TEE RACES OF MAN. 207 



the ancient races were all, according to Schaaffhausen,* 

 "lower in the scale than the rudest living savages ;" they 

 must therefore have differed,, to a certain extent, from any 

 existing race. The remains described by Prof. Broca from 

 Les Eyzies, though they unfortunately appear to have 

 belonged to a single family, indicate a race with a most 

 singular combination of low or simious, and of high char- 

 acteristics. This race is " entirely different from any 

 other, ancient or modern, that we have heard of."f It 

 differed, therefore, from the quaternary race of the caverns 

 of Belgium. 



Man can long resist conditions which appear extremely 

 unfavorable for his existence. J He has long lived in the 

 extreme regions of the north, with no wood for his canoes 

 or implements, and with only blubber as fuel and melted 

 snow as drink. In the southern extremity of America the 

 Fuegians survive without the protection of clothes, or of 

 any building worthy to be called a hovel. In South Africa 

 the aborigines wander over arid plains, where dangerous 

 beasts abound. Man can withstand the deadly influence 

 of the Terai at the foot of the Himalaya and the pestilen- 

 tial shores of tropical Africa. 



Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe 

 with tribe and race with race. Various checks are always 

 in action, serving to keep down the numbers of each 

 savage tribe such as periodical famines, nomadic habits 

 and the consequent deaths of infants, prolonged suckling, 

 wars, accidents, sickess, licentiousness, the stealing of 

 women, infanticide, and especially lessened fertility. If 

 any one of these checks increases in power, even slightly, 

 the tribe thus affected tends to decrease ; and when of two 

 adjoining tribes one becomes less numerous and less power- 

 ful than the other, the contest is soon settled by war, 

 slaughter, cannibalism, slavery, and absorption. Even 

 when a weaker tribe is not thus abruptly swept away, if it 

 once begins to decrease, it generally goes on decreasing 

 until it becomes extinct. 



* Translation in " Anthropological Review," Oct., 1868, p. 431. 



f" Transact. Internat. Congress of Prehistoric Arch.," 1868, pp. 

 172-175. See also Broca (translation) in " Anthropological Review," 

 Oct., 1868, p. 410. 



Dr. Gerland, " Ueber das Aussterben der Naturvolker," 1868, s. 82- 



| Gerland (ibid, s. 12) gives facts in support of this statement. 



