130 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



forms, at least probabilities, that their different cha- 

 racteristics are of a remoter date than the last great 

 cataclysis of the earth's surface; for the admitted 

 chronological data do not give a sufficient period of 

 duration between that event and the oldest picture 

 sculptures of Egypt, to sanction the transition from 

 Caucasian bearded to the Negro woolly haired, or 

 vice versa, as both appear on the monuments. In that 

 case, the operation of the decided changes would have 

 passed through all their main gradations in three or 

 four centuries, without any subsequent perceptible 

 addition in as many thousand years ; * or should the 

 beardless stock, which never becomes intensely black, be 

 regarded as intermediate, the difficulty is increased ; and 

 it may be remarked in addition, that the first admis- 

 sible appearance of this type, in historical records of 

 the west, is incomparably more recent. Cuvier, and 

 other eminent writers, viewed the typical forms of Man 

 to have descended from different high mountain chains 

 of the world after the deluge, and therefore dated them 

 at least as old as that period. But if they were in 



* There are, besides, such facts as the perfection of style 

 in building, in drawing, and in hieroglyphic intaglio sculp- 

 ture, remarkable in the oldest monuments ; not surpassed, 

 but even receding to inferior execution, in subsequent ages. 

 A national multitude must have risen out of few parents 

 all the subordinate arts invented, and so far carried to per- 

 fection, as to be available for scientific purposes, such as 

 architecture, &c., in some cases exceeding our present capa- 

 cities, or demanding the utmost ability in the moderns to 

 equal. All this, without mentioning Etruria, Bactria, 

 Assyria, India, and China. 



