222 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



mate. If the severest cold prevails on Its snowy moun- 

 tains and glaciers, a perpetual summer reigns in its valleys 

 and well-watered plains. This Is the native abode of rice, 

 the vine, pulse, fruit, and all other vegetable productions, 

 from which man draws his nourishment. Here, too, all 

 the animals are found wild which man has tamed for his 

 use, and carried with him over the whole earth ; — the 

 cow*, horse t, ass J, sheep §, goat ||, camel ^, pig, 



* To determine the original stock of our domestic animals is one of the 

 most difficult undertakings in zoology. I know no data on which the ox-kind 

 can be referred to any wild species in Asia. Ctjvier lias concluded, from a 

 minute osteological inquiry, that the wild-ox (urns or bison of the Ancients; 

 aurochs of the Germans), formerly found throughout the greater part of tem- 

 perate Europe, and still met with in the forests of Lithuania, of the Carpa- 

 tliian and Caucasian chains, is not, as most naturalists have supposed, the 

 wild original of our cattle; but that the characters of the latter are found 

 in certain fossile crania ; whence he thinks it probable *' that the primary 

 race has been annihilated by civilization, like that of the camel and dro- 

 medary." Des Animaux Fossiles, v. 4 ; Riiminans Fossiles,^. 51. 

 + Pallas Spicillg. Zool. fasc. xi. p. 5, note b. 

 + Ibid, note c. 



S There are two or three wild species, nearly related to each other, which 

 Bcem to have equal claims to be considered as the source of our sheep. Of 

 these, the argali found in the great mountains of Asia strongly resembles the 

 sherp. Pallas Spiceleg. Zool. fasc. xi. tab. 1. & 2. 



jj The wild goat (aegagrus) is met with in the mountains of Persia, where 

 it has the name of paseng or pasan (whence the term pasahr, corrupted into 

 bezoar, applied to their intestinal concretions), and probably elsewhere, 

 even in the Alps of Europe, Cuvier, Menagerie du Museum, 8vo. v. 2. p. 

 177. The ibex (bouquetin) occupies the highest summits of the mountains of 

 the old continent: that of Asia is described by Pallas, Spic. Zool. f. 11. 

 p. 31 et seq. tab, iii. Another species inhabits the chain of Caucassus (capra 

 Caucasica) ; Guldenst^edt, Comment. Petrop. 1779, pi. xvi, xvii. 



5 In opposition to the assertion of Btiffon, who represents that the entire 

 race is reduced to slavery, and who strangely regards the callosities of its 

 chest and limbs as the result of its servile labours, Pallas reports, on the 

 faith of the Bucharian merchants, and of the wandering nomades of Asia, 

 tliat native wild camels are still found in the vast plains of the temperate 

 part of this continent, and are distinguished from the domesticated animals 

 by their superior size, spirit, and swiftness. The northern confines of India, 

 and the deserts between it and China, seem to be the native abode of the 

 Bactrian camel, or that with two protuberances. The wild camels about 



