mountainous region of Central Africa, lying south of the Great Desert, still remains the "terra incognita" of the civilized world. This high plateau extends, according to Lacépède, from 10° north to 20° south of the equator, approaching the sea-coast in some parts, whilst other portions are environed by vast deserts of sand, which, as a sea of fire, prevent all approach to the centre of the continent. As the rivers, compared with those that descend from the steppes of Central Asia, are small, it is inferred that the mountain elevations contain great lakes, or that snow and rain fall in comparatively small quantities. Of the lowlands of Africa, the fertile plains are mostly confined to the immediate vicinity of the mountainchains, which supply them with rivers. These fertile tracts bound on the north and south the great Sahara, whose vast sandy plains, estimated at half the extent of Europe, are traversed by chains of rocky mountains, interspersed by innumerable oases-islands of verdure that spring into existence wherever water finds its way to the surface.

From Prichard's survey of the ethnography of Central Africa, it appears that the native races of this region, properly called Negroland, differ much in their physical, intellectual, and moral state, according as they have lived under moral and physical conditions of a different character. As human races, as we are taught by history, seldom emerge from the state of instinctive existence until moved by some impulse from without, so we here find tribes of aboriginal people secluded amid their mountains and forests, which serve as almost impenetrable barriers against foreign influence of every kind. But even among these tribes, human society has not been stationary and unprogressive from age to age. There have existed for centuries, (not to speak of the kingdom of which the ancient city of Timbuctoo is the capital,) several Negro empires, originally founded by Mahomedans, in which many of the arts of civilized society have been adopted. They even live in large cities of 30,000 inhabitants a fact which implies a considerable advancement in civilisation. The Mandingos, for example, are a numerous and powerful tribe; their government is well organized; they have public schools, in which the

children are taught to read the Koran; and their fields are well cultivated and ornamented with palms, fig-trees, and bananas. Now, there is the strongest evidence to show that the decided superiority of this nation over many other African tribes, who are found in various stages of improvement, did not arise from any original difference, but from the circumstance of the degree of civilisation brought about by the religion of Islam. As the various races of man constitute but a single species, is it not then reasonable to ascribe the superiority of the Caucasian variety to a similar impulse? When a people have once received the impulse of social improvement, the portion of the brain devoted to the intellectual powers will be stimulated into more than ordinary action, and as these two causes mutually re-act on each other, we ultimately behold the coincidence of a high degree of civilisation and a great development of the intellectual organs, as manifested in the cranial formation of the Caucasian race. As mind is immortal, and the brain is the material instrument of its manifestation, we conceive that this doctrine reconciles the diversities observed in the moral and intellectual qualities of the various races of man, with the wellestablished conclusion of a single species.

These inferences are not hypothetical, but deduced from historical facts relative to the aborigines of Central Africa. "Tribes having what is termed the Negro character in the most striking degree," says Prichard, “are the least civilized. The Papels, Bisagos, and Ibos, who are in the greatest degree remarkable for deformed countenances, projecting jaws, flat foreheads, and for other Negro peculiarities, are the most savage and morally degraded of the nations hitherto described. The converse of this remark is applicable to all the most civilized races. The Fulahs, Mandingos, and some of the Dahomeh and Inta nations, have, so far as form is concerned, nearly European countenances and a corresponding configuration of the head." Strange to say, this evidence is afforded by the writings of a philosopher who, with Blumenbach, maintains that there is nothing in the cerebral organization of the debased and savage Negro

tribes, which affords a presumption of inferiority of moral or intellectual endowments!

It may be here remarked, that the cradles or nurseries of the first nations of which we have any historical records-the people in which the intellectual faculties were first awakened from the brutal sloth of savage life appear to have been extensive plains or valleys, irrigated by fertilizing streams, and blessed with a mild climate. As the means of sustenance are in such localities easily obtained, the human mind, if man in this primitive state will reflect at all, is most apt to receive that impulse which leads to the cultivation and development of his nature. It is in such regions that we discover the most ancient centres of population; as, for example, the splendor and luxury of Nineveh and Babylon were exchanged by the Semitic nations for the simple habits of wandering shepherds; and in the fertile valley watered by the Nile, we also find the first foundation of cities and the earliest establishment of political institutions; and here, too, were invented hieroglyphic literature and those arts which embellish human life.

Having taken a general survey of African ethnography, Prichard attempts to arrive at some conclusions in reference to the relation, if any exists, between the climate of Africa and the physical character of its nations, and in regard to the constancy or liability to variation of these physical characters.

That the physical characters of nations have certain relations to climate, is an opinion warranted by facts, the erudite arguments of Lawrence to the contrary notwithstanding. The limits of Negroland, properly so called, seem to be confined to the intertropical regions of Africa. Now, if we proceed southward of Central Africa, we find the hue of the Negro grow less black, as in the Caffres and Hottentots; and, on the other hand, we discover the same law north of the tropic of Cancer. Although some of the tribes in the oases of the Great Desert are said to be black, yet they are generally brown or almost white; and when we reach the second system of highlands, which has a temperate clime, the inhabitants present the flowing hair and complexion of the southern Europeans.

This general law, if the comparison is extended to Europe, is confirmed. On comparing the three elevated tracts bounding and containing between them the Mediterranean and the Great Sahara, we find that the intermediate region, (Mount Atlas,) differs much less from the northern, (the Alps and Pyrenees,) than from the southern chain, (the Lunar Mountains). The same law is evident in each, as respects vegetation and the physical characters of the human races. Whilst the mountains of Central Africa are inhabited by Negroes, the Berbers of Mount Alas show but little difference of physical characters when compared with the Spaniards and Piedmontese. For the purpose of more extended comparison, Prichard divides Europe and Africa into eight zones, through which he traces a gradation in the physical characters of the human race. Within the tropics, as just observed, the inhabitants, if we confine ourselves to the low and plain countries, are universally black. South of this region are the red people of Caffreland; and, next to these, are the yellowish brown Hottentots. North of Negroland, are the "gentes subfusci coloris" of Leo,tribes of a brownish hue, but varying from this shade to a perfect black. The next zone is the region of the Mediterranean, including Spaniards, Moors, Greeks, Italians, &c., among whom we find black hair, dark eyes, and a brownish white complexion, predominant features. In the zone north of the Pyreno-Alpine line, the color of the hair is generally chestnut-brown, to which that of the skin and eyes bears a certain relation. Next come the races characterized by yellow hair, blue eyes, and a florid complexion, such as those of England, Denmark, Finland, the northern parts of Germany, and a great portion of Russia. And north of these are the Swedes and Norwegians, distinguished by white hair and light grev eyes.

We could have wished that Prichard had proceeded still farther north, and told us why the Laplanders Greenlanders, Esquimaux, Samoiedes, &c., have a very dark complexion. This fact has always been a stumblingblock in the way of the advocates of a connection between climate and the human complexion. By them it has been referred to their food, consisting

of fish and rancid oil, to the grease and paint with which they besmear the body, aided by the clouds of smoke in which they sit constantly involved in their wretched cabins. The agency of these causes is strongly advocated by Dr. Smith, who also refers to Blumenbach, Fourcroy, and J. F. Meckel, who concur in the opinion that, from the affinity of the bile with the fat or oil of the animal body, nations that subsist chiefly on food consisting of animal oil, not only smell of it, but acquire a very dark complexion. But these northern tribes have the olive complexion, the broad large face and flat nose, and the other features which characterize the Mongolian variety. Hence Lawrence maintains that the distinguishing characters of the German and French, or the Esquimaux or more southern Indians, find no explanation in climatic influences. On the contrary, he ascribes the peculiarities of these northern pigmies to the same cause that makes the Briton and German of this day resemble the portraits of their ancestors, drawn by Cæsar and Tacitus. The French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians, belong, he says, to the Celtic race, whose black hair and browner complexion are distinguished from the blue eyes and fair skin of the German tribes, which include the Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, English, modern Germans, &c. It is moreover alleged by Lawrence, that the Germans, who, under the names of Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Normans, successively in vaded England, and gradually drove the original Celts into the most distant and inaccessible parts of the island, have not, in the smallest degree, approximated to the latter in their physiognomy. The varieties of the human species he considers to be as distinct as the greyhound and bull-dog, the essential distinctions of which can be blended only in their mutual offspring.

As the Jews have been scattered for ages over the face of the whole earth, and as the race has been kept uncommonly pure by the most sacred prohibition against intermarriage with strangers, it might be supposed that here is presented a case decisive of the question at issue. But, alas! for human knowledge. "In Britain and Germany," says Smith," they are fair, brown in France and in Turkey, swarthy in Portugal and Spain, olive in Syría

and Chaldea, tawny or copper-colored in Arabia and Egypt." Besides, a tribe of Jews, according to Buffon, was discovered in India, known to be of the stock of Israel, by the Hebrew Pentateuch preserved among them from time immemorial, who had become as black as the natives. But this swarthiness, it is maintained by Lawrence, is the effect of the sun's action upon the individual, whose children will have the original complexion of the race; and that, in the case of the black Jews, an explanation is found in their intermarriage with the Hindoos.

Blumenbach and Smith maintain that the different shades of the dark colors prevail in proportion to climatic heat and the predominance of bile in the constitution, which is a refinement upon the opinion of the ancients; for Pliny ascribes the complexion of the Africans solely to the excessive ardor of the sun in that region, whilst Ovid, in his fable of Phaeton, refers it to the same cause. The diversities of the human family, found in Africa for example, are, according to Smith, abundantly explained by reference to the following causes:-" Vicinity to the sun, elevation of the land, the nature of the soil, the temperature of winds, the manners of the people, and the mixture of nations who, at different periods, and in a state more or less civilized, have established themselves within it, either by conquest or the purposes of trade." Thus, the jetty hue of the skin on the coasts of Congo and Loango, he refers to the tropical winds which traverse three thousand miles of sand heated by a vertical sun, whilst the eastern coast receives the breezes tempered by the vast expanse of the Arabian and Indian seas.

Of all writers, Smith is the most determined advocate of the absolute dependence of all the diversities of mankind upon local causes. He erroneously thinks every other explanation incompatible with the doctrine of the unity of the human race, which rests upon the authority of divine revelation. Hence, too, he argues that the primitive man was placed upon the earth surrounded by the elements of civilisation, and that the barbarous state had its origin in man's degeneration. It has ever been the misfortune of metaphysics to have among its cultivators a greater number of divines than of phy

sicians. Hence arose the many absurd speculations on the nature of the mental faculties, regarding them as independent of the corporeal organs through which they are manifested.

That climate exercises an influence in causing the diversities of mankind, is an opinion likewise strengthened by the analogy of inferior animals. As we approach the poles we find everything progressively assume a whiter livery, as bears, foxes, hares, falcons, crows, and blackbirds; whilst some animals, as the ermine, weasel, squirrel, reindeer, and snow-bunting, change their color to grey or white, even in the same country, as the winter season

advances.

We thus discover a marked relation between the physical characters of nations and climate as expressed by latitude-a law that obtains equally in the modification of climate induced by elevation. Thus the sandy or brown hair of the Swiss contrasts strongly with the black hair and eyes of those that dwell below on the plains of Lombardy. Among the natives of the more elevated parts of the Biscayan country, the black hair and swarthy complexion of the Castilians give place to light blue eyes, flaxen hair, and a fair complexion. In the northern parts of Africa we observe the same law as regards the Berbers of the plains and the Shulah mountaineers. And even in the intertropical region of Africa, several examples are adduced by Prichard.

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As regards the influence of locality, it is also observed by Prichard that those tribes which have the Negro character in an exaggerated degree dwell in the marshy lowlands. Not only the Mandingos and Fulahs," he says, "but all the other races yet described who are aborigines of mountainous regions are more intelligent than the maritime tribes, as well as physically superior to them." As these effects result mainly from the deterioration of the constitution induced by malaria, this law is mostly confined to the region of the tropics; for it has been already shown that the first centres of civilisation were in the extensive plains of temperate latitudes. We may trace a still further connection in the fact that the physical characters of tribes are intimately connected with their moral and social condition. The Negroes in the lowest stage of civilisation are the

ugliest, having depressed foreheads, flat noses, projecting jaws, and crooked legs. Such are the most ferocious savages-stupid, indolent, and sensual. On the other hand, whenever we find a negro tribe who have been elevated in the scale of social condition, we observe a correspondent improvement in their physical features.

Whether the woolly nature of the hair is connected with local causes is a question not positively admitting of solution in the present state of our ethnographical researches. Although the shape of the head among the South African tribes differs in a degree corresponding to the extent of their civilisation, yet it would seem that the crisp and woolly state of the hair, notwithstanding the complexion is considerably lighter than among the tribes of Central Africa, experiences no modification. The Caffres, for example, who have black and woolly hair, with a deep brown skin, have the high forehead and prominent nose of the Europeans, with projecting cheek-bones and thickish lips. This tribe, as well as the Iolofs near the Senegal, scarcely differ from Europeans, with the exception of the complexion and woolly hair. Other tribes, as for instance the darkest of the Abyssinians, approximate the Europeans still more in the circumstance that the hair, though often crisp and frizzled, is never woolly. Again, some of the tribes near the Zambesi, according to Prichard, have hair in rather long and flowing ringlets, notwithstanding the complexion is black, and the features have the negro type. The civilized Mandingos, on the other hand, have a cranial organization differing much from that of their degraded neighbors, yet in respect to the hair there is no change. In the United States, it has been alleged by Dr. Smith, with much confidence, that the features of the Africans, after several unmixed generations, lose much of the native African cast. Approximating the white races, the nose becomes higher in the ridge, the mouth smaller, the teeth less prominent, and the hair considerably longer and less crisp. As Central Africa presents a region of burning sand, Dr. Smith thinks that the excessive heat of a vertical sun here tends to curl and involve the hair-an inference that he derives from the analogous effects produced upon other animals by hot