MONGOLIAN RACE. 1005 



sent the physiognomy and general characteristics which appear to have be- 

 longed to the original Turkomans ; and these are decidedly referable to the 

 so-called Mongolian type. Before the Mohammedan era, however, the 

 Western Turks or Osmaulis had adopted more settled habits, and had made 

 considerable progress in civilization ; and their adoption of the religion of 

 Islam incited them to still wider extension, and developed that spirit of con- 

 quest, which, during the Middle Ages, displayed itself with such remarkable 

 vigor. The branches of the race, which, from their long settlement in 

 Europe, have made the greatest progress in civilization, now exhibit in all 

 essential particulars the physical characters of the European model ; and 

 these are particularly apparent in the conformation of the skull. Another 

 marked departure from the ordinary Mongolian type, is presented by the 

 Hyperborean tribes inhabiting the borders of the Icy Sea ; these have for 

 the most part a pyramidal skull, but their complexion is swarthy and their 

 growth is peculiarly stunted ; and they form the link that connects the ordi- 

 nary Mongolidte with the Lapps and Finns of Europe on one side, and with 

 the Esquimaux of North America on the other. The Ugrian division, which 

 migrated towards the northwest at a very early period, planted a colony in 

 Europe, which still tenants the northern Baltic countries, forming the races 

 of Finns and Lapps. In the time of Tacitus, the Finns were as savage as 

 the Lapps ; but the former, during the succeeding ages, became so far civil- 

 ized, as to exchange a nomadic life for one of agricultural pursuits, and have 

 gradually assimilated with the surrounding people; whilst the Lapps, like 

 the Siberian tribes of the same race, have ever since continued to be bar- 

 barous nomades, and have undergone no elevation in physical characters. 

 The same division gave origin to the Magyars or Hungarians; a warlike 

 and energetic people, unlike their kindred in the North ; in whom a long 

 abode in the centre of Europe has, in like manner, developed the more ele- 

 vated characters, physical and mental, of the European nations. 



850. The nations inhabiting the Southeastern and Southern portions of 

 Asia, also, appear to have had their origin in the Mongolian or Central 

 Asiatic stock; although their features and form of skull by no means ex- 

 hibit its characteristic marks, but present such departures from it, as are 

 elsewhere observable in races that are making advances in civilization. The 

 conformity of the Mongolian type is most decidedly shown by the nations 

 (collectively termed Seriform by Dr. Latham), which inhabit China, Thibet, 

 the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and the base of the Himalayan range ; these 

 are associated by certain linguistic peculiarities which distinguish them from 

 all other races; that primitive condition of human speech, in which there is 

 a total absence of inflections indicative of the relation of the principal 

 words to one another, being apparently preserved with less change in the 

 tongues of these people, than in those of any other. The Chinese may be 

 physically characterized as Mongolians softened down ; and in passing from 

 China towards India through the Burmese empire, there is so gradual a tran- 

 sition towards the ordinary Hindoo type, that no definite line of demarca- 

 tion can be anywhere drawn. The inhabitants of the great peninsula of Hin- 

 clostan have been commonly ranked (as already remarked) under the Cau- 

 casian race, both on account of their physical conformity to that type, and 

 also because it has been considered that the basis of their language is San- 

 skritic. It is certain, however, that this conclusion is incorrect with regard 

 to a very large proportion of the existing population of India; and there is 

 strong reason to believe that no part of it bears any real relation of affinity 

 to the Indo-European group of nations, except such as may be derived from 

 a slight intermixture. Thus, the Tamulian, which is the dominant language 

 of Southern India, is undoubtedly not Sanskritic in its origin (although con- 



