238 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 



however difficult it may be to account for the emergence of 

 the land from the enveloping waters. Assuredly, no such 

 submersion could have been total, as in that case there could 

 not have been that unbroken march of animal life and pro- 

 gressive organization of which the crowning results are now 

 presented on the surface of the earth. But there may have 

 been, as appears from marine remains and formations in many 

 situations, a submergence sufficient to deluge all the lands 

 which are now less than fifteen hundred feet above the level 

 of the sea. When this was the state of the earth, a map of it 

 would have presented one large island, stretching from east to 

 west athwart what has since become Asia, an archipelago 

 where the Alps and the Scandinavian and Ural mountains 

 now exist, another large island in intertropical Africa, and one 

 or two similar though less extensive tracts in America. 



Now, it has been seen that the philologist speaks of six 

 human families, so decidedly different in language, that there 

 is reason to suspect their being of different origins, albeit 

 identical in species. On such a point it is impossible as yet 

 to speak with firmness ; but certainly, as such researches ad- 

 vance, the idea of a single origin for the species is always 

 appearing less tenable, nor does the opposite hypothesis in- 

 volve anything contradictory to science. Without undertaking 

 to pronounce on the subject, it may be allowable for us to 

 inquire how the notions adverted to by Dr. Prichard, in their 

 new form of a sextuple focus of human population, agree with 

 the geological views which have been noticed, and with the 

 indications of ancient tradition. 



Central Asia is well known as a highly elevated table-land, 

 sending rivers to the northern and southern oceans, as well as 

 to the seas of Okhotsk and Japan. The northern portion of 

 this great plateau is a pastoral region, where the Tungusians, 

 Mongolians, and Turks, nomadic races belonging to our third 

 family, have from time immemorial fed their numerous flocks. 

 To this focus is traced by affinity of language, and of physical 

 and moral characters, a fourth race, the Ugorian or Finnish, 

 which is now found to the north-west, and far removed. A 

 fifth, the Bhotiza, are a mountain people on the northern 

 borders of Hindostan. We have likewise seen that traces of 

 an aboriginal people of this family exist in Spain on the one 

 hand, and the Dekhan on the other. What is mainly to be 

 remarked is, that, while portions of the family have wandered 

 into countries of lower level, a great portion of it is still in 



