HOLMES — DISTRIBUTION OF THE HUMAN RACE. 17 



reddish-brown peoples are in general shorter and slimmer than 

 the white race, many tribes being only 5 to 55 feet in height, 

 while some tribes, or individuals, have been described as tall and 

 stalwart men ; but, on the whole, the largest and tallest peoples 

 are found among the white race. At the same time, considerable 

 differences in individuals 'exist in either division. The same ap- 

 pears to be true in a greater degree of the different species of apes 

 and lower animals ; and it may be safely inferred that like differ-" 

 ences within the same tribe or the same race, and between dis- 

 tinct races, have always existed, even backward to the earliest 

 progenitors of either. 



Some of the American Indians partake more or less strongly 

 of the Mongoloid type that prevails among all the peoples of East- 

 ern Asia from Malacca to the Arctic Ocean. This might be ex- 

 pected in northwest America, where the contact with northern 

 Asia has been nearer in all recent times. The more ancient and 

 more civilized peoples of Mexico and Central and South America 

 depart farthest from the Mongolian type. On a general compari- 

 son of Mongolian and American skulls, and especially those of 

 greatest antiquity, a well-marked distinction is manifest, and par- 

 ticularly in the brachycephalic division of them, as may be seen 

 in Morton's " Crania Americana." Morton found the difference 

 sufficient to distinguish the American from every other race. 

 Peschel includes the yellowish Malays among the Mongols. This 

 yellowish color grows lighter as we go northward and inland, 

 and ascend the Himalayas and the higher plateaus of northern 

 Asia. The Chinese are lighter than the Malays ; the Japanese 

 of the islands are darker than the Chinese ; and the Americans 

 generally are still darker. The Malays, Indo-Chinese, Chinese, 

 Japanese, and the Mongolians of higher Asia, and in like manner 

 the American Indians, may be considered as having occupied their 

 several distinct areas from times reaching far back into the geolo- 

 gical periods. Agassiz noted the fact that the areas now occupied 

 by the different races of men corresponded with the several zoo- 

 logical provinces, characterized by different species of animals ; 

 and this must imply an occupation of those distinct areas for a 

 sufficient length of time to account for differences analogous to a 

 difference of species. This difference of habitat and climate, oper- 

 ating through an immense period, may help to account for the 

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