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ognomy has been noticed by all travellers familliar with both.

The third type of configuration of the skull has been very happily named by Dr. Prichard prognathous, to express its most distinctive character, namely, the forward prominence of the jaws. This character is best seen in some of the Negro races of the Guinea coast; but it is far from being confined to African nations, being almost as decided in some of the Polynesian and Australian races. From the usual appearance of the skull, it might be supposed to have been compressed at the two sides; consequently, instead of being flattened in front, as in the preceding case, the bones of the face project far forwards, and the occiput backwards. This projection is especially manifested in the upper and lower jawbones; and its effect is increased by the circumstance that the front teeth are not implanted vertically in their sockets, so as to meet in the same plane when their edges are brought together, but have a forward slant, so that they meet at an obtuse angle. It is this projection of the jaw, which is the chief cause of the reduction of the facial angle remarked by Camper; and it produces the effect, even where, as in some instances, the forehead rises after the European model. In the typical prognathous skull, however, there is certainly a want of elevation of the forehead; but it does not appear that there is any corresponding diminution in the capacity of the cranial cavity, the retreating form of the forehead being partly due to the backward elongation of the entire skull. As the cavity for the lodgment of the organ of sight is peculiarly spacious in the pyramidal skull, a similar enlargement of the cavity of the nose, and of the openings which lead into it both before and behind, occurs in the present instance: The apparatus for hearing, too, seems to be unusually developed. And thus we have in the prognathous skull the same increase in the proportion of the face to the cranium which we noticed in the pyramidal, though obtained by a different arrangement. This configuration is to be met with, in various degrees, among the greater part of the nations of tropical Africa, south of the Great Desert; and it especially prevails among those which have been rendered most familiar to us from their having been carried across the Atlantic into slavery. It is quite erroneous, however, to regard it, as Blumenbach did, in the light of a type common to the African nations generally; the fact being that in many of them it is scarcely to be discerned,

whilst it is frequently found elsewhere. It is always associated, in our minds, with the idea of degradation; and not unjustly so: for wherever it is well pronounced, we have squalor and destitution, ignorance and brutality. Instead of following an agricultural or pastoral life, such people are, for the most part, hunters, the savage inhabitants of forests, dependent for food upon the accidental produce of the soil or on the chase, and but little advanced in any of the arts of social life.

A more elaborate classification of skulls, taking cognizance of finer shades of difference, has lately been put forth by Dr. Retzius, the distinguished professor of anatomy at Stockholm; but it would not suit our present purpose to go more into detail.

We have now to consider whether these differences re-appear so constantly in all the branches of any particular national stocks, as to justify us in concluding that these stocks were originally distinguishable by the same characters; or whether, in the passage from one group of nations to another, we do not find them undergoing such gradual modifications as to render it impossible to draw any definite line between them: Again, we must further consider whether these characters are so invariably transmitted from one generation to another, where the purity of the race has been preserved, as to necessarily infer their permanency: or whether there is not occasionally adequate evidence of a departure from one or other of these types, and of the assumption of another. We think it better not to encumber ourselves here with the term species, of which so many different definitions have been given; especially since the question, whether the races of mankind are to be regarded as varieties of one species, or as distributable among several, is nothing else than the question of the unity, similarity, or diversity of the original stock, only expressed in other words.

When we examine the cranial conformation of the whole Indo-Atlantic group of nations, we perceive that, although the elliptical type prevails among them, it is in very different degrees of development. Certain races manifest a decided tendency towards the pyramidal, others towards the prognathous character; and considerable variations may be seen among individuals of the same race. If the so-called Mongolian group be surveyed in the same manner, the peculiarities of the pyramidal skull will be often found so much softened down, as to approach the elliptical form; sometimes throughout the whole of certain races-oc

casionally only in individuals. Between the proper African nations (excluding those of Arabian descent) the difference is still more remarkable. Some of them present the prognathous type in its most complete development; in other cases, the pyramidal form is nearly as evident as among many of the Northern Asiatics; others again discover a decided tendency towards the more elevated and symmetrical type of the so-called Caucasians. There is, at least, an equal dissimilarity in cranial configuration among the widely spread and isolated tribes by which Oceania is peopled. For, whilst the skulls of the Malayan portion of the population are referable to the pyramidal type rather than to any other, there are savage races in and around Australia which are nearly, if not quite, as prognathous as the African Negroes; at the same time, in many parts of the Polynesian Archipelago, we meet with tribes of higher civilization, whose skulls can scarcely be distinguished from the best European forms. So, among the American races, the Esquimaux is the exaggeration of the pyramidal type; yet, in some of the Southern nations the character of the skull inclines to become prognathous; in others elliptical. Such indeed is the extent of variation, that it would seem utterly impossible to establish any peculiar form as characteristically American. "A Peruvian," says a distinguished naturalist, M. d'Orbigny, speaking from personal observation, "is more different from a Pata gonian, and a Patagonian from a Guarini, than is a Greek from an Ethiopian or a Mongolian."

Those ethnologists, therefore, who uphold the doctrine of originally distinct types, have been obliged to admit, not three or five merely, but twenty or thirty; and, as we increase our acquaintance with the physical character of tribes at present little known, we are continually adding to the number. There is this further difficulty. Although at the present time a considerable number of forms might be selected, with well-marked differences between them; nevertheless, on comparison of the whole, the types, which appear to be most remotely separated, are ascertained to be really connected by such a gradation of intermediate or transitional forms, that it is frequently impossible to say to which of the types a particular specimen should be referred. This fact of itself invalidates the supposition of the uniform transmission of physical characters from parent to offspring; on which supposition the presumption of the original diversity of races chiefly rests. For, on the

theory of distinct stocks, each race should have fixed and definite characters, common to all its subdivisions: whereas, in nature, on the contrary, we find the characters shading off in families or individuals, so as to approach a common type.

By considerations of this kind we are conducted to the second head of our inquiry ; namely-whether historical evidence leads to the belief that the cranial characters of the several races are really thus transmitted, with little or no modification, from generation to generation-or whether an actual passage may be effected in time from one type to another? Now, of such alterations, Dr. Prichard has collected abundant evidence. One of the most striking examples, perhaps, is afforded by the cranial conformation of the Turks of Europe and Western Asia. It closely resembles that of the great bulk of the European nations; departing so widely from that of the Turks of Central Asia, that many writers have referred the former to the Caucasian rather than to the Mongolian stock. Yet historical evidence sufficiently proves, that the Western Turks originally belong to the Northern Asiatic group of nations, with which the Eastern portion of their nation still remains associated, not only in its geographical position, but in its physical characters and habits of life; and that it is in the Western branch, not in the Eastern, that the change has taken place. Some writers have supposed that this change, from the pyramidal to the elliptical form of skull, might be explained as the result of an intermixture of the Turkish race with that of the countries they have conquered, or by the introduction of Georgian or Circassian slaves into their harems. the cause suggested is plainly inadequate to the effect. For we know that in the Christian countries subjugated by the Turks, the conquering and the conquered races have been kept separate by mutual hatred, fostered by their difference in religion and manners; while any improvement effected by the introduction of Georgian and Circassian slaves must have been confined to the higher classes, who alone could afford to purchase them. In either case the assigned cause, even if admitted to the utmost possible extent, would have merely produced a hybrid or intermediate race, instead of effecting the phenomenon for which we have to account the entire substitution of a new type for the original one. So complete a change we can scarcely attribute to any other cause than civilization and social improvement; the constant tendency of which is to smooth down the awk

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ward prominences both of the pyramidal and the prognathous skulls, and bring them towards the symmetry of the elliptical. The Eastern Turks, retaining the nomadic habits of their ancestors, have retained also their cranial conformation.

Another instance of the same modification is to be found in the Magyar race, of which the Hungarian nobility is composed. This race, which is not inferior in physical or mental characters to any in Europe, is proved by historical and philological evidence to have been a branch of the great Northern Asiatic stock, closely allied in blood to the stupid and feeble Ostiaks and the untamable Laplanders. About ten centuries ago they were expelled by Turkish invasion from Great Hungary, the country they then inhabited, which bordered on the Uralian mountains; and they in their turn expelled the Slavonian nations from the fertile parts of Hungary, which they have occupied ever since. Having thus exchanged their abode, from the most rigorous climate of the old continent,a wilderness where Ostiaks and Samoiedes pursue the chase during only the mildest season,--for one in the south of Europe, amid fertile plains, abounding in rich harvests, they laid aside the rude and savage habits which they are recorded to have brought with them, and adopted a settled mode of life. In the course of a thousand years, their type of cranial conformation has been changed from the pyramidal to the elliptical, and they have become a handsome people, of fine stature and regular European features. There is no reason whatever to regard this improvement as arising in any considerable degree from an intermixture of races; the Magyars being to this day distinct from the other inhabitants of Hungary. Nor would it have been produced by mere change of place, without civilization. For, among the Lapps,-who, though inhabiting Europe, retain the nomadic habits of their Mongolian ancestors, the pyramidal form is still preserved

The Negro type is one which is not unfrequently cited as an example of the permanence of the physical characters of races. The existing Ethiopian physiognomy is said to agree precisely with the representations transmitted to us from the remotest periods, in those marvellous pictures, whose preservation in the tombs and temples of Egypt has revealed to us so much of the inner life of one of the most anciently civilized nations of the world and this physiognomy, it is further maintained, continues at present

identically the same from parent to child, even where the transportation of a Negro population to temperate climates and civilized associates, (as in the United States,) has entirely changed the external conditions of their existence. Now it is perfectly true that the Negro races which have made no advance in civilization, retain the prognathous character even in temperate regions; and this is precisely what we should expect. But it is not true, when they have made any progress in civilization, that they remain equally unaltered. The most elevated forms of skull among the African nations are found in those which have emerged, in a greater or less degree, from their original barbarism. This has chiefly taken place through the influence of the Mahommedan religion, which prevails extensively among the people of the central and eastern part of Africa. And although there is no historical evidence of their original similarity in cranial conformation to the truly prognathous Negroes, yet all probability is in favor of the supposition. Otherwise, we must imagine that they have always been distinguished by the same elevation of the skull as distinguishes them at present. In which case we shall be obliged either to resort to the hypothesis of a great number of original stocks for the nations of Central Africa alone, or to imagine that the most degraded Negroes have sprung from the more elevated type:which, to be sure, would be as great an admission as we can desire of the capability of modification in an instance which is usually regarded as the most permanent of all.

In regard to the transplanted Negroes, it is obvious that the time which has elapsed since their removal is as yet too short to expect any considerable alteration of cranial configuration. Many of the Negroes now living in the West Indian islands are natives of Africa, and a large proportion of the Negro population, both there and in the United States, are removed by no more than one or two descents from their African ancestors. But according to the concurrent testimony of disinterested observers, both in the West Indies and in the United States, an approximation in the Negro physiognomy to the European model is progressively taking place, in instances in which, although there has been no intermixture of European blood, the influence of a higher civilization has been powerfully exercised for a lengthened period. The case of Negroes employed as domestic servants is particularly noticed. Dr. Hancock, of Guiana, even asserts that it is fre

quently not at all difficult to distinguish a Negro of pure blood belonging to the Dutch portion of the colony, from another belonging to the English settlements, by the correspondence between the features and expression of each, and those which are char acteristic of their respective masters. This alteration, too, is not confined to a change of form in the skull, or to the diminution of the projection of the upper jaw; but it is seen also in the general figure, and in the form of the soft parts, as the lips and nose. And Mr. Lyell was assured, during his recent tours in America, by numerous medical men residing in the slave states, that a gradual approximation was taking place, in the configuration of the head and body of the Negroes, to the European model, each successive generation exhibiting an improvement in these respects. The change was most apparent in such as are brought into closest and most habitual relation with the whites, (as by domestic servitude,) without any aciual intermixture of races, a fact which the difference of complexion in the offspring would at once betray.

that a race presenting such a decided resemblance to the Mongolian stock, should be found dwelling in the only part of Africa in which the physical features of the country resemble those of Central Asia: and in the choice of difficulties we are disposed on the whole to agree with Dr. Prichard, in thinking that the Hottentots are probably a proper African race whose change of type may be attributed to the prolonged influence of these conditions.

Of the possibility of a change from the pyramidal to the prognathous type, a more satisfactory instance is afforded by the inhabitants of Oceania. Even where they are most isolated from each other, the remarkable conformity in the fundamental characters of their languages, as demonstrated by Wilhelm von Humboldt, appears (with other considerations) to have established the common origin of all the Malayan, Polynesian, and Australian races. There is good reason to believe that, together with the other inhabitants of south-eastern Asia, they must originally have presented some modification of the pyramidal form. At the present day, however, the prognathous character is highly developed in those natives of Australia and the adjacent islands, which seem to have longest remained in the most degraded state; -whilst, on the other hand, very favorable examples of the elliptical type are produceable from among them.

But, we may illustrate our argument nearer home. Races which have advanced the furthest in civilization, and attained the greatest perfection of physical form, produce also examples of physical inferiority in individuals or families. Among other consequences of long-continued want and ignorance, the conformation of the cranium appears to have been affected. The Sanatory Commission would arrive at this conclusion, we believe, were it to examine the worst part of the population of our great towns; the most convincing proof, however, is unfortunately fur

There would thus seem to be a tendency in both the pyramidal and the prognathous types to pass into the elliptical, under the influence of those multifarious conditions which are embodied in the general term civilization. The question how far the prognathous may be changed to the pyramidal, or vice versa, from want of adequate historical evidence, is involved in greater obscurity. As already remarked, the Hottentot skull is decidedly pyramidal; with oblique eyes, yellowish complexion, sparse hair, and the other characters of the Northern Asiatics. Are the Hottentots descended from the common African stock?—and are their peculiarities of conformation to be accounted for by the influence of the physical peculiarities of their country, which, as Dr. Prichard has pointed out, present an extraordinary correspondence with those inhabited by the roving Mongoles and Tartars? Or are they in reality an off-nished by the lowest classes of the Irish set from the Tartar stock, driven into the remotest corner of the African continent, by the gradual extension and increasing power of the proper African races? It is obvious that the study of the affinities of their language must be the chief means of deciding this question; and these are very imperfectly known. We observe that the Chev. Bunsen inclines to the belief that the Hottentot language is a degraded Kafir, as the Bushman tongue is a degraded Hottentot (Report, p. 286.) It is certainly a remarkable coincidence

population. There are certain districts in Leitrim, Sligo, and Mayo, (as pointed out by an intelligent writer in the Dublin University Magazine, No. 48,) chiefly inhabited by the descendants of the native Irish driven by the British from Armagh and the south of Down, about two centuries ago. These people, whose ancestors were well-grown, able-bodied and comely, are now reduced to an average stature of five feet two inches, are pot-bellied, bow-legged, and abortively featured; and are especially remarkable for "open projecting

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mouths, with prominent teeth and exposed | gums, their advancing cheek-bones and depressed noses bearing barbarism on their very front." In other words, within so short a period, they seem to have acquired a prognathous type of skull, like the savages of Australia;- thus giving such an example of deterioration from known causes, as almost compensates, by its value to future ages, for the suffering and debasement which past generations have endured in perfecting its appalling lesson." The hordes of wretched Irish, whom famine has driven to seek subsistence in the seaports and manufacturing towns of Great Britain, must have enabled many of our readers to make this observation for themselves:-every gradation being perceptible, from the really noble type of countenance and figure seen in some of them, to that utterly debased aspect which can be looked at only with disgust. It is marvellous, indeed, how close is the physical resemblance between the lowest classes of the Irish population and the natives of Australia, as depicted in the voyage of the "Astrolabe." The delineations of the latter, when first seen, gave us the feeling of old acquaintanceship. In both cases, the same cause a long-continued deficiency of food and social degradation (where a sufficient elevation to resist these depressing agencies had not been previously attained)-has terminated in the same results. And, although the ancestral types of the two were in all probability very different, the changes thus induced have tended, in a most remarkable manner, to bring about a singular similarity. We shall hereafter see how short a time has been found sufficient to produce a corresponding alteration in certain branches of the Hottentot race. It is an untoward circumstance in human nature, that alterations for the worse appear to take much more quickly and much more certainly, than alterations for the better.

We need not stop to examine the other peculiarities of the bony skeleton, which have sometimes been supposed to distinguish the races of men from each other. It has been maintained, for example, that the form of the pelvis differs so much in the European and the Negro, as to constitute a valid distinction between the two races; and that different races have their characteristic pelves; some light, some heavy, some with an oval opening, some with a round aperture, some approaching the quadrilateral form, and some being wedged-shaped. But the careful and extended comparisons of those eminent anato

mists, the Professors Weber of Bonn, have shown that the real facts regarding the configuration of the pelvis are precisely analogous to those relating to the conformation of the cranium. No one form is assignable to any particular nation or group of nations, as a constant distinctive character; but specimens of each kind are found in the same races. At the same time, particular types are more common than others in particular races, a certain relation being discernible between the prevalent form of the pelvic cavity and that of the cranium. So the "cucumber shin," broad flat foot, and projecting heel, which are popularly regarded as typical characters of the Negro race, are found, upon a more extended survey, to belong chiefly to that small proportion of it with which we happen to be most familiar, and to disappear wherever the cranium is more elevated. Even among the Guinea-coast Negroes, and their immediate descendants, individuals are occasionally found whose persons might be taken as models of symmetry and vigor: witness the celebrated athlete, a cast of whose body is conspicuously displayed in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of London. Such facts put a negative on the popular notion of the permanency of characters of this kind; on which assumption, however, the doctrine of the original diversity of the Negro and European races always has proceeded.

There is probably no evidence of original diversity of race, which is so generally and unhesitatingly relied upon, as that derived from the color of the skin and the character of the hair. That the Ethiopian should change his hue, is by many considered to be as impossible as that the sun should rise in the west. And the retention of the characteristic hue of a race in the descendants of individuals who have long since migrated into a temperate climate, is continually appealed to as a triumphant argument in favor of a position, which, it is maintained, is conformable alike to the teachings of history and to every-day observation. Nothing is easier than to give a plausible aspect to this opinion; but it will not, we think, stand the test of a searching examination, any better than the doctrine of the restriction of particular conformations of the cranium to particular races. Let us proceed, then, to discuss it in the same manner; considering, in the first place, whether characters derived from the skin and hair are at the present time so constantly presented by different races, as to be capable of being em

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