HOMINID 751 
but to which an easy transition can be traced from the most char- 
acteristic members of the type. 
D. The brown Polynesians, Malayo-Polynesians, Mahoris, 
Sawaioris, or Kanakas, as they have been variously called, seen 
in their greatest purity in the Samoan, Tongan, and Eastern Poly- 
nesian Islands, are still more modified, and possess less of the 
characteristic Mongolian features; but yet it is difficult to place 
them anywhere else in the system. The large infusion of the 
Melanesian element throughout the Pacific must never be forgotten 
in accounting for the characters of the people now inhabiting the 
islands—an element in many respects so diametrically opposite to 
the Mongolian that it would materially alter the characters, especi- 
ally of the hair and beard, which has been with many authors a 
stumbling-block to the affiliation of the Polynesian with the Mongolian 
stock. This mixture is physically a fine one, and in some propor- 
tions produces a combination, as seen, for instance, in the Maories 
of New Zealand, which in all definable characters approaches quite 
as near, or nearer, to the Caucasian type than to either of the 
stocks from which it may be presumably derived. This resemblance 
has led some ethnologists to infer a real extension of the Caucasian 
element at some very early period into the Pacific Islands, and to 
look upon their inhabitants as the product of a mingling of all the 
three great types of men. Though this is a very plausible theory, 
it rests on little actual proof, since the combination of Mongolo- 
Malayan and Melanesian characters in different degrees, together 
with the local variations certain to arise in communities so isolated 
from each other and exposed to such varied conditions as the in- 
habitants of the Pacific Islands, would probably account for all the 
modifications observed among them. 
E. The native population (before the changes wrought by the 
European conquest) of the great continent of America, excluding 
the Eskimo, present, considering the vast extent of the country 
they inhabit and the great differences of climate and other sur- 
rounding conditions, a remarkable similarity of essential characters 
with much diversity of detail. 
The construction of the numerous American languages, of which 
as many as twelve hundred have been distinguished, is said to point 
to unity of origin, as, though widely different in many respects, 
they are all, or nearly all, constructed on the same general gram- 
matical principle—that called polysynthesis—which differs from that 
of the languages of any of the Old World nations. The mental 
characteristics of all the American tribes have much that is in 
common ; and the very different stages of culture to which they 
had attained at the time of the conquest, as that of the Incas and 
Aztecs and the hunting or fishing tribes of the north and south, 
which have been quoted as evidence of diversities of race, were not 
