Oy THE MIGRATIONS OF RACES. 325 



fruitful table-land of Mexico, toward which that stem, which in the 

 north had attained among its kindred to a higher culture and greater 

 strength, directed its victorious march. We find here many succeed- 

 ing peojiles of whom it is as yet not clearly shown whether they 

 were fundamentally distinct, or in some particulars structurally re- 

 lated. The last of these invaders, the Aztecs, came from the north, 

 and, as the language proves, are represented there to-day. Accord- 

 ing to the most recent investigations, the gigantic moimds which are 

 found in Korth America are to be attributed to a people nearly related 

 to the Aztecs of Mexico, and represent the rude precursors of the co- 

 lossal structures of Central America. At any rate we must recognize 

 in the northern division of the American Continent an ethnic drift 

 whose direction was from north to south. 



As to South America, the plateaux of Peru formed the destination 

 of the migrations, as did Mexico in North America. Here also we en- 

 counter successive peoples, the last of whom — the conquering Incas — 

 were found by the Spaniards on the discovery of Peru. Like the 

 Aztecs in Mexico, the Quichuas were in no respect the originators of 

 the indigenous culture, but have appropriated the same from a nation 

 which preceded them. Although it is not improbable that the civili- 

 zation of Mexico and Peru is at bottom congenital, as old elements of 

 civilization could have been transported over the isthmus and on either 

 side independently developed — in such a case the Muisca of Colombia 

 might have formed the intermediate link — yet it is certain that the 

 Mexicans and Peruvians wei'e isolated, and as in the Old World with 

 China and the rest of Asia, the one had no positive knowledge of the 

 civilization of the other. 



In regard to the two continents of Europe and Asia, which in fact 

 form but one, inasmuch as the separation by the chain of mountains 

 lying between them could not serve as an isolating boundary, we recog- 

 nize, apart from the early Malayan, four autochthonous races, viz. : the 

 Hyperboreans in the extreme north, stretching along the borders of the 

 Arctic Sea ; the Dravida race, in southern India ; the Upper Asiatic race, 

 filling central and eastern Asia ; and, finally, the midland races, which at 

 present occupy the south of Asia from India westward, the northeast 

 and north of Africa, and, with the exception of the extreme north and 

 some spots in the middle and south, all Europe. 



The Hyperborean race was formerly much more imposing than it 

 is at present, reduced as it is to an insignificant remnant. They 

 formerly settled farther south, and were pushed to the extreme north 

 by the expanding Upper Asiatic race. The circumstance of finding 

 in central Asia representatives of this race, though to be sure deprived 

 in large measure of their national characteristics, confirms this. We 

 refer to the Yenisei Ostiaks, together with other small stems which 

 are philologically diverse from the Ural Altaians, and presumably are 

 allied to the Yukagiren, Koriaks, Tchuktchis, and Ainos. 



