THE RELATIONS OF ETHNOLOGY 547 



as we are considering, the author shows that the tribes of Indians 

 investigated are definitely related to a certain faunal and floral 

 area; where it stops, there are no Indians. The point for empha- 

 sis, if the idea presented is true, is the smallness of these areas; 

 that a special human type, and a local culture, seems closely re- 

 lated to and connected with a little local group of plants and ani- 

 mals. The idea may be compared with the old ideas of Agassiz, 

 for whom each great human race was a member of a special fauna 

 with a well-defined, but large, geographical area. For Agassiz the 

 facts proved polygenism. The suggestion here made is for many 

 more local types than Agassiz ever claimed, with much narrower 

 range and with small, local faunal and floral groups. And, far 

 from demanding a polygenistic explanation for these types, we 

 should claim that for man, as for animals and plants, variation 

 is easy and prompt. Environment produces a ready response, 

 and plants, animals, and man come into harmonious relations not 

 only to outer influences, but also to each other. 



Third. These considerations lead up to the third point, which 

 seems at first inconsistent with the theory of such ready varia- 

 tion, prompt adaptation, and extreme localization of types. Are 

 we not constantly driven to recognize continental types of man- 

 kind? Do not the more recent classifications show this tendency? 

 Do not Brinton and Keane both, hostile as they were, come to the 

 idea that the great races are continental types? Are not the races 

 to which Dr. Dorsey has just referred continental? Are not both 

 Brinton and Keane actually driven to add to their four races others 

 which also have a definite and large area of occupancy? When 

 we once leave the simple, triple subdivision of the species, as Cuvier 

 gave it, are we not driven to recognize perhaps six great races 

 and those geographically named? Do not the words European, 

 African, Asian, American, Australian, Malaysian, all geograph- 

 ical, immediately call up a great racial type? For me, these types 

 are a reality, and are the result of the great continental environ- 

 ment, taken in its entirety, upon its human population. It is com- 

 monly assumed that these types were early produced, while the 

 new species was plastic, during a period of accelerated evolution. 

 This is probable and granted. Where I differ from some, perhaps 

 all, of rny hearers is in believing that these same types are now 

 being produced, and will continue to be produced, within the con- 

 tinental areas. Asia is, has been, and will be the continent of the 

 yellow race; South Africa is and will be, as it has been, the contin- 

 ental area that makes black men with woolly hair. So of the 

 other great areas, they may be expected in the future to produce 

 the same types of humanity which they have produced in the past 



The apparent inconsistency between this idea and the preced- 



