VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 221 



causes unknown to us, so that various spots became dry 

 and habitable. The highest dry surface on the globe must, 

 therefore, have been the earliest inhabited ; — and here 

 Nature, or rather her Creator, will have planted the first 

 people, whose multiplication and extension must have fol- 

 lowed the continual gradual decrease of the water. 



" We must fancy to ourselves this first tribe endowed 

 with all human fciculties, but not possessing all knowledge 

 and experience, the subsequent acquisition of which is left 

 to the natural operation of time and circumstances. As 

 nature would not unnecessarily expose her first-born and 

 unexperienced son to conflicts and dangers, the place of 

 his early abode would be so selected, that all his wants could 

 be easily satisfied, and every thing essential to the pleasure 

 of his existence readily procured. He would be placed, in 

 short, in a garden, or paradise. 



" Such a country is found In central Asia, between the 

 30th and 50th degrees of north latitude, and the 90th and 

 110th of east longitude (from Ferro) : a spot which, in 

 respect to its height, can only be compared to the lofty 

 plain of Quito in South America. From this elevation, of 

 which the great desert Gobi, or Shamo, is the vertical point, 

 Asia sinks gradually towards all the four quarters. The 

 great chains of mountains, running in various directions, 

 arise from it, and contain the sources of the great rivers 

 which traverse this division of the globe on all sides : — 

 the Selinga, the Ob, the Lena, the Irtisch, and the Jenlsey, 

 In the north; the Jaik, the Jihon, the Jemba, on the west; 

 the Amur and the Hoang-ho (or Yellow River), towards the 

 east ; the Indus, Ganges, and Burrampooter, on the south. 

 If the globe was ever covered with water, this great table 

 land must have first become dry, and have appeared like an 

 island in the watery expanse. The cold and barren desert 

 of Gobi would not, indeed, have been a suitable abode for 

 the first people; but on its southern declivity we find Thibet, 

 separated by high mountains from the rest of the world, and 

 containing within its boundaries all varieties of air and cli- 



