VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 1001 



posed by Blumenbach, is still so commonly received, notwithstanding the 



distinct proof which has been given of the fallacious nature of its basis, that 

 it will be desirable to explain his terms, and at the same time to show how 

 far the information subsequently acquired has tended to modify his arrange- 

 ment. The first of these varieties, which is considered to be distinguished 

 by the possession of the oval or elliptical 1 type of cranial conformation, was 

 designated Caucasian by Blumenbach, on two grounds : first, because he con- 

 sidered the Caucasian people (of whom the Georgians and Circassians are 

 best-known examples) as presenting its physical characters in the greatest 

 perfection ; and second, because it was supposed that the Caucasian range of 

 mountains might be regarded as the centre or focus of the races belonging 

 to it. Neither of these ideas, however, is correct ; for whilst the oval form 

 of cranium is presented with fully as great beauty and symmetry by the 

 Greeks, it seems now to be almost certainly determiuable by the evidence of 

 language, that the Georgian and Circassian nations are really of Mongolian 

 origin, and consequently have no direct relation of affinity with the other 

 nations usually ranked as belonging to this variety; and the evidence of 

 history and tradition, so far from pointing to the Caucasian range as the 

 original centre of radiation of the race, accords with that of language in 

 assigning its locality much nearer to Central Asia. It would be most de- 

 sirable, therefore, that some other designation should be substituted for that 

 given by Blumenbach ; were it not that the present state of our knowledge 

 requires the entire abandonment of his doctrine, that the races agreeing 

 in this type of conformation are mutually connected by community of de- 

 scent. For, even within the limits of Europe, we find at least two nations, 

 the Turks, and the Magyars or true Hungarians, whose crania are char- 

 acteristically oval, and which are yet undoubtedly of Mongolian origin ; and 

 although some allowance must be made, in regard to the change which has 

 taken place among the former, for the influence of intermixture, with other 

 races, yet there is no reason to believe that any such influence has operated 

 among the Magyars, whose blood seems to have been transmitted with re- 

 markable purity from the time when they settled in Hungary about ten 

 centuries since. In Asia, we find this type presented not merely by the 

 Persian and other Indo-European races, but also by the Syro-Arabian and 

 by the larger proportion of the inhabitants of Hiudostan ; yet the Syro- 

 Arabian races are more nearly related to the African stock ( 848) than to 

 that from which most of the present inhabitants of Europe have sprung ; 

 and there is good reason to believe that the great mass of the existing in- 

 habitants of India are of Mongolian descent ( 850). It will be necessary, 

 therefore, to consider the nations which present the so-called Caucasian type 

 of cranial conformation, under several distinct heads. No uniformity ex- 

 ists amongst them in regard to color ; for this character presents every iuter- 



1 Now generally termed dolichocephalic, from Jo?ajdf, long, and nE<paAr/, head ; in 

 opposition to flpaxi'f, short, and KetyaM). According to Retzius, the majority of the 

 people of Western Europe are dolichocephalic and orthognathic (bpOot;, upright, and 

 >-vd0of, JKW) ; whilst the brachycephalic is the prevalent form of the skull throughout 

 the great extent of Eastern Europe. He regards the Hindoos, Arian Persians, Arabs, 

 andJews, with the Tungusians and Chinese, as being examples o^ Asiatic dolicho- 

 cephali, the last two being prognathic (nyjo, forwards, and yvdtiof, jaw), the former 

 orthognathic; whilst the Samoiedes, Turks, Circassians, Affghatij, Lascars, Tartars, 

 Mongolians (both of Asiatic Russia and Mongolia), and Malays, are all prognathic 

 brachycephali, and constitute the prevailing type. On the continent of Australia 

 and in Van Diemen's Land, all the savage tribes are prognathic dolichocephali. See 

 his Glance at the Present State of Ethnology with reference to the Form of the Skull, 

 in the Medico-Chir. Rev., for 1860, vol. xxv, p. 503, and vol. xxvi, p. 215. 



64 



