712 INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON 



average height of the Tartars* on the eastern 

 coast of Asia, does not exceed five feet three 

 inches English, according to the measurements 

 of M. Rollin, who accompanied the expedition 

 of Perouse ; while it is known that in the frozen 

 regions of Siberia, Lapland, British America, 

 and Terra del Fuego, the natives vary from 

 four and a half to five feet in stature, with re- 

 markably small hands and feet, as if their growth 

 were stinted by exposure to extreme cold. And 

 although the head is sometimes large, the per- 

 ceptive, intellectual, and moral organs, are im- 

 perfectly developed, as shewn by the smallness of 

 the superciliary ridges, lowness of the forehead, 

 and flatness of the coronal region, correspond- 

 ing with their want of sensibility, the more re- 

 fined emotions of love, and all the higher endow- 

 ments of genius. They are also exceedingly ugly 

 and ill formed. The skin is rough and thick, the 

 hair straight and coarse, the beard scanty, the 

 face broad and flat, the nose short, the eyes nar- 

 row and oblique, the cheek bones prominent, the 

 mouth and ears large. 



The thorax is also much larger in proportion 

 to the whole body, among the Esquimaux, Samo- 

 iedes, Yakouts, Tungouses, Finlanders, Laplan- 

 ders, and even the Tartars of central Asia, than 



* And Pallas informs us, that the Mongolian Tartars generally, 

 are greatly inferior in muscular strength to the Russians, who are 

 inferior to the British and Germans. 



