THE HUMAN SPECIES. 169 



PRIMAEVAL LOCATION OF MAN, OR POSITION 

 OF THE TYPICAL STOCKS. 



As the more detailed characters of the typical stocks, 

 their real or primaeval location, and the diffusion of 

 subsequent races, cannot be readily understood without 

 some retrospect of the geographical conditions of the 

 earth, not only with regard to the convulsions already 

 mentioned, but likewise as they bear upon the position 

 of the great chains of mountains, seas, and deserts, and 

 the direction of leading rivers, it is important not to 

 overlook them, wherever the influence they must have 

 exercised in the question under review is clearly ascer- 

 tainable. 



Mankind, when first it becomes historically known, 

 is already diffused over the greater part of the eastern 

 hemisphere, and probably far beyond it, even to the 

 western ; yet it appears to have departed from the 

 vicinity of a common centre, or at least to have 

 primsevally formed several stocks, clustered in the vici- 

 nity of that high central region of Asia which comprises 

 the external rampart, and perhaps interior of the vale? 

 of Thibet, and the so-called Khangai * of the Gobi 

 desert ; for this was, approximately, either the seat 

 of Man's first development, so far as it can be now 

 traced, or the space where a portion of human beings 



* Khangai, or oases, verdant river courses, and lakes, 

 \vhich occur in several places. 



