198 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



with some degree of exactness in the localities which they 

 occupy, with the zoological and botanical provinces assumed 

 by Agassiz. 



We meet at the outset with the peculiar difficulty of laying 

 hold of Agassiz's opinions, as he has frequently changed them. 1 

 Whilst in 1845 he asserts the unity of mankind as a species, 2 

 we find him in 1850 distribute eleven or twelve, in 1853 

 (Nott and Grliddon), eight, human species in as many zoolo- 

 gical and botanical provinces ; and it appears as if he made 

 this last change chiefly to make these provinces better agree 

 with the existing chief types of mankind. The twelve pro- 

 vinces of 1850 are the following: one arctic; three of the 

 temperate zone in Europe, Asia, and America, the latter in 

 two divisions, the one to the east, the other to the west of the 

 Rocky Mountains ; three tropical provinces, the one of the 

 Atlas, exclusive of the Nile valley and the Cape of Grood Hope, 

 the second in Asia south of the Himalaya, including the Sunda 

 Islands, the third in America ; the eighth province forms New 

 Holland with Van Diemen's Land ; then follows, as a province 

 of doubtful independence, Polynesia ; the throe remaining pro- 

 vinces belong to the temperate zone of South America, the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and the south Polar Circle^ But in 1853 

 he makes the following division': 1. Arctic province; 2. Asia; 

 3. Europe to the north of the Caspian Sea, in the south to the 

 Indus, inclusive of the northern edge of Africa ; 4. America ; 

 5. Africa; 6. India; 7. Australia and New Guinea; 8. Poly- 

 nesia. We shall chiefly keep in view the first distribution in 

 making some observations from an anthropological stand- 

 point. 



1 He endeavours in vain to show, in his essay in the " Christian Examiner/' 

 that his opinion as to the unity of species is not in conflict with his theory of 

 difference of origin; for however we maybe inclined to agree with him andMeigs 

 (in Nott and Gliddon, p. 350), that the question of unity of species is to be 

 separated from that of unity of origin, still the separation has hitherto been 

 very little attended to by zoologists, who mostly consider that the affirmation 

 of the first question implies that of the second. In Germany, Eberhard 

 (" Die Menschenracen," p. 36, Koburg, 1842) seems to have been the first 

 who considered that the question of unity of origin from one pair, should be 

 entirely separated from that of unity of species. He himself is of opinion 

 that every species has originally appeared in several varieties. 



2 Smith, " Unity of the human races," p. 349, New York, 1850. 



