384 GEOGRAPHICAL U1STRIBTJTIOX OF ANIMALS. 



versa, which it could only have done by passing along the 

 sea-shore, or by leaping over large spaces of terra firma; 

 that is to say, in both cases it would be necessary to do vio- 

 lence to its organization. Now such a supposition is in direct 

 opposition to the immutability of the laws of nature. 



632. We shall hereafter see that the same laws of distri- 

 bution are not limited to the actual creation only, but that 

 they have also ruled the creations of former geological epochs, 

 and that the fossil species have lived and died, most of them, 

 at the place where their remains are found. 



633. Even man, although a cosmopolite, is subject, in a 

 certain sense, to this law of limitation. While he is every- 

 where the one identical species, yet several races, marked by 

 certain peculiarities of features, are recognised ; such as the 

 Caucasian, Mongolian, and African races, of which we are 

 hereafter to speak. And it is not a little remarkable, that 

 the abiding places of these several races correspond very 

 nearly with some of the great zoological regions. Thus we 

 have a northern race, comprising the Samoyedes in Asia, the 

 Laplanders in Europe, and the Esquimaux in America, cor- 

 responding to the Arctic fauna ( 602), and like it, identical on 

 the three continents, having for its southern limit the region 

 of trees ( 604). In Africa, we have the Hottentot and Negro 

 races, in the south and central portions respectively, while the 

 people of northern Africa are allied to their neighbours in 

 Europe ; just as we have seen to be the case with the zoolo- 

 gical fauna in general ( 584). The inhabitants of New Hol- 

 land, like its animals, are the most grotesque and uncouth of 

 all races ( 615). 



634. The same parallelism holds good elsewhere, though 

 not always in so remarkable a degree. In America, espe- 

 cially, while the aboriginal race is as well distinguished from 

 other races as is its flora, the minor divisions are not so de- 

 cided. Indeed, the facilities, or we might sometimes rather 

 say, necessities, arising from the varied supplies of animal 

 and vegetable food in the several regions, might be expected 

 to involve, with his corresponding customs and modes of 

 life, a difference in the physical constitution of man, which 

 would contribute to augment any primeval differences. It 

 could not, indeed, be expected, that a people constantly sub- 

 jected to cold, like the people of the north, and living almost 



