REVIEW OF PHILOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL RESEARCHES. 557 
sen ted as branches of one stock, who differ from each other in 
the most decided and remarkable manner, in every respect in 
which one nation can differ from another, with the single ex¬ 
ception that they bear a degree of resemblance in the shape of 
their skulls. The Mongoles and Kalmucs are tribes of nomades 
or wandering shepherds, who roam about the lofty saline plains 
of central Asia, living in wagons, and under moveable tents, as 
their ancestors are said to have lived in the time of /Eschylus: 
they are incapable of changing their habits for those of settled 
and agricultural people. They are all one nation, strictly so 
termed, and have one language, which is polysyllabic in its struc¬ 
ture, admitting inflections and conjugations of nouns and verbs. 
On the other hand, the Chinese are ever known as a people of 
settled, uniform, and changeless habits: their historical records 
deduce them as a separate nation from the earliest ages of anti¬ 
quity, and especially establish their perpetual enmity and dis¬ 
cordance with the Mongolian nomades, who are the very people 
to exclude whom from their borders the famous Chinese wall 
was erected in a remote age. The Chinese and the Indo-Chinese 
nations appropriate to themselves, as we have before observed, 
one entire class of languages, constituting one of the most 
strongly marked examples of a distinct assemblage of human 
idioms, widely differing from all others. It is to these nations 
that the monosyllabic languages belong, consisting of mono¬ 
syllables, incapable of inflection or variation, in which a mere 
change of intonation and juxtaposition alone serves to indicate 
the relations of words to each other. Before we can admit of 
an hypothesis which derives one of these nations from the other, 
we must resolve to shut our eyes against all the evidence that 
can be brought to bear upon such a subject, excepting merely 
that afforded by physical resemblances, which, if we are not 
mistaken, will admit of a different explanation. 
“ The only other connective link between the Mongolian and 
Chinese nations, is the circumstance that they are all worship¬ 
pers of Fo. This can scarcely be thought an argument for their 
unity of race. The religion of Buddha indeed, called in China 
Fo, is well known to have taken its rise in India, among the 
Hindoos who belong to the division of nations termed by Cuvier 
the Caucasian race. It was established at a remote period in 
Tibet, and thence propagated to China, where however it is but 
one of several prevailing superstitions. The Mongoles and Kal¬ 
mucs received it not until a.d. 1250. It is not, therefore, a pecu¬ 
liar and ancient distinction of the Mongolian race. 
“ Many writers have thought fit to associate the native Ame¬ 
rican tribes with the Mongolian race. Cuvier hesitates on 
this subject ; but the excellent naturalists, Von Spix and Mar- 
