PRINCIPAL FAMILIES OF MANKIND. 1045 



these tribes, whose affinity is indisputably traceable through their very remark- 

 able language, every gradation may be seen, from the intense blackness of the 

 'Negro skin, to the more swarthy hue of the inhabitants of the South of Europe. 

 It is remarkable that some of the Tuaryk inhabitants of particular Oases in the 

 great desert, who are almost as insulated from communication with other races 

 as are the inhabitants of islands in a wide ocean, have hair and features that 

 approach those of the Negroes ; although they speak the Berber language with 

 such purity, as to forbid the idea of the introduction of these characters by an 

 intermixture of races. The Jews, who are the only remnants now existing of 

 the once powerful Phoenician tribe, and who are now dispersed through nearly 

 every country on the face of the earth, present a similar diversity ; having 

 gradually assimilated in physical characters to the nations among which they 

 have so long resided ( 1035). 



1053. The second primary division of the Human family, according to the 

 arrangement of Blumenbach, is that commonly termed Mongolian. The real 

 Mongols, however, constitute but a single and not very considerable member of 

 the group of nations associated under this designation ; which is, therefore, by 

 no means an appropriate one. The original seat of these races appears to have 

 been the great central elevated plain of Asia, in which all the great rivers of 

 that continent have their sources, whatever may be their subsequent direction* 

 Taken as a whole, this division is characterized by the pyramidal form of the 

 skull, whose antero-posterior diameter scarcely exceeds the parietal, and by the 

 broad flat face and prominent cheek-bones; by the flattening of the nose, which 

 is neither arched nor aquiline ; by the eyes being drawn upwards at their outer 

 angle ; by the xanthous or olive complexion, which sometimes becomes fair, but 

 frequently swarthy ; by the scantiness and straightness of the hair, and by 

 deficiency of beard ; and by lowness of stature. These characters, however, 

 are exhibited in a prominent degree only in the more typical members of the 

 group ', and may become so greatly modified as to cease altogether to be recog- 

 nizable. Such a modification has been remarkably effected in the case of the 

 Turkish people, now so extensively distributed. All the most learned writers 

 on Asiatic history are agreed in opinion, that the Turkish races are of one 

 common stock; although at present they vary in physical characters to such a 

 degree that, in some, the original type has been altogether changed. Those 

 which still inhabit the ancient abodes of the race, and preserve their pastoral 

 nomadic life, present the physiognomy and general characteristics which appear 

 to have belonged to the original Turkomans ; and these are decided^ referable 

 to the so-called Mongolian type. Before the Mohammedan era, however, the 

 Western Turks or Osmanlis had adopted more settled habits, and had made 

 considerable progress in civilization ; and their adoption of the religion of Islam 

 incited them to still wider extension, and developed that spirit of conquest 

 which, during the Middle Ages, displayed itself with such remarkable vigor. 

 The branches of the race, which, from their long settlement in Europe, have 

 made the greatest progress in civilization, now exhibit in all essential particulars 

 the physical characters of the European model ; and these are particularly 

 apparent in the conformation of the skull. In like manner we find that the 

 Ugrian division, which migrated towards the north-west at a very early period, 

 planted a colony in Europe, which still tenants the northern Baltic countries, 

 forming the races of Finns and Lapps. In the time of Tacitus, the Finns were 

 as savage as the Lapps ; but the former, during the succeeding ages, became so 

 far civilized, as to exchange a nomadic life for one of agricultural pursuits, and 

 have gradually assimilated with the surrounding people ; whilst the Lapps, like 

 the Siberian tribes of the same race, have ever since continued to be barbarous 

 nomades, and have undergone no elevation in physical characters. The same 

 division gave origin to the Magyars or Hungarians ; a warlike and energetic 



