Order 1. BBIA^A, OE IMAIN". 41 



tlie wild bovine and striped equine animals, &c. &c. The following are the leading varieties of Man, 

 according to the opinion and arguments of Dr. Prichard. 



" On comparing the principal varieties of form and structure which distinguish the inhaljitants of 

 different countries, we find that there are seven classes of nations which may be separated from each 

 other by strongly marked lines. Among their principal characteristics are peculiar forms of the 

 skull, but these are by no means the only difference which require notice and particular description. 

 These seven principal classes are, first, those nations which in the form of their skulls and other physi- 

 cal cliaracters resemble Europeans, including many nations in Asia and some in xVfrica ; secondly, races 

 nearly similar in figure, and in the shape of the head, to the Kalmucks, Mongoles, and Chinese. These 

 two first classes of nations will be designated, for reasons to be explained, Iranian and Turanian 

 nations, in preference to Caucasian and Mongolian. * * * The third class are the native Ame- 

 rican nations, excluding the Esquimaux and some tribes which resemble them more than the majority 

 of inhabitants of the New World. The fouith class comprises only the Hottentot and Bushman race. 

 A fifth class are the Negroes ; the sixth, the Papuas, or woolly-haired nations of Polynesia ; the 

 seventh, the Alfourou and Australian races. The nations comprised under these departments of man- 

 kind differ so strikingly from each other, that it would be improper to include any two of them in one 

 section, and there is no other division of the human family that is by physical traits so strongly cha- 

 racterized. There are, indeed, some nations that cannot be considered as falling entirely within cither 

 of these divisions, but they may be looked upon as approximating to one or another of them." * 



The same writer afiuuus, of the Caucasian race of Cuvier, that " there is no truth in the assertion 

 that the traditions of all these nations deduce their origin from Caucasus f/' and states, of his ludo- 

 Atlantic, or Irayiian nations, that " complexion does not enter among the characters of this type, since 

 it is of all shades, from the white and florid colour of the northern Europeans, to the jet-black of 

 many tribes in Lybia, and southward of Mount Atlas. In many races, as we shall hereafter prove, 

 the type has degenerated. The ancient Celts appear, for example, to have had by no means the same 

 developemeut of the head as the Greeks, and the Indians display some differences in the configiu'atiou 

 of the skull," ^c.J 



It appears to be conclusively proved that barbarism and insuiBcient nourishment tend, in a few 

 generations, to deteriorate the physical characters of even the highest races of mankind, by increasing 

 the facial angle, &c.§ ; while the reverse induces proportional improvement. Still there is reason to 

 suspect that the diversities which are thus occasioned are restrained withiu moderate limits ; and this 

 remarkable fact must be borne in mind (which I believe has not been hitherto stated), that while an 

 artificial mode of life would seem to have produced those acknowledged varieties of species which are 

 noticeable among such of the lower animals as have been domesticated, we observe verj- dissimilar races 

 of human beings among those whose mannner of living is least artificial of any, and which, further- 

 more, in numerous instances, inhabit the same countries, besides being widely diffused ; thus pro\ing 

 that climate and locality exert less influence than has been imagined. This most difficult subject of 

 inquiry, in fine, is endlessly perplexed, and in several instances rendered quite inextricable, by the 

 occasional blending of two or more diverse races, in every degree of proportion. There are also 

 decisive proofs (afforded by architectural reliques scattered over Siberia and both Americas) of great 

 nations having been utterly exterminated, whose very names have perished : and if civilized, or com- 

 paratively civilized, populous nations have thus become so completely sunk in oblivion, that we infer 

 their former existence only as that of some lost tribes of animals can be recalled, how very many 

 hordes of savages, who erect no memorials, may have been extirpated, and are forgotten uTCtrievably. 

 Hence the extreme and apparently insuperable difficulties which, it is probable, will continue to oppose the 

 definitive solution of the intricate and peculiarly interesting problem which we have been considering.] 



• Vol. i. 2-1G-7. T Id C59. - i. 262. } Vide id. vol. ii. 349. 



