PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCHES. 73 



The physical resemblance of the residue of the original population to each other 

 has impressed the observer more forcibly than any variations of form and color. It 

 is mentioned by Robertson as remarkable, that there is less variety in the human 

 form throughout the New World than in the ancient continent; and that the 

 varieties in any single race of the Old World are greater than in the widely scat- 

 tered inhabitants of the two Americas. 



With this general uniformity among themselves, the striking similarity of the 

 Americans to two other classes or varieties of the human species has been not 

 less universally noticed. 



Aside from the theories of multifarious origin, and of colonial settlements by 

 civilized nations at different periods, the belief has prevailed, as stated in previous 

 pages, that the physical, moral, and intellectual traits, as well as the arts and 

 customs of the various tribes, were to be explained by tracing their descent from 

 either the Northern or Southern Asiatics. These were often confounded under a 

 common name, as Tartars or Scythians, but correspond to the separate divisions of 

 Mongolian and Malay in Blumenbach's classification. 



When opportunities of comparison were more rare than they have been since, it 

 was customary to refer to the testimony of Smibert, the portrait painter, and Led- 

 yard, the traveller, as having somewhat of the authority which in our courts of 

 law is given to the evidence of experts. The first had painted several Tartars for 

 the Duke of Tuscany ; and when he arrived with Bishop Berkley at Newport, in 

 1739, and saw our Indians, he pronounced them to be the same people. The 

 other, who had been familiar from boyhood with the Indians of Connecticut, 

 declared the Mongolians of Siberia to be universally and substantially like the 

 American natives. 



Governor Pownal stated, in 17GG, that "the American inhabitants are the same 

 race of people from one end of the continent to the other ; and are the same race 



that, notwithstanding the diversities occasioned by the influence of climate, or unequal progress of 

 improvement, we must pronounce them to be descended from one source." — Robertson's Am., 

 Lib. iv. p. 41. 



"We ought to admit, as an established fact, that the Americans, whatever their origin may be, 

 constitute, at the present day, a race essentially different from the rest of mankind. The truth of this 

 proposition has been demonstrated by a long course of physiological observations." — Malte Brim, 

 Geoff., Lib. lxxv. 



" The nations of America, except those which border the polar circle, form a single race, charac- 

 terized by the formation of the skull, the color of the skin, the extreme thinness of the beard, and the 

 straight glossy hair." — Humboldt's Researches, Preface, p. 14. 



" The fourth, or American variety, includes all the Americans, excepting the inhabitants of the 

 northern parts of the Continent, which I have placed in the Mongolian division." — Lawrence's Lec- 

 tures, p. 313. 



" The aborigines of America, or those nations whose abode in the Western Continent dates from a 

 period antecedent to history, may be said to form a well-marked division of the human family; from 

 which, however, we ought to except the Esquimaux, and some other tribes."— PricharoVs Researches, 

 I, 268. 



" The American race includes all the aborigines of the New World, except the Esquimaux."— Wise- 

 man's Lectures, I, 167. 

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