324 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the great number of stocks, which are linguistically distinct, and of 

 which only a few show any relationship with each other. Slavery 

 may have contributed not a little to assist this dispersion, as that 

 institution is by no means an invention of white men, but was long 

 practiced by the blacks among themselves. It is not infrequent to 

 see many negro tribes experience, through expulsion from their home, 

 the same fate which among us overtook the Jews and Armenians. 



These migrations of the four aboriginal races of Africa were not 

 voluntary, but were pursued under the pressure of external circum- 

 stances. It certainly was owing to the immigration en masse of the 

 central races, and especially the Hamitic stock, that compelled the 

 aborigines of Africa to recede before their mentally and bodily supe- 

 rior invaders, and withdraw to the south of the continent. The 

 inception of these emigrations is of great antiquity, and may be ap- 

 proximately described as follows : 



The Egyptians were the last of the immigrated Hamitic stock, 

 as we find them located immediately on the boundary of Suez, over 

 which arm of land the migrations found their path. The accepted 

 history of the Egyptians goes back four thousand years before Christ, 

 at which time they had already erected a monarchical unit based on 

 a highly developed culture. After allowing the shortest possible time 

 for the Egyptians to have developed their culture from the rude 

 beginnings to that height which is noticed in their monuments, viz., 

 one thousand years, we find the year 5000 b. c. the latest date for 

 their entry into Africa. Now, before the Egyptians, their relatives, 

 the Berbers, with their collateral branch, the extinct Guanches, the 

 Bedsha, the Somali, the Dankali, the Galla, and other tribes, wan- 

 dered into Africa, and as ethnic movements are customarily slow and 

 siTCcessional in nature, we may take one thousand years for the mi- 

 gration period. Thus at the lowest reckoning we reach the year 6000 

 B. c, from which we can date the movements of the autochthonous 

 races of Africa. 



As to the New World, according to our own view and that of other 

 inquirers, at least two distinct races are represented, viz., the Esquimau 

 in the extreme north, and the Indian distributed from the settlements 

 of the Esquimau down to the extreme south. Other students take the 

 ground that the type which we have named the Indian should be split 

 up into many races, how many is not agreed. Whatever the facts in 

 regard to this, all agree that the Esquimau is to be sharply separated 

 from the Indian, and that he is not autochthonous in the New World, 

 but a recent immigrant from the extreme north of Asia. 



Among the Indian races, of whom only a few can be united lin- 

 guistically in groups — as in respect to language the same hetero- 

 geneity prevails in America as among the negroes of Africa — still 

 further migrations have been undertaken. These can easily be traced 

 to their objective points. In North America such a point is the 



