Aboriginal Race of America. 169 
by the Mauay race, which, in the ordinary classification, in- 
cludes the Malays proper of the Indian Archipelago, and the 
Polynesians in all their numberless localities. These people, 
however, have so much of the Mongolian character, that 
nearly the same objections arise to both. The head of the 
Malay proper is more like that of the Indian, because it not 
unfrequently presents something of the vertical form of the 
occiput ; and the transverse diameter, as measured between 
the parietal bones, is also remarkably large. But excepting 
in these respects, the osteological development concides with 
that of the Mongolian; while the category of objections 
which we have just urged against the latter people is equally 
valid in respect to the whole Malay race. For, independently 
of differences of organization, how great is the disparity in 
their arts and social institutions! So great indeed, that, to 
account for it, Dr Lang, one of the most ingenious supporters 
of the theory, insists on an intellectual degeneracy consequent 
to change of climate and circumstances. “ It is an easy and 
natural process,” says he, “for man to degenerate in the 
scale of civilization, as the Asiatics have evidently done in 
travelling to the northward and eastward. He has only to 
move forward a few hundred miles into the wilderness, and 
settle himself at a distance from all civilized men, and the 
process will advance with almost incredible celerity. For 
whether he comes in contact with savages or not, in the dark 
recesses of the forest his offspring will speedily arrive at a 
state of complete barbarism.” 
We confess our difficulty in imagining how the Polynesians, 
themselves a barbarous people, though possessing some of the 
attributes of civilized life, should become savages in the tro- 
pical regions of America, wherein the climate must be as 
congenial to their constitutions as their own, and the various 
other external circumstances are calculated to foster rather 
than to depress the energies of a naturally active and intel- 
ligent people. But the general prevalence of easterly winds 
is adverse to the colonization of America from the islands of 
the Pacific ; for the nearest of these islands is one thousand 
eight hundred miles from the American coast ; and when we 
