DISTRIBUTION OF MAN. 57 



Taking the East of Bhering's Straits, and passing southwards into America, we see the Esqui- 

 maux imperceptibly changed into the North American Indians. The Chinooks, and other northern 

 tribes nearest the Esquimaux, cannot be distinguished from them ; and the tribes next to tlicm 

 on the south again pass insensibly into the red-skinned tribes of middle North America. These pass 

 into the digger tribes of California, which have in their turn many of the characteristics of the 

 tribes of Central and South Ajnerica, and all attempts to elevate the tribes of South American 

 Indians into separate races, have long since been abandoned. In short, it is now universally 

 acknowledged, that the whole of both North and South America, from the Arctic Sea to Tierra del 

 Fuego, has been peopled hy one race. The physical characters, the traditions, the Linguistic affinities 

 of the different tribes, white, red, yellow, copper, and brown skins, all bear one stamp. We are 

 compelled, therefore, to receive them as one, and that one identical with the inhabitants of the Arctic 

 regions. 



Returning to Bhering's Straits again, and turning westward, we find the Esquimaux amal- 

 gamated with the Samoiedes and Tunguseans of North - Eastern Asia, who in their turn 

 pass into the Mongolians on the south ; and so strong is the affinity of the Esquimaux with these 

 tribes, that not long since, apropos to two North American Esquimaux who visited the United 

 States, and were the subject of examination and ethnological specidation. Dr. Pickering, whom no one 

 will accuse of an undue tendency to diminish the number of races, stated that there could not be a 

 doubt that they were Mongolian.* If the American Indian is an Esquimaux, and the Esquimaux is a 

 Mongolian, the Mongol must be an American Indian too. Additional confirmation of this view is 

 furnished by the Mongol features cropping up in other unexpected jjlaces in America ; for examjjle, 

 in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. f But to proceed further. Does any one propose to erect the 

 Tartars into more than a tribe of the Mongolians ? No : — and it is only when, in passing westward, 

 we reach the Caucasus, that ethnologists have seen evidences of a distinct — the European — race. 

 And what are these? — not linguistic peculiarities, for the Sanscrit is the root of all the languages 

 of Europe and Northern Asia ; as little physical structure, for the beautiful Georgian, whose 

 almond-shaped and somewhat oblique eye proclaims descent from the Mongols, can scarcely be 

 separated from the Circassian of the neighbouring mountains. The Laps and Fins are Esqidmaux 

 according to some, Mongols according to others ; they are both, and Caucasians into the bargain. 

 The Tartarian extraction of the Russian peasant is scarcely disputed, " Graffcz le Russe," said 

 Napoleon, " ct voks en tronrerez le Tartar !" neither is there any room to raise up a wall of division 

 between the Russian and the Pole, or the Russian and Slavonian. In fact, there is no point at 

 which a line can be drawn, separating the Englishman from the Tartar, as types of great races. Not 

 as tribes, famdies, or sections ; there is no difficulty in distinguishing these, any more than there 

 is in distinguishing between the Scotsman and the Englishman — the Gael and the Lowlander — 



* "Dr. Pickering referred to two Esquimaux now on with one minor exception, America was originayll peopled 



exhibition in this city. From their low stature, florid from the north-west by the sea-going tribes following the 



complexion, broad, flat countenance, with the profile very coast, personal inspection now satisfied him that the Es- 



slightly projecting, one would be disposed to reject the quimaux are Mongolians, and that there is no distinct 



idea of affinity with the general aboriginal population of physical race of man in the Arctic regions." — Proceed- 



this continent. But the sea-going tribes of north-west ings of the Boston Society of Natural Uislury, vol. i.x. 



America, of which he had seen the Chinooks, are inter- p. 182. (April, 18G3.) 



mediate in aspect, having very generally a lighter com- t See the portraits of a Patagonian in "Wilkes' Voyage," 



plesion and less prominence of profile than the interior or and of " Jemmy Button,'' (especially that in sailor's dress), 



hunting tribes. In addition to his published opinion, that, in Fitzroy"s " Voyage of the Beagle." 



I 



