460 MAN, PHYSICALLY CONSIDERED. 



sities in this class. The real negro has a complexion of 

 jet, and crisped hair ; the Caffre has a copper complex- 

 ion, and long woolly hair ; the natives of Van Diemens 

 land, a color of soot with frizzled hair. The Hotten- 

 tots also, who are included in this class, resemble the Ma- 

 lay variety, in the shape of their heads, and the Mongo- 

 lians in their complexions and thin beards; but their 

 woolly hair gives them a place in the Ethiopian class. 



5. The Malay. The characteristics of this variety are 

 very indefinite and uncertain. Their color varies from 

 a very light brown, almost to a black ; the hair is black, 

 very abundant, short and curled ; the head narrow, with 

 a prominent forehead ; the mouth large ; nose thick and 

 flattened. Under this variety are included races of men 

 very different indeed, but too imperfectly known at pre- 

 sent to admit of a satisfactory arrangement. The inhabi- 

 tants of New South Wales, and of the numerous clusters 

 of islands in its vicinity, and also of the unnumbered 

 islands scattered through the South Sea, belong to this 

 division. 



It will at once be perceived that this classification is 

 exceedingly imperfect. You will find individuals in each 

 of these classes who might with perfect propriety be in 

 any of the other. All you can say is that there is a gen- 

 eral resemblance. If a person should endeavor to di- 

 vide the inhabitants of any town into two classes, placing 

 all the light complexioned in one class and the dark 

 complexioned in the other, it is evident that there would 

 be many persons, whom it would be difficult to know to 

 which class to assign. The two classes run into each 

 other ; the difference is not broadly marked. And thus 

 it is in these five classes into which the whole human 

 family is for convenience' sake arranged. There are no 

 natural and clearly defined limits. There is a mingling 

 of shades ; an imperceptible gradation. Some natural- 

 ists have thought it necessary to make many more divis- 

 ions than the five above enumerated, while others have 

 thought that three classes would afford sufficient discrimi- 

 nation ; and therefore have contracted the varieties into 

 three the European, the Asiatic, and the African. 



Such is the general classification of the human race. 



