140 REPORT—1863. 
mankind is as well-ascertained a fact as that there are differences in the orang and 
the chimpanzee. We must, therefore, classify mankind according to the physical 
and psychological differences which now exist; for the present state of anthropology 
will not enable us to say how and when these distinctions have originated. 
On the Physical and Mental Characters of the Negro. 
By Dr. James Hunt, S.A. 
The object of the paper was to determine the position which one well-defined 
race occupies in the genus Homo, and the relation or analogy which the negro race 
bears to animated nature generally. The skin and hair are by no means the only 
things which distinguish the negro from the European, even physically; and the 
difference is greater still mentally and morally. The skeleton of the negro is 
generally heavier, and the bones are larger and thicker, in proportion to the muscles, 
than those of the European. The thorax is compressed ; the leg is longer than in 
Europeans, but is made to look shorter on account of the ankle pap Roe between 
11 in. to 13 in. above the ground; the heel is both flat and long. Burmeister has 
pointed out the resemblance of the foot and the position of the toes of the negro to 
that of the ape; and many observers have noticed that some negroes frequently 
used the great toe asa thumb. The hairis essentially different; and the voice re- 
sembles sometimes the alto of a eunuch—there being a peculiarity about it by which 
it can always be distinguished. The assertion that the negro only requires an oppor- 
tunity for becoming civilized was stated to be disproved by history. The African 
race have had the benefit of the Egyptian, Carthaginian, and Roman civilization, but 
nowhere did they become civilized. The many cases of civilized blacks are not pure 
negroes ; but, in nearly every case where they had become men of mark, they had 
European blood in their veins. In the West Indian Islands it has frequently been 
observed that all the negroes in places of trust which require intelligence have 
European features. Negro children are precocious; but no advance in education 
can be made after they arrive at the age of puberty; they still continue mentally 
children. After citing authorities to prove the low psychological character of 
the negro, the paper continued :—“ We now know it to be a patent fact that there 
are races existing which have no history, and that the negro is one of these races. 
From the most remote antiquity, the negro race seem to have been what they now 
are.’ The author could see no evidence to support the opinion of some writers 
that the negro had degenerated from some higher form of civilization. The 
general deductions he would make were—first, that there is as good reason for 
classifying the negro as a distinct species from the European as there is for making 
the ass a distinct species from the zebra; secondly, that the negro is inferior intel- 
lectually to the European; thirdly, that the analogies are far more numerous be- 
tween the negro and the ape than between the European and the ape. There was” 
in the negro that assemblage of evidence which would induce an unbiassed observer 
to make the European and negro two distinct species. 
Some Facts respecting the Great Lakes of North America. By J. A, Lapnam. 
On the Extinction of Races. By R. Luz. 
The author gave statistics showing the rate of extinction of the various tribes 
which have given way to modern civilization. He stated that it might be sug- 
ested as an almost abstract question for discussion whether the disappearance 
of the aboriginal tribes might be taken as a type of what might happen at a future 
period of the world’s history, when the present population shall have given place 
to an order of beings superior to the now dominant race of mankind. Europe was 
now the centre from which this flood of civilized life was overspreading the globe, 
and our own Anglo-Saxon race contributed one of the chief elements of that civili- 
zation. It might be the lot of nations now springing into existence at the antipodes 
to outstrip her in the pursuit of knowledge, and, when ages shall have passed 
away, to supply a nobler race and a more perfect humanity to the lands which 
now rank foremost in civilization. Viewed as a bare fact, and taking it in con- 
