sion would be, that the latter have deviated from the
original form, and that this form has been preserved by
those divisions of the Turkish people who in physiognomy
and other physical characters resemble the nations of the
remote East.
Mongoles and Kalmuks are spread, though in comparatively
small bands, over different parts of Northern Asia,
where they are often found in The neighbourhood of nomadic
tribes of the Turkish race. Though the numbers
of these two races are very disproportionate, it has beenr
asserted that the Turkish tribes so situated have, through
intercourse with the neighbouring Mongoles, lost their
European character, which is assumed to have been their
originaljtype, and have become assimilated in features and
in the figure of their bodies to the Mongoles. To render
this supposition less improbable it is alleged that the Mongolian
type is indelible ; that the offspring of a Mongolian
or a Kalmuk retain the peculiarities ofodhat race after
many generations, though their immediate ancestors and
all their parentage, with a single exception, have been of
a different stock.
We have strong grounds- for doubting the correctness
of this observation, which is at variance with well-ascertained
laws of the animal economy. In every known
example of the propagation of mixed-breeds in the human
kind, they all become blended in a few generations 5- even
the physiognomy and colour of the Negro becoming more,
diluted, if we may use the expression, at length cease to
be perceptible in the race. In some-tribes of animals,
as we have already shewn from a sufficient collection of
facts, even the effect produced by crossing the breed with
different species is in like manner lost. With respect to
the intermixture of Mongoles with Europeans, we are
assured that the characters of both become immediately
blended in the first generation. Pallas declares that the
children born of Kalmuk and Russian parents are very
different from those of the pure Kalmuk race.* There
* Pallas 8ay0, “ Ùne chose fort réraarquabie c’est que le mélange du sang
Ilüssé et Tartare avec le sang Kalïriouk et Mongol produit lés plusbeaux enfabs,
can be no room for doubt as to the- effect of successive intermixtures.
The Mongolian features would be softened
in each successive generation, and in the course of no long
period all.traces-sof blending would vanish, as they are
well known to do in*.the intermixture 6 f other human
varieties. In this instance,, as in all others, is probable
that an ^intermediate character would not be permanently
developed without a mixture of two races'.in nearly equal
numbers. But this, as is well known, has never really
taken place. “ The Mongoles,”:-says M. Abel-R6musat,
who had no attachment fe any phvsiologieal theory* “ formed
a people of very inconsiderable numbers in >comparison
with the Turkish nations, by whom they were- surrounded^
After vanquishing the rTurks they availed vthem selves of
the assistance .of that people in subduing the most distant
of their possessions, so that their armies^ - continually in-
creasing by sftheir. -conquests, augmented, to used the ex-
prression of a contemporary writer, in advancing* Jike-a snow*
hall, and were found at length/to he composed of a very
small hand of Mongoles and of great* ri»mbe*s,)of people
of the -Turkish race. The Turks had overspread the North
and the central parts of Asia, with numerous hordes long
before the name of the Mongolians was heard in Europe^
and before the Golden Horde appeared under Tschingghis-
khakan and his Successors. nSubstequently t#) that period
the Mongoles multiplied in the remote,l£.as>$$ hut thel&brdes
which conquered- the Turks and those -which haye been
brought into any relation or intercourse withjg the tribes
of that people were always too few to produce any physical
impression on the vast bodies* of the great nomadic
Turkish nations. If ever their nurhbets had held any
considerable proportion to the Turks the. effect would have
been perceptible in the 5 corruption and intermixture of
languages." M. Abel-R6musat, whose profound researches,
into the relations of different idioms of Asia, entitle his
opinions to* high regard, has given this as theresult of
tandis que ceux d’origine Kalmouke et Mongole ont des,figures très difformes
jusqu’àFtge fie dix ans ; ils sont même fort boursouflés et caboçhytnra ; ce fi'fest
qu’en grandissant que leurs traits prennent une forme plus régulière.”