These characters agree perfectly with those represented in Tab.
XXIX. of the Decades, and in F ischer’s Osteological Dissertation.143
The descriptions, given by travellers, of the Mongolie physiognomy,
correspond very well with the foregoing observations upon the
cranium.
“ The Mongols and Bonriats hare so great a resemblance to them” (the Kalmucks), says
P a l l a s , “ both in their physiognomy, and in their manners and moral economy, that whatever
is related of one of these nations will apply as well to the others.............. The characteristic
traits in all the countenances of the Kalmucks, are eyes, of which the great angle,
placed obliquely and downwards towards the nose, is but little open and fleshy; eyebrows
black, scanty, and forming a low arch ; a particular conformation of the nose, which is
generally short, and flattened towards the forehead; the bones of the cheek high; the head
and face very round. They have also the transparent cornea of the eye very brown; lips
thick and fleshy ; the chin short ; the teeth very white : they preserve them fine and sound
until old age. They have all enormous ears, rather detached from the head.” 1**
Between the Caspian Sea on the west, and the Great Altai Mountains
on the east, and between the parallel of Tobolsk on the north,
and the head-waters of the Oxus on the south, lies a country, whose
physical aspects are not more interesting to the geologist and the
physical geographer, than are its human inhabitants to the ethnographer.
In this region we are called upon to study an extensive
steppe, intersected with lofty mountains, among which are the feeding
springs of many large .rivers. Over this steppe, and among these
mountains, have wander-ed, from the remotest times, a distinct and
peculiar type of people, who have played a most important part in
the history of the world — a people who had established, centuries
ago, a vast empire in the heart of Asia, having China for its eastern,
and the Caspian Sea for its western border, and who, when pressed
towards the south-west by their nomadic neighbors, the Mongols,
in their'turn fell, with devastating fury, upon Europe, and long held
its eastern portions in subjection. I allude to the Turkish family,
whose history would be replete with interest, even if it offered us but
the single fact, that the Turks, like the Goths of Europe and the
Barbarian Tribes of -North America — races occupying, in their respective
countries, about the same parallels of latitude—were selected
at a former period, to break in upon the high, but at that, time lethargic,
civilization of a more southern clime. “ In the Yakut country
we find the most intense cold known in Asia ; in Pamer the greatest
elevation above the sea-level; in the south of Egypt, an inter-tropical
degree of heat. Yet in all these countries we find thè Turk.” 145
well organized and disciplined after the European system. See his Voyage dans VAltai
orientale, p. 190.
143 Dissertatio Osteologica de Modo quo Ossa se vicinis accommodant Partibus. Ludg,
Hat. 1713, 4to., tab. 1.
144 Quoted from Pricbard, op. cit., p. 215. i« Latham, op. cit., p. 77.
It is while studying the physical characters of this interesting
people, that the cramoscopist, in view of the little attention which
hts favorite science has received, and the scanty materials, therefore,
by which he is guided, is forced to exclaim, in the language of St.
Augustine, “Mirantur homines altitudines montium, ingentes fluctus
mans, altissimos lapsus flummum et oceani ambitum et gyros siderum
et relinquunt se ipsos, nec mirantur.”
Much discrepancy of opinion exists with regard to the origin
homogeneity, and characteristic physical conformation of the Turkish
family. In consequence of the application of the term Tartar, their
origin has been assigned to the tribes of Lake Bouyir, in East Mongolia.
B emusat, K laforth, and B itter regard them as descendants
of the Hiong-Xu, who, prior to the Christian Era, threatened to
overrun and subjugate China with their mighty hordes. P richard
m inclined to consider this opinion unquestionable.146 D ’Omalius
I) H alloy classifies them along with the Finns and Magyars, as descendants
or representatives of the ancient Scythse.147 L atham makes
a remark which evinces a concurrence of opinion—“ A large perhaps
a very large portion of the Scythas must have been Turk; and if so
it is amongst the Turks that we must look for some of the wildest
and fiercest of ancient conquerors.” On a preceding page he observes,
“ Practically, I consider that the Mongoliform physiognomy
is the rule with the Turk, rather than the exception, and that the
lurk of lurkey exhibits the exceptional character of his family.” 148
Much of this difference of opinion appears to result from the nota-
be tact that, in traversing the Turkish area, we encounter different
ypes of countenance and of physical conformation generally. In
the absence of an adequate collection of crania representing the
numerous tribes composing this family —which collection would be
ol the greatest utility in deciding this mooted point —we are forced
to adopt, by way of explanation, one or other of the three following
suppositions:—Either the typical Mongolian of Eastern Asia passes,
by certain natural transitionary forms, — displayed by the tribes of
Turkish Asia into the European type; or, the Turk once possessed
a peculiar form, standing midway between that of the European and
Mongol, the intervening1 sub-types or forms having resulted from a
double amalgamation on the part of the Turk; or, lastly, we must
recognise m the Mongolian form a primitive type, which, by amalgamation
with the European, has begotten the Turk. The second
ol these propositions appears to me the most tenable. However, as
r. Morton’s collection contains no skulls of the Turkish tribes, I
“ St °f Man- P- 209' ' 147 Des Races HumainesTp. 83
“ ♦Varieties of Man, pp. 78-9. P
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