218 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



cataclysis, if it be admitted that this equatorial vicinity 

 was once the real Nigritia of the woolly haired type. 

 Now, ~as it is evident the centre of development belong- 

 ing to this type is at present in the tropical regions of 

 Africa, and, as was before shown, that there are indi- 

 cations of a third being in preparation, under the same 

 latitudes in South America, while the Oriental is gra- 

 dually disappearing, it might be asked, whether there 

 is not here the indication of a submerged continent, and 

 another instance of that progressive migratory move- 

 ment from east to west, of expansion and decay, or- 

 dained to be the fate of the great human typical stocks, 

 and impelled by laws whose operation may be perceived 

 without affording the means of tracing their causes 

 beyond probable assumptions ? Yet this physical pro- 

 cession over the earth by longitudes, may not be with- 

 out ultimate connection with that intellectual march of 

 Man by latitudes, which, while departing from the tem- 

 perate regions of our northern hemisphere, and arriving 

 at the extremity of the habitable south, appears to 

 repeat, on a greater, the workings of civilization which 

 it commenced on a less scale in Europe, and thus to be 

 evolving the mysterious problem of human fusion into 

 one great family, led by one religious system, and train- 

 ed to the sciences and literature of Europe. 



As the Malays are nowhere expansively homoge- 

 neous, and in most places only tenants of coasts or 

 parts of islands, varied marks of national adulteration 

 are constantly perceptible. In general, however, their 

 distinctive characters are marked by a comparatively 



