50 
MAMMALIA. 
head ; and it is this one which has given rise to the most civilized nations, to those which have gene- 
rally held the rest in subjection : it varies in complexion and in the colour of the hair. 
The Mongolian is known by his projecting cheek-bones, flat visage, narrow and oblique eyebrows, 
scanty beard, and olive complexion. Great empires have been established by this race in China and 
Japan, and its conquests have sometimes extended to this side of the Great Desert ; but its civilization 
has always remained stationary. 
The Negro race is confined to the southward of the Atlas chain of mountains : its colour is black, 
its hair crisped, the cranium compressed, and nose flattened. The projecting muzzle and thick bps 
evidently approximate it to the Apes : the hordes of which it is composed have always continued 
barbarous. 
The name Caucasian has been affixed to the race from which we descend, because tradition and the 
filiation of nations seem to refer its origin to that group of mountains situate between the Caspian and 
Black Seas, whence it has apparently extended by radiating all around. The nations of the Caueasus, 
or the Circassians and Georgians, are even now considered as the handsomest on earth. The principal 
ramifications of this race may be distinguished by the analogies of language. The Armenian or 
Syrian branch, spreading southward, produced the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the hitherto untameable 
Arabs, who, after Mahomet, expected to become masters of the world; the Phoenicians, the Jews, the 
Abyssinians, which were Arabian colonies, and most probably the Egyptians. It is from this branch, 
always inclined to mysticism, that have sprung the most widely extended forms of religion. Science 
and Hterature have sometimes flourished among its nations, but always in a strange disguise and 
figurative style. j- -j j 
The Indian, German, and Pelasgic branch is much more extended, and was much earher divided : 
notwithstanding which, the most numerous affinities have been recognized between its four principal 
languages— the Sanscrit, the present sacred language of the Hindoos, and the parent of the greater 
number of the dialects of Hindostan ; the ancient language of the Pelasgi, common parent of the 
Greek, Latin, many tongues that are extinct, and of all those of the south of Europe ; the Gothic or 
Teutonic, from which are derived the languages of the north and north-west of Europe, such as the 
German, Dutch, English, Danish, Swedish, and their dialects ; and finally, the Sclavonian, from which 
are descended those of the north-east, the Russian, Polish, Bohemian, and that of the Vandals. 
It is by this great and venerable branch of the Caucasian stock, that philosophy, the arts and 
sciences, have been carried to their present state of advancement; and it has continued to be the 
depository of them for thirty centuries. 
It was preceded in Europe by the Celts, whose tribes, once very numerous, came by the north, and 
are now confined to its most western extremities ; and by the Cantabrians, who passed from Africa 
into Spain, and have become confounded with the many nations whose posterity have intermingled in 
that peninsula. . j * x-n 
The ancient Persians originate from the same source as the Indians, and their descendants still 
present a very close resemblance to the nations of Europe. 
The Scythian and Tartar branch, extending first towards the north and north-east, and always 
wandering over the immense plains of those countries, returned but to devastate the happier abodes of 
their more civiUzed brethren. The Scythians, who, at so remote a period, made irruptions into Upper 
Asia- the Parthians, who there destroyed the Greek and Roman domination ; the Turks, who there 
subverted that of the Arabs, and subjugated in Europe the unfortunate remnant of the Grecian people, 
were all offsets from this branch. The Finlanders and Hungarians are tribes of the same division, 
which have strayed among the Sclavonic and Teutonic nations. Their original country, to the north 
and eastward of the Caspian Sea, still contains inhabitants who have the same ongin, and speak j 
similar languages ; but these are mingled with many other petty nations, variously descended, and of | 
different languages. The Tartars remained unmixed longer than the others throughout that extent of t; 
country included between the mouth of the Danube to beyond the Irtisch, from which they so long f 
menaced Russia, and where they have finally been subjugated by her. The Mongoles, however, have 
mingled their blood with that of the nations they conquered, many traces of which may still be 
among the inhabitants of Lesser Tartary. ^ » 
It is to the east of this Tartar branch of the Caucasian race that the Mongolian race begins, whence | 
it extends to the eastern ocean. Its branches, the Calmucks and Kalkas, still wandering shepherds. 
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