356 COSMOS. 



where large sections are separated into a few but large divi- 

 sions ; so it also appears to me, that in the determination of 

 races a preference should be given to the establishment of 

 small families of nations. Whether we adopt the old classi- 

 fication of my master, Blumenbach, and admit five races (the 

 Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, and Malayan), 

 or that of Prichard, into seven races* (the Iranian, Turanian, 

 American, Hottentots and Bushmen, Negroes, Papuas, and 

 Allburous), we fail to recognize any typical sharpness of def- 

 inition, or any general or well-established principle in the di- 

 vision of these groups. The extremes of form and color are 

 certainly separated, but without regard to the races, which 

 can not be included in any of these classes, and w r hich have 

 been alternately termed Scythian and Allophyllic. Iranian is 

 certainly a less objectionable term for the European nations 

 than Caucasian ; but it may be maintained generally that 

 geographical denominations are very vague when used to ex- 

 press the points of departure of races, more especially where 

 the country which has given its name to the race, as, for in- 

 stance, Turan (Mawerannahr), has been inhabited at differ- 

 ent periods! by Indo-Germanic and Finnish, and not by Mon- 

 golian tribes. 



* Prichard, op. cit., vol. i., p. 247- 



t The late arrival of the Turkish and Mongolian tribes on the Oxus 

 and on the Kirghis Steppes is opposed to the hypothesis of Niebuhr, 

 according to which the Scythians of Herodotus and Hippocrates were 

 Mongolians. It seems far more probable that the Scythians (Scoloti) 

 should be referred to the Indo-Germanic Massagetce (Alani). The 

 Mongolian, true Tartars (the latter term was afterward falsely given to 

 purely Turkish tribes in Russia and Siberia), were settled, at that pe- 

 riod, far in the eastern part of Asia. See my Asic Centrale, t. i., p. 239 

 100 ; Examen Critique de VHistoire de la G6ogr., th. ii., p. 320. A dis- 

 tinguished philologist, Professor Buschmann, calls attention to the cir- 

 cumstance that the poet Firdousi, in his half-mythical prefatory remarks 

 in the Schahnameh, mentions "a fortress of the Alani" on the sea-shore, 

 in which Selm took refuge, this prince being the eldest son of the 

 King Feridun, who in all probability lived two hundred years before 

 Cyrus. The Kirghis of the Scythian steppe were originally a Finnish 

 tribe ; their three hordes probably constitute in the present day the 

 most numerous nomadic nation, and their tribe dwelt, in the sixteenth 

 century, in the same steppe in which I have myself seen them. The 

 Byzantine Menander (p. 380-382, ed. Nieb.) expressly states that the 

 C/hacau of the Turks (Thu-Khiu), in 569, made a present of a Kirghis 

 slave to Zemarchus, the embassador of Justinian II.; he terms her a 

 XepX<-S ; and we find in Abulgasi (Historia Mongolorum el Tatarorurn) 

 that the Kirghis are called Kirkiz. Similarity of manners, where the 

 nature of the country determines the principal characteristics, is a very 

 uncertain evidence of identity of race. The life of the steppes pr' 

 duces among the Turks (Ti Tukiu), the Baschkirs (Fins), the 



