l distinctions of the human
race, we come to its ethnographical divisions--divisions founded partly
upon traditional and historical records, and partly upon the internal
evidence of similarity of language. The following sketch of hypotheses,
as to the original birthplaces of the +autochthones gaias+, although
visionary, and in all probability incorrect, forms such an interesting
abstract of philosophical speculations and poetical myths, that we
cannot refrain from quoting it:--

"The most popular, or generally received distribution of human
races in the present day, is that which was recommended by the
adoption of Baron Cuvier. It did not entirely originate with that
great writer, but was set forth by him in a more decided and
complete manner than it had been before his time. This system
refers different races of men to certain lofty mountain-chains, as
the local seats of their original existence.

"The birthplace, or the primitive station, of the race of men who
peopled Europe and Western Asia, is supposed to have been Mount
Caucasus. From this conjecture, Europeans and many Asiatic nations,
and even some Africans, have received the new designation of
Caucasians. The nations of Eastern Asia are imagined, in like
manner, to originate in the neighbourhood of Mount Altai, and they
are named after the Mongolians, who inhabit the highest region in
that vast chain of hills. The African negroes are derived from the
southern face of the chain of Mount Atlas.

"They are, however, named simply the Ethiopian race, from the
Ethiopians, who were the only black people known to the ancients in
very remote times. A mixture of somewhat vague notions, partly
connected with physical theories, and in part derived from history,
or rather from mythology, has formed the groundwork of this scheme,
which refers the origin of human races to high mountainous tracts.
The tops of mountains first emerged above the surface of the
primeval ocean, and, in the language of some philosophical
theorists, first became the scene of the organizing life of nature.
From different mountain tops, Wildenow, and other writers on the
history of plants, derive the vegetable tribes; which they suppose
to have descended from high places into the plains, and to have
spread their colonies along the margins of mountain streams