BlMAXA.- 



-IIAMMALIA.- 



-BlMAXA. 



13 



oontinent we find the coast occupied by the Esquimaux 

 ox Eskimo, as they are now frequently termed, which 

 are also regarded as belonging to the great Mongolian 

 variety. These people are remarkable from the fact of 

 their extending from the Asiatic station just mentioned, 

 through the Aleutian Islands to the continent of North 

 America, all the Arctic shores of which, including 

 tliose of Greenland and Labrador, are peopled by 

 Esquimaux tribes. It is by their means, therefore, that 

 the ethnological connection between the old and new 

 continents has been established; and it seems not 

 improbable that, in the lapse of ages, all the varied 

 tribes of American Indians may have been derived from 

 Esquimaux progenitors. These tribes are, however, con- 

 sidered to form a distinct variety of the human species. 

 3. Americans. — The skin in these races is usually 

 of a reddish clay colour, sometimes copper colour, but 

 becoming brown or blackish in the hot tropical plains. 

 The hair is long, straight, and usually coarse ; the eyes 

 no generally small, but not narrow and oblique as in 

 the Mongolians ; and the nose is large, high, and often 

 well formed. The forehead is retreating, and the cheek- 

 bones prominent. In its geographical distribution the 



American Indian. 



American variety presents a remarkable peculiarity. 

 The other races appear to be more or less limited in 

 their natural extension by degrees of latitude, that is to 

 say, their tribes spread for the most part in an east and 

 west direction, so as to preserve, within certain limits, 

 a similarity of climate. The American man, on the 

 contrary, has spread in the opposite direction, or from 

 north to south, so that nearly from the Arctic circle to 

 the southern extremity of Patagonia, over a space of 

 about one hundred degrees of latitude, the aborigines of 

 America all belong to the same stock and exhibit strik- 



ing characters of resemblance, both in their physical 

 conformation and in the structure of their languages. 

 They are for the most part in an uncivilized condition, 

 although, as is well known, the Mexicans and Peruvians 

 bad attained to a high state of cultivation before the 

 discovery of the New World. 



4. Malayans. — The Malayan races, which are also 

 called Oceanic by Dr. Latham, are usually of a yellowish- 

 brown complexion, but their colour varies in intensity 

 from a light brownish yellow to nearly black. Their 

 hair is always black, usually straight, but frequently 

 more or less curled ; they have generally a high fore- 

 head ; narrow, but not oblique eyes ; and a broad but 

 not flattened nose. In the general physiognomy we 

 often find an approach to the Mongolian races, some of 

 which are, in fact, the nearest neiglibours of the Malaj'- 

 ans ; but in some instances the expression of the face, 

 and even the nature of tlie hair, present so much simi- 

 larity to the Negroes, that the populations thus charac- 

 terized have occasionally been referred to the negro 

 type. The Malayan races include the inhabitants of 

 the peninsula of Malacca, and of the eastern Archi- 

 pelago, together with those of the Pacific Islands, New 



Fig. i. 



I rt; 



^\\)^ 



vv 



Malay. 



Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand. The natives of 

 Madagascar are also Malayans. In the Negritos of 

 Sumatra, Mindanao, and the New Hebrides, the 

 negro characters make their appearance in a remark- 

 able manner, as also in the Papuas of New Guinea and 

 some of the neighbouring islands, in which the hair is 

 of great length and strongly frizzled, standing out from 

 the head on all sides, so as to present the appearance of 

 an enormous wig. 



5. Ethiopians.— The races commonly, but incor- 

 rectly, called Ethiopians, have the skin of various dark 



