14 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



M. Bory de St. Vincent has so happily illustrated this division of the Cauca- 

 sian race, that I shall chiefly avail myself of his observations in respect to it. He 

 separates the Germanic family into tv^o divisions, the Teutonic and Sclavonic. 



1. "The Teutonic variety is traced to the Hyrcinian forests, the Tyrolese 

 Alps, and the sources of the Sale. Following the Danube, which rises in their 

 country, they advanced eastwardly only into Austria, nor passed the southern 

 Alps; but they spread towards the north, disdaining the rest of the Caucasian 

 race, and reached the sea coast, at first between the Elbe and the Rhine. These 

 were the people who, under the name of Cimbri, occupied the peninsula of Jut- 

 land and the neighbouring islands ; passing thence into Scandinavia, they became 

 the Sunones^ who have since been called Goths.* Coasting the Baltic to the 

 estuary of the Niemen, they were the primitive stock of the Borussi, the ancestors 

 of those Prussians who are now, as it were, lost in the midst of the Sclavonic 

 tribes. Under the names of Saxons, Danes and Normans, they ravaged the Celtic 

 coasts, established themselves at the mouth of the Seine, and passing into the 

 British islands, drove the primitive Celts into the w^estern parts of the country. 

 At a still later period the Teutonic tribes, under the name of Norwegians, peopled 

 the remote island of Iceland." 



The Teutonic language, adds this author, has become the root of the English, 

 Dutch, Danish and Swedish tongues. 



To the preceding statement it may merely be added, that the Goths having 

 issued from Scandinavia in vast numbers, passed to the south, and harassed the 

 Roman provinces. In the second century they settled on the shores of the Palus 

 Maeotis, and thence possessed themselves of Dacia. They were called Ostrogoths 

 and Visigoths, the Eastern and Western Goths. Their subsequent military enter- 

 prises, and especially the conquest and sack of Rome in the fifth century, are 

 familiar to all readers of history. The Vandals were also from the Gothic hive ; 

 they emigrated with King Edric, settled for a time on the borders of the Rhine, 



* The late Mr. Pinkerton has written an elaborate work to prove that the Scythians, Getis and 

 Goths were one people, who originated in Persia, and entered Europe by a northwestern route ; and 

 that the German nations, and even the Pelasgi of Greece, were all lineal descendants of this Asiatic 

 family. I leave these mooted points to the learned in national genealogy, and content myself with 

 the more reasonable exposition of the ingenious French writer, which, in the main, coincides with the 

 researches of Dr. Prichard. The latter author has estabUshed the fact that the Getse of the ancients 

 were not Goths, but Thracians ; and that the domestic history of the Goths themselves establishes 

 their northern origin and German descent. See Pkichard, II, p. 162.— Pinkerton, /^m. on the 

 Goths, ^, 14,31, &c. 



