236 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 



It is curious to observe that almost all the 

 woolly-haired people are also long-headed ; while 

 among the straight-haired nations broad heads 

 preponderate, and only two stocks, the Esquimaux 

 and the Australians, are exclusively long-headed. 

 One of the acutest and most original of ethno- 

 logists, Desmoulins, originated the idea, which has 

 subsequently been fully developed by Agassiz, 

 that the distribution of the persistent modifica- 

 tions of man is governed by the same laws as that 



^ of other animals, and that both fall into the same 

 great distributional provinces. Thus, Australia ; 

 America, south of Mexico ; the Arctic regions ; 

 Europe, Syria, Arabia, and North Africa, taken 

 together, are each regions eminently characterised 

 by the nature of their animal and vegetable popu- 



' lations, and each, as we have seen, has its peculiar 

 and characteristic form of man. But it may be 

 doubted whether the parallel thus drawn will 

 hold good strictly, and in all cases. The 

 Tasmanian Fauna and Flora are essentially Aus- 

 tralian, and the like is true, to a less extent, of 

 many, if not of all, the Papuan islands ; but the 

 Negritos who inhabit these islands are strikingly 

 different from the Australians. Again, the differ- 

 ences between the Mongolians and the Xantho- 

 chroi are out of all proportion greater than those 



tenths the long diameter, are short ; those which have the 

 transverse diameter less than eight- tenths the longitudinal, are 

 long. 



