Consequently, inasmuch as all these domestications, together with the perfecting of those
arts and sciences that enabled king Cheops to build the Great Pyramid, occupied Egyptian
humanity unnumbered ages before the IVth dynasty, or prior to B. c. 3100, we may well
consider that the earliest monuments of Egypt represent but the “ middle ages” of humanity,
and not mankind’s commencements. — G. R. G.]
There was, then, a time before all history. During that blank
period, man taught himself to write ; and until he had recorded his
thoughts and events in some form of writing — hieroglyphics, to wit
— his existence prior to that act, if otherwise certain, is altogether
unattainable by us, save through induction. The historical vicissitudes
of each human type are, therefore, unknown to us until the
age of written record began in each geographical centre. Of these
documentary annals some go hack 5300 years, others extend hut to a
few hundreds. Anatomy, however, possesses its own laws independently
of history ; and to its applications the present chapter is
devoted.
A minute and extended anatomical comparison of races, in their
whole structure, would afford many curious results ; hut such detail
does not comport with the plan of this work, and would he fatiguing
to any hut the professed anatomist. It is indispensable, however, that
we should enter somewhat fully into a comparison of crania ; and it
may he safely assumed, as a general law, that where important peculiarities
exist in crania, others equally tangible belong to the same
organism.
While engaged on this chapter, I had the good fortune to welcome Prof. Agassiz in Mobile,
where he lectured on the “ Geographical Distribution of Animals,” &c. The instruction
derived from his lectures and private conversation on these themes, X here take occasion
to acknowledge.
Prof. Agassiz’s researches in embryology possess most important bearings on the natural
history of mankind. He states, for instance, that, during the foetal state, it is in most
cases impossible to distinguish between the species of a genus ; but that, after birth, animals,
being governed by specific laws, advance each in diverging lines. The dog, wolf, fox,
and jackal, for example -r* the different species of ducks, and even ducks and geese, in the
foetal state — cannot be distinguished from each other; but their distinctive characters
begin to develop themselves soon after birth. So with the races of men. In the foetal
state there is no criterion whereby to distinguish even the Negro’s from the Teuton’s anatomical
structure ; but, after birth, they develop their respective characteristics in diverging
lines, irrespectively of climatic influences. This I conceive to be a most important
law ; and it points strongly to specific difference. Why should Negroes, Spaniards, and
Anglo-Saxons, at the end of ten generations (although in the foetal state the same), still diverge
at birth, and develop specific characters? Why should the Jews in Malabar, at the end
of 1500 years, obey the same law ? That they do, undeviatingly, has been already demonstrated
in Chapter IV. ; and while this sheet is passing through the press, a letter from my
friend Dr. J. Barnard Davis (one of the learned authors of the forthcoming Crania Britannica),
opportunely substantiates my former statement : —
“ I find you have come to the same conclusions respecting them [the Jews] as myself. Seeing
that tne most striking circumstance adduced in the whole of Prichard’s work was that
of the change of the Jews to black in Cochin and Malabar; and finding Lawrence to state
Dr. Claud. Buchanan’s evidence altogether on the other side, I was induced to inquire into
the matter, and settle where the truth lay. I therefore wrote my friend Mr. Crawfurd,
the author of the ‘ Indian Archipelago’ and various other valuable works on the East, who
cleared up the mystery at once. He said, he had often seen the Jews of Malabar serving
in the ranks of our Sepoy regiments at Bombay, and that they are as black as the Hindoos of
the same country, who are amongst the darkest people of India; that, although they have
preserved the religion of Moses, they have intermixed with the natives of the country
extensively, and it is probable, have little Semitic blood in their veins. He says, he knew
Dr. Cl- Buchanan, who spent his Indian life in the town of Calcutta, except the single journey
in which he saw the Indian Jews and Christians of St. Thomas.” Little value can in
consequence attach to this worthy churchman’s ethnological authority.
Another of the preceding chapters (IX.) demonstrates how the aboriginal Americans
present, everywhere over this continent, kindred types of specific character, which they
have maintained for thousands of years, and which they would eqtially maintain in any
other country.
Prof. Agassiz also asserts, that a peculiar conformation characterizes the brain of an
adult Negro. Its development never goes beyond that developed in the Caucasian in boyhood
: and, besides other singularities, it bears, in several particulars, a marked resem-
. blance to the brain of the orang-outan. The Professor kindly offered to demonstrate those
cerebral characters to me, but I was unable, during his stay at Mobile, to procure the
brain of a Negro.
Although a Negro-brain was not to be obtained, I took an opportunity of submitting to
M. Agassiz two native-African men for comparison; and he not only confirmed the distinctive
marks commonly enumerated by anatomists, but added others of no less importance.
The peculiarities of the Negro’s head and feet are too notorious to require specification;
although, it must be observed, these vary in different African tribes. When examined from
behind, the Negro presents several peculiarities ; of which one of the most striking- is, the
deep depression of the spine, owing to the greater curvature of the ribs. The buttocks are
more flattened on the sides than in other races; and join the posterior part of the thigh
almost at a right-angle, instead of a curve. The pelvis is narrower than in the white race;
which fact every surgeon accustomed to applying trusses on Negroes will vouch for. Indeed,
an agent of Mr. Sherman, a very extensive truss-manufacturer of New Orleans,
informs me that the average circumference of adult Negroes round the pelvis is from 26 to
28 inches; whereas whites measure from 30 to 36. The scapulae are shorter and broader. The
muscles have shorter bellies and longer tendons, as is seen in the calf of the leg, the arms,
&c. In the Negress, the mammae are more conical, the areolae much larger, and the abdomen
projects as a hemisphere. Such are some of the more obvious divergences of the Negro
from the white types.: others are supplied by Hermann Burmeister, Professor of
Zoology in the University of Halle,460 whose excellent researches in Brazil, during fourteen
months (1850-’l), were made upon ample materials. Space limits me to the following
extract:—
“ If we take a profile view of the European face, and sketch its outlines, we shall find
that it can be divided by horizontal lines into four equal parts: the first enclosing the crown
of the head; the second, the forehead; the third, the nose and ears; and the fourth, the
lips and chin. In the antique statues, the perfection of the beauty of which is justly admired,
these four parts are exactly equal; in living individuals slight deviations occur, but
in proportion as the formation of the face ,is more handsome and perfect, these sections
approach a mathematical equality. The vertical length of the head to the cheeks is measured
by three of these equal parts. The larger the face and smaller the head, the more unhandsome
they become. It is especially in this deviation from the normal measurement that
the human features become coarse and ugly.
“ In a comparison of the Negro head with this ideal, we get the surprising result that the
rule with the former is not the equality of the four parts, but a regular increase in length from