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Rh first glance to be unsatisfactory, yet they have been of great value in systematisiiig knowledge, and are all more themes of or less based on indisputable distinctions. Blumenbach's division, though published nearly a century ago (1781), has had the greatest influence. He reckons five races, viz., Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, Malay (see the collected edition of his Treatises, p. 264, published by the Anthropological Society). The ill-chosen name of Caucasian, used by Blumenbach to denote what may be called white men, is still current ; it brings into one race peoples such as the Arabs and Swedes, although these are scarcely less different than the Americans and Malays, who are set down as two distinct races. Again, two of the best-marked varieties of mankind are the Australians and the Bushmen, neither of whom, however, seem to have a natural place in Blumenbach's series. The yet simpler classification by Cuvier into Caucasian, Mongol, and Negro, corresponds in some measure with a division by mere com plexion into white, yellow, and black races ; but neither this threefold division, nor the ancient classification into Semitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic nations can be regarded as separating the human types either justly or sufficiently (see Prichard, Natural History of Man, sec. 15; Waitz, Anthropology, vol. i. part i. sec. 5). Schemes which set up a larger number of distinct races, such as the eleven of Pickering, the fifteen of Bory de St Vincent, and the sixteen of Desmoulins, have the advantage of finding niches for most well-defined human varieties ; but no modern naturalist would be likely to adopt any one of these as it stands. In criticism of Pickering's system, it is sufficient to point out that he divides the white nations into two races, entitled the Arab and the Abyssinian (Pickering, Races of Man, chap. i.) Agassiz, Nott, Crawford, and others who have assumed a much larger number of races or species of man, are not considered to have satisfactorily defined a corresponding number of distinguishable types. On the whole, Professor Huxley's recent scheme (Journal of the Ethnological Society, vol. ii. p. 404, 1870) probably approaches more nearly than any other to such a tentative classification as may be accepted in definition of the principal varieties of mankind, regarded from a zoological point of view, though anthropologists may be disposed to erect into separate races several of his widely-differing sub-races. He distinguishes four principal types of mankind, the Australioid, Negroid, Mongoloid, and Xanthochroic, adding a fifth variety, the Melanochroic. The special points of the Australioid are a chocolate-brown skin, dark brown or black eyes, black hair (usually wavy), narrow (dolichocephalic) skull, brow-ridges strongly developed, projecting jaw, coarse lips, and broad nose. This type is best represented by the natives of Australia, and next to them, by the indigenous tribes of Southern India, the so-called coolies. The Egyptians to some degree approach this type; they are, however, held by good authorities to be a modified African race. The Negroid type is primarily represented by the Negro of Africa, between the Sahara and the Cape district, including Madagascar. The skin varies from dark brown to brown-black, with eyes of similar dark hue, and hair usually black, and always crisp or woolly. The skull is narrow (dolichocephalic), with orbital ridges not prominent, prognathous, with depressed nasal bones, causing the nose to be flat as well as broad; and the lips are coarse and projecting. Two important families are classed in this system as special modifications of the Negroid type. First, the Bushman of South Africa is diminutive in stature, and of yellowish-brown complexion; the Hottentot is supposed to be the result of crossing between the Bushman and ordinary Negroid. Second, the Negritos of the Andaman Islands, the peninsula of Malacca, tho Philippines and other islands, to New Caledonia and Tasmania, are mostly dolichocephalic, with dark skins and woolly hair. In various districts they tend towards other types, and show traces of mixture. The Mongoloid type prevails over the vast area lying east of a line drawn from Lapland to Siam. Its definition includes a short, squat build, a yellowish brown complexion, with black eyes and black straight hair, a broad (brachycephalic) skull, usually without prominent brow-ridges, flat small nose, and oblique eyes. The dolichocephalic Chinese and Japanese in other respects correspond. Various other important branches of the human species are brought into connection with the Mongoloid type, though on this view the differences they present raise difficult problems of gradual variation, as well as of mixture of race ; these are the Dyak-Malays, the Polynesians, and the Americans. The Xanthochroi, or fair whites—tall, with almost colourless skin, blue or grey eyes, hair from straw colour to chestnut, and skulls varying as to proportionate width—are the prevalent inhabitants of Northern Europe, and the type may be traced into North Africa, and eastward as far as Hindostan. On the south and west it mixes with that of the Melanochroi, or dark whites, and on the north and east with that of the Mongoloids. The Melanochroi, or dark whites, differ from the fair whites in the darkening of the complexion to brownish and olive, and of the eyes and hair to black, while the stature is somewhat lower and the frame lighter. To this class belong a large part of those classed as Kelts, and of the populations of Southern Europe, such as Spaniards, Greeks, and Arabs, extending as far as India ; while end less intermediate grades between the two white types testify to .ages of intermingling. Professor Huxley is disposed to account for the Melanochroi as themselves the result of crossing between the Xanthochroi and the Australioids. Whatever ground there may be for his view, it is obviously desirable to place them in a class by themselves, distinguishing them by an appropriate name.

In determining whether the races of mankind are to be classed as varieties of one species, it is important to decide whether every two races can unite to produce fertile offspring. It is settled by experience that the most numerous and well-known crossed races, such as the Mulattos, descended from Europeans and Negroes—the Mestizos, from Europeans and American indigenes—the Zambos, from these American indigenes and Negroes, &c., are permanently fertile. They practically constitute sub-races, with a general blending of the characters of the two parents, and only differing from fully established races in more or less tendency to revert to one or other of the original types. It has been argued, on the other hand, that not all such mixed breeds are permanent, and especially that the cross between Europeans and Australian indigenes is almost sterile ; but this assertion, when examined with the care demanded by its bearing on the general question of hybridity, has distinctly broken down. On the whole, the general evidence favours the opinion that any two races may combine to produce a new sub-race, which again may combine with any other variety. (See Waitz, Anthropology, vol. i. part i. sec. 3; Darwin, Descent of Man, part i. ch. 7; Prichard, Nat. Hist. of Man, sect. 5 ; on the other hand, Broca, Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo'', 1864.) Thus, if the existence of a small number of distinct races of mankind be taken as a starting-point, it is obvious that their crossing would produce an indefinite number of secondary varieties, such as the population of the world actually presents. The working out in detail of the problem, how far the differences among complex nations, 