454 CAUSES OF THE VARIETIES 



and others who speak the Slavonic language*." He pro- 

 ceeds to shew from Diodorus Siculus, that the Sarmatians 

 descended from the Medes, and were found on the banks 

 of tlie Tanals, 700 years before the Christian era : by the 

 authority of Herodotus, that they occupied the country 

 between the Tanais and the Borysthenes, when Darius 

 Hystaspes invaded Syria; and from Cluverius, that the 

 coasts of the Baltic, and the banks of the Vistula, Prussia, 

 and the country as far as the situation of the Finni and Ve- 

 nedi, were the ancient seats of the Sarmatians. Since then, 

 a people of very different race have existed in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Germans from the most remote times ; how 

 can we explain the differences of the European nations, by 

 the operation of climage, by heat and cold ? How does the 

 same sky cause the whiteness of the German and Swede, 

 and the comparatively dark complexion of the Pole and 

 Russian ? 



But these European races are found also in Asia and 

 Africa. All that part of the former region, which lies to the 

 west of the river Ob, the Caspian Sea, and the Ganges ; all 

 the north of Africa, Abyssinia, and perhaps other parts still 

 farther south, on the east, are occupied by a race agreeing 

 nearly in character with the Sarmatians and Celts. 



Thus it appears, that, excepting the Germans, and the 

 Laplanders and Samoiedes, whom we deem of Mongolian 

 origin, the same native or congenital constitution prevails 

 over the whole of Europe, the western parts of Asia, and 

 the north of Africa. Black hair, dark eyes, and a white 

 skin, tending rather to a brownish tint than to the peculiar 

 whiteness of the German tribes, belong to the French, 

 Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, and all the Celts ; to the 

 Russians, Poles, and others of Slavonic origin ; to the 

 Tatars, commonly confounded with the Mongols, the Ar- 

 menians, Persians, Circassians, and Georgians, the Turks, 

 Greeks, Arabians, Abyssinians, Syrians, Jews, and the 

 inhabitants of Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco. That 

 climate cannot cause similarity of character in nations spread 



• Diss. Inaug. de Variet. p. 102—109. 



