OCEANIC RACE. 1011 



standing their diversities in mode of life, too, there are peculiarities of 

 mental character, as well as a number of ideas aud customs derived from 

 tradition, which seem to be common to them all; and which for the most 

 part indicate a former elevation in the scale of civilization, that has left its 

 traces among them even in their present depressed condition, and still dis- 

 tinguishes them from the sensual, volatile, and almost animalized savages that 

 are to be met with in many parts of the Old Continent. The Esquimaux 

 have been regarded as constituting an exception to all general accounts of 

 the physical characters of the American nations ; for in the configuration 

 of their skulls, as also in their complexion and general physiognomy, they 

 conform to the Mongolian type, even presenting it in an exaggerated degree; 

 whilst their wide extension along the whole northern coast of America, 

 through the Aleutian Islands, and even to the Continent of Asia, certainly 

 lends weight to the idea that they derive their origin from the Northern 

 Asiatic stock. But the increased acquaintance which has been recently 

 gained with the tribes that people the northeastern portion of the American 

 Continent, has clearly shown that no physical separation can be established 

 between the Esquimaux and the Indian proper; the one form graduating so 

 insensibly into the other, as to make the distinction between the two groups 

 there as difficult as on the western side it is easy. Hence the existence of 

 the Esquimaux population in this situation affords a complete link of tran- 

 sition between the Asiatic and the American nations, in the precise region 

 in which the geographical relations of the two continents would lead us to 

 expect it. 



856. It now remains for us to notice the Oceanic, races which inhabit the 

 vast series of islands scattered through the great ocean that stretches from 

 Madagascar to Easter Island. There is no part of the world which affords a 

 greater variety of local conditions than this, or which more evidently exhibits 

 the effects of physical agencies on the organization of the human body. 

 Moreover, it affords a case for the recognition of affinities by means of lan- 

 guage, that possesses unusual stability; since the insulated position of the 

 various tribes that people the remote spots of this extensive tract prevents 

 them from exercising that influence upon each other's forms of speech, which 

 is to be observed in the case of nations united by local proximity or by fre- 

 quent intercourse. Tried by this test, it is found that the different groups of 

 people inhabiting the greater part of these insular regions, although so widely 

 scattered and so diverse in physical characters, are more nearly connected 

 together than most of the families of men occupying continuous tracts of 

 land on the great continents of the globe. A probable explanation of this 

 remarkable affinity has been afforded by the careful investigation of the 

 Flora and Fauna of these regions 1 by Dr. Hooker and Mr. Wallace ; whose 

 observations furnish strong evidence that most important and extensive geo- 

 logical changes have taken place since the islands scattered over that region 

 have been peopled by their existing inhabitants. The western and eastern 

 halves of the Indian archipelago, the former containing Sumatra and Bor- 

 neo, the latter including Celebes and New Guinea, are separated at their 

 nearest approximation by the Straits of Lombok, which are no more than 

 fifteen miles wide : the Fauna of the former is essentially Asiatic, that of the 

 latter essentially Australian ; and there is no other intermixture between 



1 See the Introductory Essay to the Flora of New Zealand, by Dr. J. D. Hooker, 

 1853, and his Flora of Australia, its Origin, Affinities, and Distribution, 1859. Also 

 Mr. A. R. Wallace, On the Zoological Geography of the Malay Archipelago, in the 

 Proceedings of the Linncean Society for November, 1859; and the review of these 

 works in the Medico-Chir. Rev. for I860, vol. xxv, p. 371. 



