n stated at the end, viz.
that all human races are of one species and one family. The great body
of the work is, therefore, only accessory and corroborative; and its
value would consist not so much in proving the affirmative of the
author's thesis, as in placing in a prominent point of view the
principal facts known respecting the natural history of man.

It may be thought that, in the existing state of man, few marks remain
from which his early history may be deduced; but those unacquainted with
the progress of inductive research, would be astonished at the magnitude
and importance of results derivable from an apparently simple and
worthless object. An unthinking wanderer, stumbling upon an ancient
tombstone, if reproached with inattention, would ask what is to be
learned from such a relic. A word of inscription would give a clue to
the language, and, coupled with other observations, to the date of the
monument; the character of the stone, whether roughly hewn or
elaborately carved, would give evidence as to the tools used in its
formation, and consequently furnish a key to the manufacturing and
metallurgic knowledge of the fabricators. The stone itself might
possibly not be similar to those in the immediate vicinity, and thence
would indicate that travelling and the power of transfer were practised,
and the skeleton within would indicate the physical formation of the men
of that day. We have selected here a case of an ordinary grave, but how
much stronger would the case be were we to take a sarcophagus of Egypt,
enclosing a mummy? The inscription, the fabric of the cere-cloth, the
chemical substances with which it is impregnated, as well as those by
which the body is preserved, and the relics commonly deposited with it,
would lead, by careful investigation, to a tolerably accurate knowledge
of the character and habits of the time; and where many relics of
different descriptions, collected from different parts, are skilfully
compared, a body of evidence is arrived at, minutely circumstantial in
its details, and the veracity of which admits of no dispute. As the
researches of comparative anatomists have enabled us, from the
examination of a single bone, to pronounce with certainty upon the
general conformation and habits of the animal to which it belonged; and
as, in many cases, from the existence of such animals, we may go on,
step by step, to the nature of the earth's surface at the period when
they lived: so the mean