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Show 23G THE DESCENT OF MAN. PART I. ing the varying offspring; but most of our races have been formed, not intentionally from a selected pair, but unconsciously by the preservation of many individuals which have varied, however slightly, in some useful or desired manner. If in one country stronger and heavier horses, and in another country lighter and fleeter horses, were habitually preferred, we may feel sure that two distinct sub-breeds would, in the course of time, be produced, without any particular pairs or individuals having been separated and bred from in either country. Many races have been thus formed, and their manner of formation is closely analogous with that of natural species. We know, also, that the horses which have been brought to the Falkland Islands have become, during successive generations, smaller and weaker, whilst those which have run wild on the Pampas have acquired larger and coarser heads; and such changes are manifestly due, not to any. one pair, but to all the individuals having been subJected to the same conditions, aided, perhaps, by the principle of reversion. The new sub-breeds in no~e of these cases are descended from any single pmr, but from many individuals which have varied in different degrees, but in the same general manner; and we may conclude that the races of man have been similarly produced, the modifications beinO" either the direct result of exposure to different cond~ions or the indirect result of some form of selection. But' to this latter subject we shall presently return. On the Extincti~n of the Races of ]fan.-The partial and complete extmction of many races and sub-races of man are historically known events. Humboldt saw in South America a parrot which was the sole living creature that could speak the language of a lost tribe. CHAP. Vlf. THE RACES OF 1tiAN. 237 Ancient monuments and stone implements found in all parts of the world, of which no tradition is preserved by the present inhabitants, indicate much extinction. Some small and broken tribes, remnants of former races, still survive in isolated and generally mountainous districts. In Europe the ancient races were all, according to Schaaffhausen/11 "lower in "the scale than the rudest living savages;" they must therefore have differed, to a certain extent, from any existing race. The remains described by Professor Broca29 from Les Eyzies, though they unfortunately appear to have belonged · to a single family, indicate a race with a most singular combination of low or simious and high characteristics, and is "entirely different "from any other race, ancient or modern, that we have ''ever heard of.'' It differed, therefore, from the quaternary race of the caverns of Belgium. Unfavourable physical conditions appear to have had but little effect in the extinction of races.30 Man has long lived in the extreme regions of the North, with no wood wherewith to make his canoes or other implements, and with blubber alone for burning and giving him warmth, but more especially for melting the snow. In the Southern extremity of America the Fuegians survive without the protection of clothes, or of any building worthy to be called a hovel. In South Africa the aborigines wander over the most arid plains, where dangerous beasts abound. Man can withstand the deadly influence of the Terai at the foot of the Himalaya, and the pestilential shores of tropical Africa. :~.~ Translation in 'Anthropological Review,' Oct. 1868, p. 431. ~g 'Transact. Int<::rnat. Congrc:;s of Prehistoric Arch.' 1868, p. 112- 175. See also Broca (translation) in 'Anthropological Review,' Oct. 18G8, p. 410. Jo Dr. Gcrlo.nd, 'Ucbc1· do.s Amstcrben dcr Nuturvolkcr,' 1868, s. 82. |