CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 1. BIMANA. 45 



fishes, molluscs, Crustacea, and zoophytes peculiar to each of these parts of the sea. This localiza- 

 tion of species, whether aquatic or terrestrial, is so well marked, that a naturalist a little experi- 

 enced cannot mistake, even at first sight, the origin of zoological collections made in one or 

 other of the great geographical divisions of the globe which may be submitted to his examination. 

 The fauna of each of these divisions presents a peculiar aspect, and may be easily characterized by 

 the presence of certain species, more or less remarkable. 



" Naturalists have imagined several hypotheses to explain this mode of distribution of animals 

 on the surface of the globe ; but in the actual state of science it is impossible to give a satisfactory 

 explanation, unless we admit that from the beginning of the actual geological period, the various 

 species have been distributed in the different regions, and that by degrees they have afterward 

 spread to a distance, so as to occupy a more or less considerable portion of the surface of the 

 globe. In the actual condition of the earth, it is impossible for us to discover all the zoological 

 focuses; for one may imagine the possibility of exchange so multiplied between two regions, 

 the fauna? of which were primitively distinct, that they can only offer at the present moment 

 species common to both, and thus nothing can reveal to the eyes of the naturalist their original 

 separation ; but when a country is found to be peopled with a considerable number of species not 

 to be found elsewhere, even when the local circumstances are most similar, we shall be authorized 

 to think that such a portion of the globe has always been .a distinct zoological region." 



In respect, then, to vegetable and animal products of the earth, there appear to be certain 

 centers or circles in which the different kinds originated. In other words, as these species are 

 originally found in these circles ; as history places them here in the very earliest periods to which 

 it carries us ; and as we see them age after age confining themselves to their several localities as 

 by a controlling law, it is deemed a logical inference that these were created in the places which 

 they thus severally inhabit. 



It is maintained that in the various races of the human family, a close analogy is found with 

 these facts in the vegetable and animal world. It is remarked that in the polar regions, associated 

 with tin; white bear, the walrus, and the rein-deer, we find the Esquimaux, the Lapps, and the 

 Samoiedes, all of one race, and all from time immemorial inhabiting these Arctic realms. Here 

 they remain as by some necessity, and here they have remained with little change since history 

 first introduced them to our notice. So in Africa, we find the negroes of Congo in their places 

 as truly as the hippopotamus and the chimpanzee : in the South, we find the Hottentot; in the 

 Southeast, the Cadre ; in the North, the Berber ; in Madagascar, the Madecasses ; in the valley 

 of the Nile, the Egyptian ; in Ethiopia, the Nubian, — and all these races confined to, or per- 

 manentlv associated with, their localities from the earliest records of time. 



In a similar manner we find the Mongols in Central and Eastern Asia, the Hindoos in India, 

 the Malays in the islands of the Pacific, the Papuans in New Guinea and New Holland, and finally 

 the Indians in America, and all, so far as history furnishes us with any light on the subject, the 

 primeval races of the several countries they inhabit, and all continuing from age to age in these 

 their original domains. The Caucasian, or European race, as it is generally called, is held to con- 

 sist of several mixed tribes or nations, originating in remote periods anterior to historical records, 

 in the temperate portions of the eastern continent; and which, being of superior endowments, have 

 broken from their original limits, and, like many animals and plants of a hardy and prolific nature, 

 have spread themselves over various portions of the globe. 



While it is thus assumed that a striking analogy exists between the tribes of men and the tribes 



of the vegetable and animal kingdom, as viewed in their ideographical position and distribution, it 



I is still further said that archaeology enforces in a remarkable manner the same views. It is now 



known that the monuments of Egypt contain inscriptions which carry back the history of that 



• remarkable people to a period at feast four thousand years before the .Christian era, and that at 



that time the nation was far advanced in civilization.* The sculptures and pictures upon the tem- 



Tlie recent careful and profound study of the monuments of Egypt by Lepsius, Rosscllini, and others, has 

 established beyond a reasonable »donbt the historical validity of Manetho's chronological list of the kings of 

 Ancient Egypt, from Menes, the founder of the first dynasty. The date assigned to this monarch by late learned 



