OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 461 



tlie temples, prominent cheek-bones, thick lips, and an ex- 

 pression of gentleness in the mouth, strongly contrasted 

 with a gloomy and severe look. The American race, after 

 the Hyperborean * race, is the least numerous ; but It 

 occupies the greatest space in the globe. Over a million 

 and a half of square leagues, from the Tierra del Fuego 

 islands to the river St. Lawrence and Bering's Strait, we 

 are struck at the first glance with the general resemblance 

 in the features of the inhabitants. We think we perceive 

 that they all descend from the same stock, notwithstanding 

 the enormous diversity of language that separates them 

 from each other. However, when we reflect more seriously 

 on this family likeness, after living longer among the indi- 

 genous Americans, we discover that celebrated travellers, 

 who could only observe a few individuals on the coasts, 

 have singularly exaggerated the analogy of form among the 

 Americans. 



"Intellectual cultivation is what contributes most to di- 

 versify the features. In barbarous nations there is rather a 

 physiognomy peculiar to the tribe or horde than to any in- 

 dividual. When we compare our domestic animeds with 

 those which inhabit our forests, we make the same observa- 

 tion. But an European, when he decides on the great re- 

 semblance among the copper-coloured races, is subject 

 to a particular illusion. He is struck with a complexion so 

 different from our own ; and the uniformity of this com- 

 plexion conceals from him for a long time the diversity of 

 individual features. The new colonist can at first hardly 

 distinguish from each other individvals of the native race, 

 because his eyes are less fixed on the gentle melancholic or 

 ferocious expression of the countenance, than on the red- 

 coppery colour, and dark, coarse, glossy, and luminous 

 hair ; so glossy, indeed, that we should believe it to be In 

 a constant state of humectation. 



* The author probably means to include under this name the diminutive 

 olive-coloured black-haired people, of Mongolian formation, who occupy 

 the high northern latitudes of both continents ; viz, the Eskimaux, Laplan- 

 ders, Samoiedes, and Tungooses. 



