ANTHROPOLOGY. 





Dr Latham gives this account of it : ' Blumenbach 

 had a solitary Georgian skull ; and that skull was 

 the finest in his collection that of a Greek being the 

 next. Hence it was taken as the type of the skull of 

 the more organised divisions of our species. More 

 than this ; it gave its name to the type, and intro- 

 duced the term Caucasian. Never has a single 

 head done more harm to science than was done 

 in the way of posthumous mischief by the head 

 of this well-shaped female from Georgia.' The 

 chief Circassian tribes are the Georgians, Lesgians, 

 Mizjeji, Iron or Ossetes, and Circassians. 



(C.) OCEANIC MONGOLID^E. With a few excep- 

 tions, all the islands in the Indian and Pacific 

 Oceans are inhabited by one race the Oceanic 

 race. The exceptions are Mauritius, Isle of 

 Bourbon, Ceylon, Maldives and Laccadives, Japan 

 and adjacent islands. This race is not found 

 anywhere on the continent, except in the peninsula 

 of Malacca. It exhibits two types the Malay, 

 whose colour is yellow, olive, brunette or brown, 

 rather than black, with long black and straight 

 hair ; and the Negrito, of a black colour, resem- 

 bling the negro, and with hair always long, some- 

 times straight, but in other cases crisp, frizzy, or 

 even woolly. The Negritos, or blacks, are lower 

 in point of civilisation than the Malays. The 

 Negritos extend over New Guinea, Australia, 

 Tasmania, New Ireland, and the islands between 

 it and New Caledonia. The brown division 

 occupy the rest of the oceanic area Sumatra, 

 Borneo, Java, Moluccas, South Sea Islands, &c. 

 Each of these divisions falls into a great number 

 of subdivisions. The Malays are distinguished 

 for their enterprising and commercial tendencies, 

 and have been called the Phoenicians of the East. 

 Many of the Polynesian section of this type 

 approach Europeans in conformation. 



(D.) HYPERBOREAN MONGOLID^E. This class 

 contains three divisions Samoeids, Yeniseians, 

 and Yukahiri, inhabiting the coasts of the Arctic 

 Ocean. Of all the Siberian tribes, the Samoeids 

 are the nearest to the Eskimos. 



(E.) PENINSULAR MONGOLID^E, inhabiting the 

 peninsulas of Kamtchatka and Corea, and the 

 islands that form a continuation of them. The 

 divisions are the Coreans, Japanese, Koriaks, and 

 Kamtchadales. One marked distinction between 

 these peoples and the Chinese is, that their lan- 

 guages are anything but monosyllabic ; according 

 to Dr Latham, they are the nearest to the lan- 

 guages of America. 



(F.) AMERICAN MONGOLID;E. The Eskimos 

 who inhabit the northern coasts of America 

 from Greenland to Alaska, are also found on 

 the Asiatic side of Behring's Strait ; and this natu- 

 rally suggests the idea that America was peopled 

 from Asia by that line. TKe chief difficulties at- 

 tending this view are two. The first lies in the 

 physical differences between the Eskimos and the 

 American Indians. ' Stinted as he is in stature,' 

 says Dr Latham, 'the Eskimo is essentially a 

 Mongol in physiognomy. His nose is flattened, 

 his cheek-bones project, his eyes are often oblique, 

 and his skin is more yellow and brown than red 

 or copper coloured. On the other hand, in his 

 most typical form, the American Indian is not 

 Mongol in his physiognomy. With the same 

 black, straight hair, he has an aquiline nose, a 

 prominent profile, and a skin more red or copper 

 coloured than either yellow or brown.' The second 



difficulty is philological The Eskimo language 

 is very unlike the better known languages of 

 Europe and Asia, and, in grammatical structure 

 at least, is American. The two tests are thus in 

 antagonism ; ' physically, the Eskimo is a Mongol 

 and Asiatic ; philologically, he is American.' As 

 to the physical differences, though there is a 

 strong contrast between the Eskimos on the east 

 side of the continent and the conterminous tribes 

 on the south, there is no marked line on the 

 west side; the Eskimos of Alaska pass grad- 

 ually into the Indians proper. In fact, the red 

 colour is little marked, except in a few typical 

 nations, chiefly the Iroquois and Algonkins. The 

 languages of the New World differ from one 

 another in respect of their roots and single words 

 far more completely than is the case in the Old 

 World ; yet they are all constructed on the same 

 principle, and have, as it were, one physiognomy. 

 On this and other grounds, the unity of the Amer- 

 ican peoples is considered established. 



(G.) INDIAN MONGOLID^E. These embrace the 

 natives of Hindustan, Cashmere, Ceylon, the Mal- 

 dives and Laccadives, and part of Beloochistan. 

 They present two types of physical form one 

 dark, approaching to black, and with a Mongol, 

 or even African physiognomy; the other, brunette, 

 sometimes delicate and clear, and with a profile 

 and oval face approaching the European. The 

 first type prevails in the Deccan and south gener- 

 ally the last in Northern India. The languages 

 of the northern Hindus, or Indo-Gangetic tribes, 

 are full of Sanscrit vocables, so that they are gen- 

 erally held to be of Sanscrit origin ; but Dr 

 Latham and others believe that in respect of gram- 

 mar they are not Sanscritic. The prevailing re- 

 ligion is Brahminism. The darker tribes as the 

 Tamuls of the Deccan retain in a great measure 

 their ancient heathenism, and their language has, 

 fewer Sanscrit words in proportion. 



II. ATLANTIDJE. 



Under this term, Dr Latham classes all the 

 tribes of Africa, and along with them those of 

 Syria and Arabia. This seems startling ; but the 

 transition from the lowest to the highest of these 

 nations is so gradual, that the affinities of lan- 

 guage are held to justify the arrangement. The 

 general characters of this variety are a projecting 

 maxilla, retiring forehead, and flat nose. The 

 skull is narrow, and developed in length rather 

 than breadth. The eyes are rarely oblique ; the 

 skin is often jet black, very rarely approaching 

 pure white ; the hair crisp, woolly, rarely straight 

 or light. The languages are agglutinate, rarely 

 amalgamate. Circumcision is prevalent. The 

 group has seven divisions. 



(A.) NEGRO ATLANTID^E. These have, in an 

 exaggerated form, the black unctuous skin, woolly 

 hair, projecting jaws, flat nose, and thick lips char- 

 acteristic of the whole variety. But it is important 

 to observe the comparatively narrow area to which 

 the Negroes proper are confined. They occupy 

 Western Africa from the Senegal to the Gaboon, 

 Soudan in the centre, and the low parts of the 

 Upper Nile. The dusky or brown hue of the Arab 

 and Australian is more prevalent through Africa 

 as a whole than the jet black of the Negro ; which 

 seems nearly coincident with river valleys and 

 deltas lying within the tropics. 



