/ 



290 



sis, which this great man had framed, of the 

 irregularity of the curvature of the earth, and 

 of the height of the plains in this region, as the 

 effect of an extraordinary swelling of the globe 

 in the direction of the parallels of latitude *. 

 Amerigo Vespucci (if we may be allowed to cite 

 his pretended first Voyage, composed perhaps 

 from the recital of other navigators,) compares 

 the natives to the Tatar nations -f, not for their 

 colour, but for the broadness of their face, and 

 the general expression of their physiognomy. 



But if it be certain, that at the end of the 15th 

 century there were on the coast of Cumana a 

 few men with a white skin, as there are in our 

 days, it must not thence be concluded, that 

 the natives of the New World display every 

 where a similar organization of the dermoidal 

 system. It is not less inaccurate to say, that 

 they are all coppercoloured, than to affirm, 

 that they would not have a tawny hue, if they 

 were not exposed to the heat of the sun, or 

 tanned by the action of the air. The natives 

 may be divided into two very unequal portions 

 with respect to numbers ; to the first belong 

 the Eskimoes of Greenland, of Labrador, and 

 the northern coast of Hudson's Bay, the inha- 



* See note C at the end of this chapter. 



f Vultu hod multura speciosi sunt, quoniam latas facies 

 Tartariis adsimilatas habent. (Americi Vesputii Navigatio 

 prima, in Gryn's Orb, Nov., 1555, p. 212.) 



