NATURAL HISTORY OF 



in the ratio structural conformation would prefer, if left at 

 liberty. This intermediate sub-typical race, in all its shades 

 of color, is the Ethiopian of antiquity, and seems to have 

 included those tribes which were held accursed by several of 

 the most ancient white immigrators in Western Asia. 



The Mongolic nations record, in the same manner, their 

 descent from high mountain ranges, and the early struggles of 

 their heroes in draining marshes, teaching cultivation, letters, 

 and metallurgy; in time, making even regular observations on 

 comets, when the wisdom of Europe was hidden in a howling 

 wilderness, and long before science amongst us assumed a 

 rational shape.* In America, all the tribes that retain tradi- 

 tions of their origin, point to the north-west, with the exception 

 of the extinct Flathcads, whose history is wholly unknown. 

 They have propelled each other cast and south, although cer- 

 tain tribes of the most ancient residents in the south-east and 

 Patagonian regions, may form exceptions; and there are tradi- 

 tions, even in Mexico, of marine strangers from the east ; for 

 man soon passed from fishing on the lake, or paddling in a 

 stream, to adventure his person beyond the surf of seas; and, 

 when it served his purpose for coasting, trusted to the simplest 

 materials to support his weight. Catamarans of three dry 

 pieces of wood, and a staff, with flattened ends, for oars, have 

 been in use, for uncounted ages, on the rolling seas of Madras, 

 and models like them are often dug out with the bones of 

 ancient Peruvians, where the inhabitants have similar breaking 

 rollers to encounter. Coracles, made upon a frame of twigs, 

 with the skins of seals, oxen, and horses, belonged to most 

 nations of the Old Continent; birch kaicks to the Arctic people 

 of both ; and canoes of solid wood, hollowed out, to every por- 

 tion of the globe. When these had attained a certain bulk and 

 adequacy of structure, a family might transport itself from one 

 end of the world to the other, in a few seasons, merely by 

 coasting. Thus did the messenger of Vasco de Gama pass, in 



* See Biot on Comets. 



