveolar edge in some degree rounded forwards; the chin slightly prominent.'

In the Ethiopic variety of men, 'the head is narrow, and compressed at the sides; the forehead very convex, vaulted; the cheek-bones projecting forwards; the nostrils wide; the maxillary pits deeply marked at points; the jaws considerably elongated; the alveolar edge narrow, long, and elliptical; the front teeth of the upper jaw turned obliquely forwards; the lower jaw strong and large.'

In the American skull there is an approach in shape to that of the Mongol, with this difference, that the top is more rounded, and the sides less angular. The summit of the Malay head is narrowed, the forehead a little arched, and the upper jaw pushed somewhat forward. It would be superfluous to enumerate here the particular tribes marked by these varieties of skulls, as this has been done with sufficient distinctness in the general classification of the races. Of course, among Caucasians, Mongols, and Negroes, there are considerable individual differences in the form of the head, but the preceding descriptions give the type of each division.

is in favour of the position assumed by Camper. It is certain that every man is struck with the expression of dignity or elevation of mind and character in the ancient busts, which have a great facial angle, and that this expression would be lost if the facial angle were contracted. The fact seems indeed to be a general one, that men of great intellect have fully-developed brains, as indicated by elevated and capacious foreheads.' Since the time of Camper, it is scarcely necessary to tell the reader, the subject of craniology has been amply investigated by Dr Gall and his followers, who have founded upon their inquiries a system of mental philosophy (Phrenology), in a great measure new to the world, and of which the fundamental principle is, that the size and form of the skull, as depending on the size and form of the brain within, denote, other circumstances being equal, the intellectual and moral character.

Having obtained a considerable number of the skulls of the various races of men, Dr Morton measured their internal capacity by means of white pepper seed, and found the following results :

RACES.

rican,

No. of
skulls.

Mean internal capacity in cubic inches.

Largest in Smallest in the series. the series.

52

87

109

75

10

83

93

69

18

81

89

64

147

60 65

It thus appears that the aboriginal Americans rank fourth with respect to the size of their brains, the Ethiopians being lowest and the Caucasians highest. This result is certainly the precise one to be expected, considering the capacity of the cranium as an index of intellectual power. The Caucasian race, which stands highest in the scale, is that which has produced the most civilised nations; while the Mongolian, the next in order of capacity of cranium, has produced a number of nations which remain at a fixed point in semicivilisation. The Malay is a degree more barbarous, and the American and Ethiopian the most barbarous of all.

The remarkable contrast in the prominency of the facial bones, conjoined, as it commonly is, with an equally striking difference in the anterior development of the skull, has been deemed by some physiologists a feature of the highest importance. Camper founded on these physical characters a scheme for estimating the degrees of intellect and sagacity bestowed by nature on the whole members of the animal kingdom possessing a skull and brain. The facial angle, as he termed the 1. Caucasian, degree of prominency in the facial bones, was measured 2. Mongolian, by him in the following way :-One straight line was 3. Malay, drawn from the ear to the base of the nose, and another 4. Aboriginal Amefrom the prominent centre of the forehead to the most 5. Ethiopian, advancing part of the upper jaw-bone, the head being viewed in profile. In the angle produced by these two lines,' says the physiologist, may be said to consist not only the distinction between the skulls of the several species of animals, but also those which are found to exist between different nations; and it might be concluded that nature has availed herself at the same time of this angle to mark out the diversities of the animal kingdom, and to establish a sort of scale from the inferior tribes up to the most beautiful forms which are found in the human species. Thus it will be found that the heads of birds display the smallest angle, and that it always becomes of greater extent in proportion as the animal approaches most nearly to the The physical characteristic now under consideration human figure. Thus there is one species of the ape varies considerably among the white nations or Eurotribe in which the head has a facial angle of forty-two peans. The Turks, who, though originally a Mongol degrees; in another animal of the same family, which race, have had their primitive physical attributes mois one of those simic approaching most closely to the dified by continual intermixtures with Greeks, Georhuman figure, the facial angle contains exactly fifty gians, and Circassians, present a form of skull combindegrees. Next to this is the head of the African Negro, ing, apparently, the mingled characters of the two which, as well as that of the Kalmuc, forms an angle varieties. The square Mongolian head has been rounded of seventy degrees, while the angle discovered in the off in their case, and we find it to be now almost a perheads of Europeans contains eighty degrees. On this fect globe. The Greek head approaches the same shape. difference of ten degrees in the facial angle the superior It was long asserted that the globularity of the Turkish beauty of the European depends; while that high cha-head resulted from artificial compression in infancy, racter of sublime beauty, which is so striking in some but modern physiologists discredit this notion. works of ancient statuary, as in the head of the Apollo, and in the Medusa of Tisocles, is given by an angle which amounts to one hundred degrees.'

'A single glance at the Turkish head,' says Mr Lawrence, at the symmetrical and elegant formation of the whole fabric, the nice correspondence and adjustment of all Dr Prichard, in quoting this passage, remarks, that parts, the perfect harmony between the cranium and 'the faculties of each race of animals seem to be per- face, in all the details of each, demonstrate most unefect in relation to the sphere of existence for which quivocally that it is a natural formation, and a very they are destined;' and hence, in as far as the mea- fine work of nature, too.' The writer now quoted surement of the facial angle is applied to the determi-proceeds also to remark, that, although no sufficiently nation of the comparative intellectual characters of dif- extensive examinations have yet been made, the proferent tribes of the lower animals, he holds Camper's bability is, that between the European nations, such as scheme to be imperfect and ineffective. As a method the Germans, Swiss, Swedes, French, and others, disof distinguishing varieties in the shape of the actual tinct differences in the shape of the skull would cercerebral case, moreover, the measurement of the facial tainly be found to exist on inquiry. Mr George Lewis angle is not always a safe guide. I have now before observed in travelling on the continent, that the French me,' says Blumenbach, the skulls of a Lithuanian have the lower and anterior parts of the cranium large, Pole and a Negro, in which the facial angles are nearly while the upper and anterior region is more prominent equal, but the difference between the shape of the two in the Germans. The Italian head, though comparacrania is otherwise prodigious.' Nevertheless, as a tively small for the most part, is marked by great elegeneral test of the mental capacity of individuals, 'Igance. The Jews have long been noted for the fine think,' says Prichard, 'we must allow that experience Caucasian shape of their heads.

Dr Prichard avows the opinion that the form of the head is less a feature of races, than an indication of stages in civilisation. He intimates, but in a very general way, and without pretending to make the observation as one which holds without many exceptions, 'that there are in mankind three principal varieties in the form of the head and other physical characters, which are most prevalent respectively in the savage or hunting tribes, in the nomadic or wandering pastoral races, and in the civilised and intellectually-cultivated divisions of the human family. Among the rudest tribes of men, hunters and savage inhabitants of forests, dependent for their supply of food on the accidental produce of the soil or the chase, among whom are the most degraded of the African nations and the Australian savages, a form of the head is prevalent which is most aptly distinguished by the term prognathous, indicating a prolongation or extension forward of the jaws. . . . A second shape of the head, very different from the last-mentioned, belongs principally to the nomadic races, who wander with their flocks and herds over vast plains, and to the tribes who creep along the shores of the icy sea, and live partly by fishing, and partly on the flesh of their reindeers. These nations have broad and lozenge-formed faces, and what I have termed pyramidal skulls. The most civilised races, those who live by agriculture and the arts of cultivated life, all the most intellectually-improved nations of Europe and Asia, have a shape of the head which differs from both the forms above-mentioned. The characteristic form of the skull among these nations may be termed oval or elliptical. . . . There are numerous instances of transition from one of these shapes of the head to another, and these alterations have taken place in nations who have changed their manner of life.'

out in going over the great divisions of the human race. The teeth of mankind differ very little in shape or position. The oblique position,' says Mr Lawrence, of the anterior incisors in the Negroes, and some other tribes who have prominent jaws, is the only national difference I know of in teeth. Their size and form exhibit merely individual differences.' The peculiarity here alluded to appears very distinctly to be only an effect of certain conditions, as it is found amongst our own population, where the diet is low and defective, and the general condition is unfavourable to the full development of the human being.

PHYSICAL CHARACTER.

The differences which exist among the races of man. kind, with respect to Figure, Proportions, and Strength, form a branch of the present subject not less interesting than any yet noticed. It has long been attempted, in the civilised regions of the world, to ascertain and fix a standard of physical perfection for the human body; and there certainly does seem to be a model, the closest approach to which combines the quality of pleasing the eye with the possession of the greatest degree of corporeal power and activity. Artists have usually looked to the model-figures of the Caucasians of Greece, or, in other words, to their ancient statues, as exemplifying the finest possible proportions of the human frame. But the taste of man varies so much, and habit modifies to such an extent his physical powers, that any standard of the kind alluded to must be open to numberless objections and exceptions. If judged of by the common artistical standard of the civilised world, certain races of men would be set down as out of proportion, and yet they possess physical powers of the most perfect kind. The Hottentot and the American savage will outrun wild animals, and hunt down the deer; the slim and effeminate Hindoo,' as we call him, will keep up with the horse for days; and the South Sea islander feels himself at home in a raging surf, which would whelm a boat or vessel. Yet these races depart widely in many cases from the Grecian model. Such facts show that physical power is at least not confined to men moulded after the Grecian artistical standard, though it may be that individuals so moulded would surpass in the exercises mentioned, with equal

Stature and Proportions.

It should not be omitted that many of the tribes of North and South America are so partial to low and retreating foreheads, that they have long been in the habit of assisting nature in producing that form of the head. The comparative softness of the osseous texture at birth, and the partially mobile state of the cranial sutures, enable them to effect this object. "The Caribbs,' says Labat, in his account of a voyage to the isles of the Caribbean Sea, ' are all well made and proportioned; their features are sufficiently agreeable, excepting the forehead, which appears rather extraor-training, those otherwise fashioned. dinary, being very flat, and, as it were, depressed. These people are not born so, but they force the head to assume that form, by placing on the forehead of the Different races of men exhibit considerable diversinewly-born child a small plate, which they tie firmly ties of stature, though there are no varieties of stature behind. This remains until the bones have acquired in different nations so remarkable as those which fretheir consistence; so that the forehead is flattened to quently occur in the same family. The tallest race of that degree that they can see almost perpendicularly men, authentically known to exist, are the Patagonians, above them without elevating the head.' The consea tribe occupying the coast of South America, between quence is, that the heads of these people, naturally the Rio de La Plata and the Straits of Magellan. The somewhat depressed in front, become hideously so; and territory occupied by them is of immense extent, and unnatural bulges behind show that the cerebral matter they are probably migratory in habits; hence a consihas been forced into new positions. The possibility of derable degree of discrepancy in the accounts given of changing the form of the skull has been doubted by them by different writers. Magellan's companions desome physiologists, but the circumstance is authenti-clared the Patagonians to be commonly about seven cated beyond all question. In Morton's Crania Ame-feet four inches in height, English measure. ricana are delineated many specimens of skulls thus altered in form, some so greatly changed by a pressure which has been applied both before and behind, as to resemble half-moons. It is not necessarily to be inferred that injury results either to the mental constitution or the general health of those who submit to this process. Supposing the pressure to be slow and gentle, the ductile organs will easily accommodate themselves to it, and it is probable that the brain, as far as its size or volume is concerned, will remain unaffected. A skull in Dr Leach's possession, bearing the marks of extraordinary compression, is known to have been that of a Caribb chief distinguished for intelligence and prudence.

The Teeth.

The general differences of features, accompanying these variations in the shape of the skull, were pointed

Commo

dore Byron saw and conversed with many companies of them, and states that few were under seven feet, while others were considerably above it. Nearly six feet high himself, he could barely touch the top of a chief's head, though standing on tip-toe. Captain Wallis, again, having probably examined a different tribe, says that the majority of the Patagonians seen by him averaged from five feet ten to six feet, and that he only saw one man so tall as six feet seven. By later and accurate measurements, made by the Spaniards, we learn positively, that there are at least Patagonian tribes reaching the average height of from six and a-half to seven feet. Were they even somewhat less, they would be decidedly the tallest race of men existing on the face of the earth. All voyagers admit them to be large and muscular in proportion to their height.

A people situated in the polar circles of the north, stand nearly at the other extreme of the scale as re