INTRODUCTION. 19 



is the lowest type of man, it is none the less human, and far more 

 separated from the highest monkey than the highest man, by the 

 erect attitude, by the possession of two hands, by a slower develop- 

 ment, by the powers of reason and speech. The anatomical struct- 

 ure of the spine renders it as impossible for a monkey to assume the 

 erect posture, for any length of time, as for a man to go on all 

 fours. That there were men, who were called philosophers, fools 

 enough to maintain that the natural position of man was that of 

 a quadruped, is thus ridiculed in Butler's Hudibras [Part 2nd, 

 Canto 1st] : — 



• Next it appears I am no horse, 

 That I can argua and discourse, 

 Have hut two letjs, and ne'er a tail. 

 Quoth she. that nothing will avail, 

 For some philosophers of late here 

 Write men have four legs hy nature, 

 And that 'tis custom makes them go 

 Erroneously upon two." 



A French savant has recently described, before the Academy of 

 Sciences, a tribe of Negroes in Centra] Africa, as furnishing the long 

 desired connecting link between man and monkeys. According to 

 him, there arc men who have not been sufficiently accustomed to the 

 sitting posture to wear off tin- tail, which he says projects some 

 three or four inches. This report, which as yet is based upon 

 the appearance of a Bingle individual, will doubtless be explained, if 

 there beany foundation for it in truth, by some anatomical peculiar' 

 Uy which can in no way he called a caudal appendage. 



4. The American race has been traced by theorists to many 

 nations ; to the Polynesians, the Mongolians, Hindoos, Jews, and 

 Egyptians, singly or combined. Lawrence treats of them as a dis- 

 tinct race, ditFerinj? from the others in physical, moral, and intellect- 

 ual characters. They inhabit the American continent from Cape 

 Horn to the Arctic regions, and, with all their differences, are con- 

 sidered by him as one and the same race over this whole extent. 



The color of the skin is brown, or cinnamon-hucd ; the iris dark ; 

 the hair long, black and straight ; the beard scanty ; the eyes are 

 deep-seated ; the nose flat, but prominent ; the lips full and rounded. 

 The face is broad, especially across the cheeks, which are promi- 

 nent, but not so angular as in the Mongolian ; the features are dis- 

 tinct. The face somewhat resembles the Mongolian, and we shall 

 see that many writers, and among them our author, consider the 

 Americans as transplanted Mongolians. 



