1330 



VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



testimony of disinterested observers, both in 

 the West Indies and in the United States, an 

 approximation in the Negro physiognomy to 

 the European model is progressively taking 

 place, in instances in which, although there 

 has been no intermixture of European blood, 

 the influence of a higher civilisation has been 

 powerfully exercised for a lengthened period. 

 This is particularly the case with Negroes 

 employed as domestic servants. Dr. Han- 

 cock, a most intelligent physician of Guiana, 

 even asserts that it is frequently not at all 

 difficult to distinguish a Negro of pure blood, 

 belonging to the Dutch portion of the colony, 

 from another belonging to the English settle- 

 ments, by the correspondence between the 

 features and expression of each, and those 

 which are characteristic of their respective 

 masters. This alteration, too, is not confined 

 to a change of form in the skull, or to a di- 

 minution in the projection of the jaw ; but it 

 is also seen in the general figure, and in the 

 form of the soft parts, as the lips and nose. 

 And the writer has been informed by Sir 

 Charles Lyell, that during his recent tour in 

 America, he was assured by numerous me- 

 dical men residing in the slave states of the 

 North American Union, that a gradual ap- 

 proximation is taking place in the configura- 

 tion of the head and body of the Negroes to 

 the European model, each successive gene- 

 ration exhibiting an improvement in these 

 respects. The change is most apparent in 

 such as are brought into closest and most 

 habitual relation with the whites (as by do- 

 mestic servitude), without any actual inter- 

 mixture of races, which would be at once be- 

 trayed by the change of complexion, and by 

 the more strongly marked indications of 

 hybridism. 



It is more easy to imagine that a pyramidal 

 or a prognathous cranium can be metamor- 

 phosed into an elliptical one, than that either 

 of the two first-named forms can be converted 

 into the other. Yet very strong evidence is 

 furnished by philological considerations, that 

 the Hottentot races constitute a branch of 

 the common African stock ; and the approx- 

 imation which their skulls present to the 



frequently the case, the same island or group 

 is peopled by two or more races, having 

 different physical characters, it is always found 

 that the greatest tendency to the prognathous 

 type shows itself among those which appear 

 to have longest dwelt there in a state of 

 barbarism ; and that it is most strongly 

 marked, when, to other degrading agencies, 

 that of a low and marshy soil has been 

 added. 



Even the elliptical type, as already re- 

 marked, may occasionally present indications 

 of degradation towards one of the others. 

 Want, squalor, and ignorance, have a special 

 tendency to induce that diminution of the 

 cranial portion of the skull, and that increase 

 of the facial, which characterise the prog- 

 nathous type ; as cannot but be observed by 

 any one who takes an accurate and candid 

 survey of the condition of the most degraded 

 part of the population of the great towns of 

 this country, but as is seen to be pre- 

 eminently the case with regard to the lowest 

 classes of Irish immigrants. A certain degree 

 of regression to the pyramidal type is also to 

 be noticed among the " nomadic " tribes 

 which are to be found in every civilised 

 community. Among these, as has been re- 

 marked by a very acute observer, " accord- 

 ing as they partake more or less of the purely 

 vagabond nature, doing nothing whatsoever 

 for their living, but moving from place to 

 place, preying on the earnings of the more 

 industrious portion of the community, so will 

 the attributes of the nomade races be found 

 more or less marked in them; and they 

 are all more or less distinguished for their 

 high cheek bones and protruding jaws ;"* thus 

 showing that kind of mixture of the pyra- 

 midal with the prognathous type, which is to 

 be seen among the most degraded of the 

 Malayo-Polynesian races. 



It has not been pointed out, so far as the 

 writer is aware, by any ethnologist, that the 

 conformation of the cranium seems to have 

 undergone a certain amount of alteration even 

 in the Anglo- Saxon race of the United States, 

 which assimilates it in some degree to that of 

 the aboriginal inhabitants. Certain it is, that, 



pyramidal type cannot be for a moment attri- among New Englanders more particularly, a 



buted to intermixture with any Mongolian 

 race. On the other hand, among the in- 

 habitants of Oceania, there are many races 

 which present, more or less decidedly, the 

 prognathous type ; and this sometimes asso- 

 ciated with woolly or " frizzled," sometimes 

 with long and straight hair. Yet there is 

 strong philological evidence for regarding 

 these as descendants of colonists who spread 

 themselves (probably by various lines of 

 migration) from south-eastern Asia, and who 

 carried to the various islands of the vast 

 Malayo-Polynesian Archipelago, the pyra- 

 midal type more or less softened down. On 

 no other hypothesis can the extraordinary 



cast of countenance prevails, which usually 

 renders it easy for any one familiar with it to 

 point out an individual of that country in the 

 midst of an assemblage of Englishmen ; and 

 although this may chiefly depend upon the 

 conformation of the soft parts, yet there is a 

 certain sharpness, and an angularity of feature 

 about a genuine " Yankee," which would 

 probably display itself in the contour of the 

 bones. So far as the writer's observation 

 has extended, there is especially to be noticed 

 an excess of breadth between the rami of the 

 lower jaw, giving to the lower part of the face 

 a peculiar squareness (something like that 

 which is shown in jig. 821), that is in strik- 



community in the fundamental elements of ing contrast with the tendency to an oval 

 their languages be accounted for, the tribes 



which use them being in a state of complete * London Labour an(1 the London Poor . by 



isolation from each other. Where, as is Henry Mayhew, p. 2. 



