INDO-EUROPEANS. 



573 



are tawny, still farther on they are deep brown, and in Malabar almost 

 black. A more interesting and more general instance is offered by tho 

 race to which we belong, the Indo-European, which reaches, in one un- 

 broken column, across Western Asia, through Europe, from Hindostan to 

 the British Islands. That this is one homogeneous family, derived from 

 a common stock, is proved beyond all possibility of a doubt by the affin- 

 ities of its languages, all showing a relation to the ancient Sanscrit, 

 and even betraying, by their varied designations of certain objects, in an 

 approximate manner, the time at which the progress of this column was 

 made that it was anterior to the introduction of the metals, in the age 

 of stone, as some authors have designated it, when weapons and imple- 

 ments of that material alone were employed, for the names of the metals 

 are different in many of the different languages of this race. 



But how is it as regards the complexion of the Indo-European s ? To 

 the northwest it is light, but it darkens toward the extreme Variations im- 

 southeast in India, the distribution in this respect having 

 been doubtless much better marked in former times, before race, 

 it was disturbed by the influences of civilization. Thus the Eoman au- 

 thors speak of the northern Germans, of the Britons, and the Gauls, as 

 being red-haired, blue-eyed, and very light in their complexion. It is 

 riot to be understood, however, that the tint deepens through various 

 shades of olive and brown by a steady progress as we pass toward India, 

 for the physical principles on which we have been dwelling would pre- 

 pare us to expect that, whenever we reach regions more elevated above 



the level of the sea, the com- 

 plexion of the natives will be 

 lighter. For this reason, the 

 inhabitants of the range of the 

 Caucasus, and again those of 

 the great elevations of the Him- 

 malaya Mountains and sour- 

 ces of the Ganges, are as light 

 a as the southern Europeans, 

 H| and there very frequently is 

 jji seen the auburn-bearded, and 

 blue or gray eyed man. 



While the complexion thus 

 depends on the heat, the form 

 of the skull is determined by 

 the condition of development 

 of the brain, and this is the 

 more perfect where life is main- 

 Brahmin, tained in circumstances of 



Fig. 269. 



