Fio. 195.
inverted cones, precisely like those now worn by the Negroes of Madagascar, as figured in
Botteller’s Voyage.
“ In the midst of the vanquished Africans, standing in his car and urging on the conflict,
is Rameses himself; whose manly and beautiful countenance will not suffer by comparison
with the finest Caucasian models. The annexed outline (for all the figures are represented
in outline only), will enable the reader to form his own conclusions respecting this extraordinary
group,” which dates in the fourteenth century before the Christian era.356
F ig. 196.
The authors confidently trust, that the antiquity of Negro races,,
no less than the permanence of Negro types, during the (1853 + 2348)
4201 years that have just elapsed since Usher’s Flood, are questions
now satisfactorily set at rest in the minds of lettered and scientific
readers. A parable, thrown back among our notes,357 suffices to illustrate
popular impressions in regard to the cuticular and osteological.
changes produced by climate,, and in respect to the philological metamorphoses
caused by transplantation, upon human races aboriginally
distinct. It is not incumbent upon us to inquire, whether the delusions,
generally current upon such very simple matters of fact, are
to be ascribed to intellectual apathy among the taught, or to ignorance
and mystifications among their teachers.
At the close of Chapter VI. (supra, p, 210), in reference to the permanency
of Asiatic and African types in their respective geographical
gradations, we asked, “ Within human record, has it not always been
thus ? ’’ Every national tradition, all primitive monuments, and the
whole context of ancient and modern history, answer affirmatively
for each of those parts of the Old continents hitherto examined.
Deviations from the historical point of view requiring no notice, at
the present day, by any man of science, it would be sheer waste of
time to discuss them. We lose none, therefore, in passing over at
once to that continent which no students of Natural History now
miscall “ the New.”
C H A P T E R IX.
AMERICAN AND OTHER TYPES.— ABORIGINAL RACES OF AMERICA.
T h e Continent of America is often designated by the appellation
of the New World; but the researches of modern geologists and
archaeologists have shown that the evidences in favour of a high antiquity,
during our geological epoch, as well as for our Fauna and Flora,
are, to say the least, quite as great on this as on the eastern hemisphere.
Prof. Agassiz, whose authority will hardly be questioned in
matters of this kind, tells us that geology finds the oldest landmarks
here; and Sir Charles Lyell, from a mass of well-digested facts, and
from the corroborating testimony of other good authorities, concludes
that the Mississippi river has been running in its present bed for more
than one hundred thousand years.358 The channel cut by the Niagara
river, below the Falls, for twelve miles through solid rock, in the