322 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



typical, it is true, but to which an easy transition can be traced from 

 the most characteristic members of the type. 



D. The brown Polynesians, Malayo-Polynesians, Maforis, Sawaio- 

 ris, or Kanakas, as they have been variously called, seen in their great- 

 est purity in the Samoan, Tongan, and Eastern Polynesian Islands, 

 are still more modified, and possess less of the characteristic Mongolian 

 features ; but still it is difficult to place them anywhere else in the 

 system. The large infusion of the Melanesian element throughout the 

 Pacific must never be forgotten in accounting for the characters of 

 the people now inhabiting the islands, an element in many respects so 

 diametrically opposite to the Mongolian, that it would materially alter 

 the characters, especially of the hair and beard, which has been with 

 many authors a stumbling-block to the afiiliation of the Polynesian 

 with the Mongol stock. The mixture is physically a fine one, and in 

 some proportions produces a combination, as seen, for instance, in the 

 Maories of New Zealand, which in all definable characters approaches 

 quite as near, or nearer, to the Caucasian type, than to either of the 

 stocks from which it may be presumably derived. This resemblance has 

 led some writers to infer a real extension of the Caucasian element at 

 some very early period with the Pacific Islands, and to look upon their 

 inhabitants as the product of a mingling of all three great types of 

 men. Though this is a very plausible theory, it rests on little actual 

 proof, as the combination of Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian char- 

 acters in different degrees to the local variations certain to arise in 

 communities so isolated from each other and exposed to such varied 

 conditions as the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands would probably 

 account for all the modifications observed among them. 



E. The native population (before the changes wrought by the 

 European conquest) of the great Continent of America, excluding the 

 Eskimo, present, considering the vast extent of the country they in- 

 habit and the great differences of climate and other surrounding con- 

 ditions, a remarkable similarity of essential characters, with much 

 diversity of detail. 



The construction of the numerous American languages, of which 

 as many as twelve hundred have been distinguished, is said to point to 

 unity of origin, as, though widely different in many respects, they are 

 all, or nearly all, constructed on the same general grammatical prin- 

 ciple — that caWed jyob/si/n thesis — which differs from that of the lan- 

 guages of any of the Old "World nations. The mental characteristics 

 of all the American tribes have much that is in common ; and the very 

 different stages of culture to which they had attained at the time of 

 the conquest, as that of the Incas and Aztecs, and the hunting or fish- 

 ing tribes of the North and South, which have been quoted as evidence 

 of diversities of race, Avere not greater than those between different 

 nations of Europe, as Gauls and Germans on the one hand, and Greeks 

 and Romans on the other, in the time of Julius Caesar. Yet all these 



