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EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 



The human race is known to consist of numerous 

 nations, displaying considerable differences of external 

 form and colour, and speaking in general different lan- 

 guages. This lias been the case since the commencement 

 of written record. It is also ascertained that the external 

 peculiarities of particular nations do not rapidly change. 

 There is rather a tendency to a persistency of type in all 

 lines of descent, insomiich that a subordinate admixture 

 of various type is usually obliterated in a few generations. 

 Numerous as the varieties are, they have all been found 

 classifiable under five leading ones : — i. The Caucasian, 

 or Indo-European, which extends from India into Europe 

 and Northern Africa ; 2. The Mongolian, which occupies 

 Northern and Eastern Asia ; 3. The Malayan, which 

 extends from the Ultra- Gangetic Peninsula into the 

 numerous islands of the South Seas and Pacific ; 4. The 

 Negro, chiefly confined to Africa; 5. The aboriginal 

 American. Each of these is distinguished by certain 

 general features of so marked a kind, as to give rise to a 

 supposition that they have had distinct or independent 

 origins. Of these peculiarities, colour is the most con- 

 spicuous : the Caucasians are generally white, the Mon- 

 golians yellow, the Negroes black, and the Americans red. 

 The opposition of two of these in particular, white and 

 black, is so striking, that of them, at least, it seems almost 



