500 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



important than those which distinguish the 

 human races. The fact that they are ar- 

 ranged in different genera, species, and vari- 

 eties does not lessen the value of the com- 

 parison ; for the point in question is just to 

 know whether nations, races, and what have 

 also been called families of men, such as the 

 Lido-Germanic, the Semitic, etc., do not in 

 reality correspond to the families, genera, and 

 species of monkeys. Now the first great sub- 

 divisions among the true monkeys (excluding 

 Makis and Arctopitheci) are founded upon 

 the form of the nose, those of the new world 

 having a broad partition between the nostrils, 

 while those of the old world have it narrow. 

 How curious that this fact, which has been 

 known to naturalists for half a century, as 

 presenting a leading feature among monkeys, 

 should have been overlooked in man, when, 

 in reality, the negroes and Australians differ 

 in precisely the same manner from the other 

 races; they having a broad partition, and 

 nostrils opening sideways, like the monkeys of 

 South America, while the other types of the 

 human family have a narrow partition and 

 nostrils opening downward, like the monkeys 

 of Asia and Africa. Again, the minor differ- 

 ences, such as the obliquity of the anterior 



