OF THE HUMAN RACE. 



difterent appearances of mankind, in different parts of it,, and especially if 

 we contrast these appearances where they are most unlike, we caniiOt but 

 be struck with astonishment, and feel anxious for information concefMng 

 the means by which so extraordinary an effect has been produced. The 

 height of the Patagonian and the Caffre is seldom less than six feet, md it 

 is no uncommon thing to meet with individuals among them that measyre 

 from six feet seven to six feet ten ; compared with these, the Laplanders 

 and Eskimaux are real dwarfs ; their stature seldom reaching five feet, and 

 being more commonly only four. Observe the delicate cuticle, and the 

 exquisite rose and lily that beautify the face of the Georgian or Circassian : 

 contrast them with the coarse sfcin, and greasy blackness of the African 

 negro, and imagination is lost in the discrepancy. Take the nicely-turned 

 and globular form of the Georgian head, or the elegant and unangular oval 

 of the Georgian face : compare the former with the flat skull of the Cari^ ; 

 and the latter with the flat visage of the Mogul Tartar, and it must, at first 

 sight, be difliicultto conceive that each of these could have proceeded from 

 one common source. Yet the diversities of the intellectual powers are, 

 perhaps, as great as those of the corporeal : though i am ready to admit, 

 that for certain interested purposes of the worst and wickedest description, 

 these diversities, for the last half century, have, even in our own country, 

 been magnified vastly beyond their fair average, though the calumny has 

 of late begun to lose its power. 



The external characters thus glanced at, form a few of the extreme 

 boundaries : but all of them run into each other by such nice and imper- 

 ceptible gradations in contiguous countries, and sometimes even among 

 the same people, as to constitute innumerable shades of varieties, and to 

 render it difficult, if not impossible, to determine occasionally to what re- 

 gion an individual may belong when at a distance from his own home. 



It has hence been necessary to classify the human form ; and the five 

 grand sections, for we can no longer call them quarters, into which the 

 globe is divided by the geographers of our own day, present us with a sys- 

 tem of classification equally natural and easy : for in each of these sections 

 we meet with a marked distinction, a characteristic outline that can never 

 be mistaken, except in the few anomalies already adverted to, and which 

 belong to almost every general rule ; or in instances in which we can obvi- 

 ously trace an intermixture of aboriginal families. 



Before we attempt, then, to account for these distinctions, let us en- 

 deavour, as briefly as possible, to point them out ; and consider them under 

 the five heads of the 



European race ; 

 Asiatic race ; 

 American race ; 

 African race ; 

 Australian race ; 



or as they are denominated by M. Blumenbach, in his excellent work 

 upon this subject,* the Caucassian, Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, and 

 Malay varieties. 



Gmelin has pursued the same general divisions, but has merely distin- 

 guished the respective races ; and accordingly his five, definitions are the 

 white, brown, copper-coloured or red, black, and tawny man. 



* De Generi Humani Varietate Natira. 



