Aboriginal Race of America. 213 



How strongly do these and other traits which might be 

 enumerated, contrast with those of the Indian, and enforce an 

 ethnographic dissimilarity which is confirmed at every step 

 of the investigation ! 



Some writers, however, think they detect in the Fuegian 

 a being whose similar physical condition has produced in him 

 all the characteristics of the Eskimau ; but we confidently 

 assert that the latter is vastly superior both in his exterior 

 organization and mental aptitude. In truth the two may be 

 readily contrasted but not easily compared. The Fuegian 

 bears a coarse but striking resemblance to the race to which 

 he belongs, and every feature of his character assists in fixing 

 his identity. The extremes of cold, with their many attend- 

 ing privations, by brutifying the features and distorting the 

 expression of the face, reduce man to a mere caricature, a 

 repulsive perversion of his original type. Compare the Mon- 

 gols of Central Asia and China, with the Polar nations of 

 Siberia. Compare also the Hottentot with the contiguous 

 black tribes on the north ; the Tasmanian negro with the 

 proper New Hollanders ; and lastly, the wretched Fuegian 

 with the Indian beyond the Magellanic strait ; and we find in 

 every instance how much more the man of a cold and inhos- 

 pitable clime is degraded, physically and intellectually, than 

 his more fortunate but affiliated neighbor. The operation of 

 these perverting causes through successive ages of time, has 

 obscured but not obliterated those lineaments which, however 

 modified, point to an aboriginal stock. 



Without attempting to enter the fathomless depths of phi- 

 lology, I am bound to advert to the opinion of Mr. Gallatin, 

 that all the nations from Cape Horn to the iVrctic Ocean, 

 have languages which possess " a distinct character common 

 to all, and apparently differing from those of the other conti- 

 nent with which we are acquainted ;" an analogy, moreover, 

 which is not of an indefinite kind, but consists for the most 

 part in peculiar conjugational modes of modifying the verbs, by 

 the insertion of syllables. It has been insisted by some writers 

 that this analogy proves the cognate relation of the Eskimaux 

 and Indians. This, however, is a mere postulate ; for from 



