MEMOIR OF PALLAS. 57 



lastly, limestone strata the most external. " It may- 

 be stated," says Cuvier, " that this great fact, clearly 

 expressed in 1777, in a memoir read to the Peters- 

 burg Academy (Art. Petro. 1778) in the presence 

 of Gustavus III. King of Sweden, gave birth to a 

 new view of geology; and that Saussure, Deluc, 

 and Werner, starting from this observation, arrived 

 at a correct knowledge of the true structure of the 

 earth, very different indeed from the absurd ideas 

 of previous writers." 



All the writings on which we have hitherto 

 dwelt, more especially belong to the department of 

 natural history in the more extended signification 

 of the term ; this, however, is not the case with 

 regard to our authors history of the Mongolian 

 nations.* A work which must interest every well 

 educated man, for it is perhaps the most classical 

 treatise on the varieties of our race that exists in 

 any language. 



The name of Mongiil might be extended to all 

 those tribes of the north and east of Asia, whose 

 oblique eyes, yellow complexion, black and lank 

 hair, slender beard, and projecting cheek bones, 

 make them appear so frightful to us; and one 

 tribe of which ravaged Europe, under Attila, in the 

 fifth century. At the same time the name belongs 

 more especially to another tribe, which, under 

 Gengis-Khan, in the eleventh century, established 

 the basis of the most formidable dominion which 



* Collection of Documents concerning the Mongiils, in 

 German, 2 vols. 4to. 1776, 1801. 



