28 the iTHnatoaif or south eastern mia. 



yaars in the Asiatic table land, because there is everything thera to 



Srevent mental culture and produce permanence and uniformity* 

 tut we must pause before admitting that the Turanian physiog- 

 nomy is proper to such regions, and the negro to the African. I 

 should ^esi^te to believe that an English race would be physically 

 transformed into negroes in the one region or into Mongols in (he 

 other, however prolonged their residence, provided the blood 

 remained pure. It must have been a mere accident, humanly 

 ■peaking, tnat the progenitor of the Turanian family, — by whatever 

 influences of physical geography, the tendency to the form trans- 

 mitted to him from his forefathers was originally given, and 

 wherever these influences first operated, — happened to be located 

 in a particular part of the globe which favoured the spread of the 

 race over the eastern and northern regions, and not over the south- 

 western. Hitherto it appears that the different types are very 

 persistent in cli mares and regions that differ widely. The physiog- 

 nomy of the Laplander and the Mongol may he found in In Jia 

 and in the Indian Archipelago. The snows of Lapland and of 

 Greenland have not affected the colour of the Turanian hair, which 

 remains as black in the latter and in some tribes of the former 

 ai amongst the Chinese, the Malays and the S, American tribes. 

 The type common to New Zealand, America and China must havs 

 been preserved, during several ihoinatvU of years, under all thd 

 climatic changes presented by the region* over which different 

 tribes must have been diffused, before this type spread Itsalii to 

 points so remote fr-tm each other as those in which it is now found. 



I am inclined to give much greater importance to intermixture 

 of blood than Dr Pcichard h >s done. He has systematically 

 depreciated the influence of this great transforming power. But 

 as the subject cannot bp entered on incidentally in the mode in 

 which my high respect for him require;*, I will not at present 

 advance any positive opinion on its bearing on S. E. Asian eth no* 

 logy, but merely draw attention to the fact that the Turanian 

 physiognomy exhibits the greatest changes when its tribes approach 

 those belonging to the other ty pes, or are placed in regions where 

 they are exposed to the contact of foreigners. In the middle of 

 Asia they have always been in great measure secluded. On their 

 south eastern frontier the Mongols and Tungusians march with 

 people of the same type^— the Chinese, — and they pass imperceptibly 

 into them. On the west and south-west the Turanian are in 

 contact with Indo-European, Semitic and Indo-African races, and 

 I think it will be found that wherever this contact has lasted lon^, 

 a change has been wrought and new varieties resulted. It is 

 impossible that different races can come together in the same district 

 or region without a process of assimilation commencing which, 

 extends to person, language and maimers, in a word to every thine 

 human. They may be kept apart in a greater or less degree, and 

 for a longer or shorter period, by geographical obstacles and by 



