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Show 218 THE DESCENT OF MAN. PART I Dr. Lund,6 that the human skulls found in the caves of Brazil, entombed with many extinct mammals, belonged to the same type as that now prevailing throughout the American Continent. Our naturalist would then perhaps turn to geographical distribution, and he would probably declare that forms differing not only in appearance, but fitted for the hottest and dampest or driest countries, as well as for the arctic regions, must be distinct species. He might appeal to the fact that no one species in the group next to man, namely the Quadrumana, can resist a low temperature or any considerable change of climate; and that those species which come nearest to man have never been reared to maturity, even under the temperate climate of Europe. He would be deeply impressed with the fact, first .noticed by Agassiz,7 that the different races of man are distributed over the world in the same zoological provinces, as those inhabited by undoubtedly distinct species and genera of mammals. Tllis is manifestly the case with the Australian, Mongolian, and Negro races of man ; in a less well-marked manner with the Hottentots; but plainly with the Papuans and Malays, who are separated, as Mr. Wallace has shewn, by nearly the same line which divides the great Malayan and Australian zoological provinces. The aborigines of America range throughout the Continent ; and this at first appears opposed to the above rule, for most of the productions of the Southern and Northern halves differ widely ; yet some few living forms, as the but Messrs. Nott and Gliddon (ibid. p. 146, fig. 53) describe him as " a hybrid, but not of negro intermixture." 6 As quoted by Nott and Gliddon, • Types of Mankind,' 1854, p. 439. They give also corroborative evidence; but C. Vogt thinks that the subject requires further investigation. 7 ''Diversity of Origin of the Human Races," in the ' Christian Examiner,' July, 1850. (:HAP. VII. . THE RACES OF MAN. 219 opossum, range from the one into the other, as di~ formerly some of the gigantic Edentata. The Esqmmaux like other Arctic animals, extend round the whol~ polar regions. It should be observed that ~he mammalian forms which inhabit the several zoological provinces, do not differ from each other in the same degree; so that it can hardly be considered as. an anomaly that the Negro differs more, and the Amencan much less, from the other races of man than do the mammals of the same continents from those of the other provinces. Man, it may be added, does not appear to have aboriD"inally inhabited any oceanic island; and in this respect he resembles the other members of his class. In determining whether the varieties of the same kind of domestic animal should be ranked as specifically distinct, that is, whether any of them are descended from distinct wild species, every naturalist would lay much stress on the fact, if established, of their external parasites being specifically distinct. All the more stress would be laid on this fact, as it would be an exceptional one, for I am informed by Mr. Denny that the most different kinds of dogs, fowls, and pigeons, in England, are infested by the same species of Pediculi or lice. Now Mr. A. Murray has carefully examined the Pediculi collected in different countries from the different races of man; 8 and he finds that they differ, not only in colour, but in the structure of their claws and limbs. In every case in which numerous specimens were obtained the differences were constant. The surgeon of a whaling ship in the Pacific assured me that when the Pediculi, with which some Sandwich Islanders on board swarmed, strayed on to the bodies of the English sailors, they died in the course of three or four days. These Pediculi s 'Transact. R. Soc. of Edinburgh,' vol, xxii. 1861, p. 567. |