REVIEW OF PHILOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL RESEARCHES. 535 
those of complexion; and since it has been known that there 
exist national diversities in the shape of the skull, this circum¬ 
stance has been generally selected as furnishing the most per¬ 
manent distinctions, and those which admit of the most extensive 
comparison and classification. Several writers, both French and 
German, have differed from each other as to the number of human 
races which they constitute ; but the most generally received 
system is that which has been adopted by Baron Cuvier, though 
it did not originate with that celebrated writer. Professor 
Camper had thrown out the first hint of a triple division of 
the forms of the skull. He distinguished the facial angle as 
found by his measurement in European, Kalmuc and African 
skulls. But a more important view of the diversities of form 
in the human skull seems also to have originated with Camper; 
for w r e are informed by Scemmerring, that in his unpublished 
commentaries Camper remarked the difference in breadth which 
exists between the three classes of skulls above mentioned, and 
observed that the skulls of the Kalmucs have the greatest 
O 
breadth, those of Europeans a middle degree, and that the 
skulls of African Negroes are the narrowest of all. 
Nobody ever possessed means of observation and compari¬ 
son sufficient for establishing any conclusions of importance as 
to the different forms of the human cranium, until Blumenbach 
had made his admirable collection of skulls. The results of his 
long-continued study of this collection have been published by 
himself at different times. 
“ Blumenbach distinguished, in the first place, three principal 
varieties of form in the human skull,—the oval form, which is 
that of Europeans; the narrow and compressed , which is that of 
Negroes ; and the broad-faced skull, with later ally-projecting 
cheek-bones , belongingto Kalmucs and Mongoles. It happened, 
as I think, unfortunately, that Blumenbach named these va¬ 
rieties of the skull, not from their characteristic forms, but from 
some nations, in whom they in a conspicuous manner occur, or 
from the supposed primitive abode of such nations. Thus the 
broad-faced form is termed by him Mongolian', the compressed , 
JEthiopic, meaning African ; and the oval form , Caucasian. 
The inconvenience which has arisen from the terms thus used 
is the hypothesis to which it has given rise, that these three 
varieties of form are characteristic of three distinct races of 
mankind. This is not Blumenbach’s opinion, but it appears 
to be that of Cuvier, who, in his Regne Animal and other 
works, has adopted Blumenbach’s terms and divisions. Relying 
on the diversity of physical characters, which yet he does not 
consider sufficiently marked to constitute differences of species, 
