750 PRIMATES. 
Asiatic Mongols, who in their wanderings northwards and east- 
wards across the American continent, where they have been isolated 
almost as perfectly as an island population would be, hemmed 
in on one side by the eternal Polar ice, and on the other by hostile 
tribes of American Indians, with which they rarely, if ever, mingled, 
have gradually developed characters, most of which are strongly- 
expressed modifications of those seen in their allies who still remain 
on the western side of Behring Strait. It has also been shown 
that these special characteristics gradually increase from west to 
east, and are seen in their greatest perfection in the inhabitants 
of Greenland, at all events in those where no crossing with the 
Danes has taken place. A typical Eskimo skull presents a com- 
bination of characters by which it can be at once distinguished 
from that of any other of the groups of mankind. Such scanty 
remains as have yet been discovered of the earliest inhabitants of 
Europe do not present any structural affinities to this type, and 
there is therefore no justification for the supposition that they 
belonged to the same race, although it is not unlikely that similar 
external conditions may have led them to adopt similar modes of life. 
B. The typical Mongolian races constitute the present popula- 
tion of Northern and Central Asia. They are not very distinctly, 
but still conveniently for descriptive purposes, divided into a 
Northern and a Southern group. 
_ @ The members of the former, Mongolo-Altaic or Sibiric group, 
are united by the affinities of their language. These people, from 
the cradle of their race in the great plateau of Central Asia, have 
at various times poured out their hordes upon the lands lying to the 
west, and thence penetrated almost to the heart of Europe. The 
Lapps, Finns, the Magyars, and the Turks are each the descendants 
of one of these waves of incursion, but they have for so many genera- 
tions intermingled with the peoples through whom they have passed 
in their migrations, or whom they have found in the countries in 
which they have ultimately settled, that their original physical 
characters have been completely modified. Even the Lapps, that 
diminutive tribe of nomads inhabiting the most northern parts of 
Europe, supposed to be of Mongolian descent, show so little of the 
special attributes of that branch that it is difficult to assign them 
a place in it in a classification based upon physical characters. 
The Japanese are said by their language to be allied rather to the 
Northern than to the following branch of the Mongolian stock. 
b. The southern Mongolian or Sinitic group, divided from ‘the 
former chiefly by language and habits of life, includes the greater 
part of the population of China, Tibet, Burma, and Siam. 
C. The next great division of Mongoloid people is the Malay, 
forming the bulk of the population of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago 
and (mixed with the Negro) of Madagascar, subtypical it is true, 
