stretching of its claws produces a web between them, and it becomes a regular water-fowl; or it extends its limbs to walk in deeper places, and gradually its legs are prolonged to the length of the crane's or the flamingo's. These two agencies, combined new wants, and the disposition of Nature to meet them, conspired to make man out of the baboon. One of these probably the Angola Orang, from some untold reason lost the habit of climbing trees, or holding by their hind as well as fore limbs. After thus perambulating the earth for many generations, the former changed into a shape more suited to their habits, and became feet, and they gradually acquired the habit of walking erect. They now no longer needed their jaws for cropping fruit or for fighting with one another, having their fore feet or hands now disposable for these purposes; and hence by degrees, their snouts shortened, and their faces became more vertical. Progressing still farther in this road to humanization, their grin subsided into a courtly smile, and their jabbering resolved itself into articuLate sounds.

This low materialistic theory is abundantly confuted by the experience and observation of several thousand years. The busy ant constructs its labyrinths now in the same manner in which it did in the days of Solomon. The beaver builds its dam now as it did in the days when Pliny lived and wrote. Neither, by any process whatever, have they been able to advance beyond their appointed sphere. Man too has lived with inherent powers, struggling in his nature, and yet they have not externalized themselves in some new and higher development. If the theory were well grounded, we might expect constant and higher processions beyond man. From him would shoot forth new sprouts of living action, to be metamorphosed, inversely from the ancient fable, into some higher nature.

There have been others who supposed that the diverse races originated immediately after the Deluge; the different germs being laid in persons, who escaped the overwhelming waters by clambering on the tops of the loftiest mountains. The absurdity of this hypothesis needs no refutation.

Having thus taken a summary historical survey of the opponents of our theory, we proceed to state in brief the systems for the classification of the races, and will then endeavor by some facts and arguments to show how it was possible for the contrarieties existing in the Human Race at present to have been brought about. Having done this there will be no difficulty in the supposition that all men have emanated from one generic fountain. This possible solution will create a strong presump

tive argument, in favor of the Mosaic Record. The human race will be referred to one common channel, which being influenced by terrestrial and local influences, branched off into subordinate streams, thus causing the great diversity which is known to exist at the present time. The present results of ethnographic research enable us to settle conclusively the question: Could such varieties as we now see in the human race have sprung from one stock? This demonstrated, we will have removed the grounds on which the deniers of Revelation make so bold a stand. No doubt the farther investigations being made in this interesting department of science, will settle this whole question with absolute certainty. Then shall we see these two compassing branches of human life brought together like concentric circles, to rest on one common central point.

Aristotle appears to have recorded the classification prevalent in his time and in still earlier times, when he informs us that the older physiognomists decided of a person's character by the resemblance of his features to "those of nations who differ in appearance, and manners, as the Egyptians, Thracians and Scythians." By the first he no doubt means the negro race; for besides the impossibility of his omitting this in speaking of the varieties in the human species, in another place he evidently confounds the two; saying that persons who are very dark are also timid, being referred to the Egyptian and Ethiopian race." The very interesting and complicated question whether the ancient Egyptian was formed on the type of the negro? here presents itself. Aristotle maintains the affirmative of the question, as we have seen. His theory of such an identity has been contested by the celebrated Blumenbach, whose name at once reminds us of a chief-magistrate in the united kingdom of Natural science. He contends that all the remains of the Egyptians oppose the statements of the classics, who seem to coincide with Aristotle. The painted representations on monuments according to this great naturalist always represent the Egyptians painted of a red or tawny color, with long streaming hair; while we often see the negroes represented beside them, with a jet black color, frizzled hair, and perfect Negro features, precisely as they really are at the present day. This theory is still farther sustained by the mummies themselves excavated after the lapse of many centuries. The skulls of these, as Mr. Laurence observes, invariably have the European, without a trace of the Negro feature.

The solution to these contradictory statements, may best be made by the supposition that the Grecians saw the inhabitants

of Central Africa in Egypt who had flocked there to serve as tributaries in the army, and thus were led to confound them with the indigenous population. The next upon the list are the Scythians, who compose the Germanic tribes, which were found scattered over the whole of Scythia. Besides the representations of them on monuments, the descriptions of them by Ovid in his exile present all the traits of the ancient Germans. Thus their hair is described as yellow or light colored, and as always unshorn. The third race of men enumerated by Aristotle in his classification consists of the Thracians. This corresponds to the olive or Mongul, the only one wherewith he must have been acquainted that finds no place in his enumeration. Aristotle being guided chiefly by color in his classification, and having given us the extremes, must intend to represent by this an intermediate, differing somewhat however from the Grecian complexion. Again: Homer has described the Thracians as ȧxpóxoμoi, or as having their hair only on the crown of the head. This seems opposed to the description given us of the Grecian or Germanic fashion, which rather cherished an abundant growth of hair, but is a very striking characteristic of Kalmuck costume, wherein as in that of many other Mongul nations, the head is shaved and only a tuft or tress of hair is left on the crown.

Other reflections such as the prevalence of Shamanism in the religion of Thessaly, and the origin of Equestrianism, attributed in fable to the same century, indicate a relationship with the race now occupying northern and central Asia.

For many ages this classification as proposed by Aristotle continued current, until the multiplication of intermediate shades of complexion made the system too complicated, and too clumsy for use. According to that theory the human race might be considered to be divided like the earth it inhabited, into three grand geographical divisions or zones; the very white occupying the colder regions; the black inhabiting the torrid-and the more fair the temperate region.

The first who proposed a new method for this important study was Governor Pownall. Though he adopted color as the basis of his classification, he yet suggested the propriety of attending to the conformation of the cranium in the various families of mankind. Camper however was the first, to lay down a canon for the determination of the configuration of heads. He united in his preparation for his work a perfect, practical knowledge of art, and an acquaintance with physiology and comparative anatomy. The skull is viewed by him in profile, and first a line is drawn from the entrance of the ear (the meatus auditorius) to

the basis of the nostrils; then a second from the most prominent point of the forehead to the extreme border of the upper jaw, where the teeth are rooted (the alveolar process of the superior maxillary bone). The angle formed by the intersection of these two lines gives what is called the facial angle, and forms in Camper's system the specific characteristic of each human family.

To this system of measurement serious objections have been made by Blumenbach. He observes that there is a great vagueness in fixing the origin of lines as marked out by Camper; but principally he objects that it is a measurement totally inapplicable to those races or families whose most marked distinctive, consists in the latitude of the skull rather than in the frontal projection.

It is to Blumenbach, a master mind in the department of Physiology, that we owe the system of classification, now almost universally followed. His museum contains the most complete and satisfactory collection of skulls in existence-and his works are a well filled store house from which all must draw who wish to make progress in this study. Blumenbach has here achieved by extensive investigation and assiduous study, what Audubon has accomplished for Ornithology, or Baron von Humboldt for the entire field of Natural Science.

Blumenbach's classification is determined primarily by the contour of the cranium, and secondarily by the color of the hair, skin and iris. In his canon for the determination of the specific differences in the human race, particular attention is paid in the first place to the natural configuration of the skull; and in the second place to the manner in which the molar or cheekbones are connected with the temporal or bones at the ear, by means of an arch called the zygoma so formed as to allow strong muscles to pass under it, and be fixed to the lower jaw. In the construction of his rule, Blumenbach views the head in its natural position from above and behind; and the relative proportions of the parts thus visible gives what he calls the vertical rule or norma verticalis. Trying the whole human race by this canon, he divides it into three principal families, with two intermediate ones. The three leading divisions he calls the Caucasian or central, secondly the Ethiopian, and thirdly the Mongul, or two extreme variations. In the Caucasian or as others have called it the Circassian, the skull is more symmetrical and the zygomatic arches enter into the general outline. In the Negro's skull you see the remarkable lateral compression of the forepart of the skull, by which the arches though themselves much flattened, yet come to protrude much beyond it. The

Mongul cranium is distinguished by the extraordinary breadth of its front, in which the zygomatic curvature is completely detached from the general circumference. Between the Caucasian variety and each of the extremes is an intermediate class, possessing in part the distinctives of the extremes, and forming a transition from the centre to them. That between the Caucasian and Negro families is the Malay; the link between the former and the Mongul is the American variety.

With this imperfect sketch of the different systems of classifi cation we proceed straight-forward to the great problem to be solved, how could such varieties as we have seen, have taken their rise in the human species? Was it by some sporadic convulsion like those spoken of in Geology, in which the human race was torn asunder into several great branches; minor ones splintering off to account for exceptional and more isolated families, like the Coptic; or are we to suppose a gradual degradation as naturalists call it, whereby some nations or families passed gradually through successive shades, from one extreme to the other. Perhaps the present state of the science of Ethnography will not give us sufficient data to determine the modus in which these varieties, so clearly delineated, were originally formed. But waiving this question for the present, there exists no reasonable doubt as to the common origin of every race.

We shall endeavor to show both from analogy and direct examples; first that there is a tendency, even a struggling effort in Nature to raise up specific varieties in the human race; and secondly that these peculiarities may be propagated from father to son, and in succeeding generations may establish a distinctly marked family.

In the argument from analogy, if we take the vegetable kingdom, we find that each species takes its rise from some common centre whence it has gradually been propagated. This observation has led to a definite geographical division and distribution of plants. Twenty botanical provinces have been definitely laid out as inhabited by aboriginal or indigenous plants. This tendency of Nature to simplicity and unity in the origin of all things accounts for the fact, that when America was discovered not a single plant was found here, which was known in the old world, except such as could have had their seeds transmitted through the waters of the ocean.

We have here in the vegetable world an original unity, and a tendency to diversity under modifying influences.

The analogy between animals and man is still more applicable to the point in hand. The similarity between the physical