IH VERTEBRATES 



ind there may be said to be as many different kinds of men as 

 there are countries inhabited. One polished nation does not differ 

 more from another, than the merest savages do from those savages 

 that lie even contiguous to them ; and it frequently happens that 

 a river, or a mountain, divides two barbarous tribes that are unlike 

 each other in manners, customs, features, and complexion. But 

 these differences, however perceivable, do not form such distinc- 

 tions as come within a general picture of the varieties of mankind. 

 Custom, accident, or fashion, may produce considerable alterations 

 in neighboring nations ; their being derived from ancestors of a 

 different climate, or complexion, may contribute to make accidental 

 distinctions, which every day grow less ; and it may be said, that 

 two neighboring nations, how unlike soever at first, will assimilate 

 by degrees ; and, by long continuance, the difference between them 

 will at last become almost imperceptible. It is not, therefore, 

 between contiguous nations we are to look for any strongly marked 

 varieties in the human species : it is by comparing the inhabitants 

 of opposite climates and distant countries ; those who live within 

 the polar circle with those beneath the equator ; those that live on 

 one side of the globe with those that occupy the other. 



Some describe the human family as divided into five vari- 

 eties or races : the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Ethiopian, the 

 Malayan, and the American ; each of these being subdivided into 

 families, as, for instance, the Caucasian race is subdivided into the 

 Caucasian, the Celtic, the Germanic, the 

 Arabian, the Libyan, the Nilotic, and the 

 Indostanic families. 



The Caucasian race are distinguished 

 by the beautiful oval form of their heads, 

 a large and full forehead, regular and dis- 

 tinct features — the face being small and 

 narrow in proportion to the cranium — skin 

 European. Varying from a light rosy white tint to a 



deep brown ; and hair and eyes of various 

 colors. This race is called Caucasian, because its origin is referred 

 to the group of mountains lying between the Black and Caspian 



