568 ORIGIN OF NATIONS. 



may recall that the hippopotamus and camelopard are natives of Africa, 

 and are restricted to it ; the tiger is a native of India ; the armadillos 

 and ant-eaters, of South America ; the kangaroo and ornithorhynchus, of 

 New Holland. The earth's surface might thus be divided into regions 

 or realms, each possessing its own special flora and fauna. And more 

 than this, the oceans, too, might in like manner be parted off, and this 

 not only as regards their surface, but also in strata at different depths. 

 Now these botanical centres and circles are coincident with the zoological 

 centres and circles, and hence there has arisen the idea that such centres 

 have been truly points of original development, both for one and the oth- 

 er of these natural kingdoms, and that the globe has not been filled by a 

 process of dispersion or diffusion from one point, but co-ordinately, and, 

 perhaps, contemporaneously from many such foci, and that we can still 

 recognize the position of these foci by a critical study of animals and 

 plants. 



As to the discussions which have of late years arisen on this question, 

 The IAVO hy- the reader may refer to the work of Drs. Nott and Gliddon 

 orMrfof na the on ^ ie tv P es ^ ma nkind for arguments in support of a mul- 

 tions. titude of centres of human origin, and to that of Dr. Prich- 



ard on the natural history of man for those in behalf of the unity of the 

 race. In these works, respectively, will be found most of the facts hith- 

 erto brought forward. 



In the former of these works, Professor Agassiz draws attention to the 

 Doctrine of circumstance that all around the Arctic circle, and therefore in 

 Professor every longitude, is to be found one race offering characters that 

 Agassiz. are strikingly homogeneous in aspect, intellect, and habits of life, 

 represented in America by the Esquimaux, in Europe by the Laplanders, 

 and in Asia by the Samoiedes. These live in a region of which the 

 Floral faunai ^ auna an( ^ ^ ora are likewise homogeneous. It has every where 

 and human ' the same dreary expanses, covered with dwarf birches, moss- 

 es, and lichens ; .in its waters there are the same fishes, as 

 the salmon, and the same molluscs and echinoderms. In the air it has 

 the same birds. Among its mammals found thus with uniformity, the 

 white bear, the reindeer, the walrus, and the whale may be mentioned. 

 With a special fauna thus coinciding with a special flora, there is also a 

 special variety of man. 



What has here been said respecting Arctic life may be generalized. 

 Each of the coincident floral and faunai circles has its own species of 

 man. 



Thus, in the temperate zone, may be distinguished three such primary 

 realms, each of which is distinct as regards its botany and zoology ; and, 

 in correspondence, we find that in the first, in the country of the Mongo- 

 lians, to the east beyond the Caspian Sea, there are nations whose com- 



