wards to a prominence in the middle of the inter-parietal- suture,
from which point it is rounded oif posteriorly. The face forms a
broad oval; the orbits are large, deep, and have their transverse axes
at right angles with the median line of the face. The malar bones,
though large, are neither so prominent nor high as in the Eskimo.
They are laterally compressed, more rounded, and less flared out at
their inferior margin than in the Polar man. The anterior nares are
flat and smooth, and the alveolar arch somewhat more prominent
than in the typical Eskimo, as is shown by comparing them by the
norma verticalis. Upon examining the basis cranii, we observe, at
once, the globular fulness of the occipital region, and an alteration
in the general configuration of the base, as compared with that of
our Arctic standard. The greatest breadth is not confined to the
zygomatic region, for lines drawn from the most prominent point of
the zygomse to the most prominent point of the mastoid process, on
either side, are parallel to each other. Did space permit, other distinctions
could readily be pointed out.
Erom this description, coupled with the foregoing .statements, it
will be seen that the Kamtskatkans are either a distinct people, occupying
the gap or transitionaiy ground between the; Polar tribes and
the Mongols; or, they are the hybrid results of an intermixture of
these two great groups; or, finally, and to this opinion I incline, they
constitute the greatest divergency of which the true Arctic type is
capable. The cast above described being that of a female, and the
only one, moreover, to which I can obtain access, I am unable to
arrive at any more definite conclusion.
Of the skulls of the Yukagiri, an obscure and very little known
race, dwelling to the westward of the Koriaks, Morton’s collection,
unfortunately, contains not a single specimen ; nor can I find drawt
ings of them in any of the many works which I have consulted.
According to Prichard, as a pure race they are now all extinct, having
been exterminated in their wars with the Tchuktchi and Koriaks.121
Extending along the cheerless banks df the Lena, from the borders
of the Frozen Ocean as far south as Alden,.and occupying the country
between the Kolyma and Yennisei, we find the Yakuts, or “ isolated
Turks,” as Latham, styles them, a people who, although surrounded
by Hyperboreans, contrast remarkably with the latter in language,
civilization, and physical conformation. These people constitute an
interesting study for the cranioscopist. They are described as a pastoral
race, of industrious and accumulative habits, and manifesting
a higher degree of civilization than their ichthyophagous Tungusian
and Yukagyrian neighbors. In consonance with this higher condi-
1» Op. cit., p. 223.
tion, the skull, as shown in Tab. XV. of the Decades, differs decidedly
from the prevailing pyramidal form of this region. The reader will
at once observe, upon referring to that table, the nearly square contour
of the head, approximating the Mongolian type, presently to he
represented, the large and widely separated orbits, the full and prominent
glabella, the ossa nasi narrow and curving to a point above,
and the parietal bones projecting laterally. The descriptions given
by Gmelin and Erman of the Yakuts are, to some extent, confirmatory
of the characters above indicated.
The present remarkable locality of the Yakuts is undoubtedly not
their original home. Their language is Turkish —intelligible in
Constantinople — and their traditions, unlike those of their Arctic
neighbors, point to the South. They afford a singular example of “ a
weak section of the human race pressed into an inhospitable climate
by a stronger one.”122 Difficulties of classification have been raised
upon certain slight physical resemblances between the Yakuts and
the surrounding tribes. These resemblances may be regarded as the
indirect results of the great Mongolic expansion, which, while it
crowded the main body of the Turkish population to the South,
allowed a small portion to escape to the North-East, in the inhospitable
region of the Lena, where, intermarriage, to some extent, soon
followed. We may readily suppose that, in consequence of the
numerical predominance 'of the aboriginal inhabitants of these regions
over the new comers, the intermixture resulted in the latter
assuming, to a certain extent, some of the physical characters of the
former. But the language of the Yakuts, being more perfect thap
that of the Indjgense, has maintained its supremacy.
Upon the mountainous tract, comprised between the Yennesei
River and the Okhotsk Sea in one direction, and the Arctic Ocean
and Alden Mountains in the other, we encounter an interesting
people, represented by the Tongus in the North and the Lamutes in
the East. They possess a peculiar language, and, anterior to the
sixteenth century, appear to have been a powerful race. In his
physical description of the Tungusians, P allas says that their faces
are flatter and broader than the Mongolian, and -more allied to the
Samoiedes, who lie to the west of them.123 In his Table XVI., B lu-
menbach represents the cranium of a Northern or Reindeer Tungus.
Though the characteristic breadth of face below the eyes is preserved^
and with it, thereby, the lozenge-shaped face, yet the general form
§ § the H H h a s undergone some modification. B lumenbach very
riefly describes tbis bead in tbe following terms:
122 Latham, Varieties of Man, p. 95.
128 Voyages en diverses Provinces, T. 6.