cluding that this centre cannot have been of greater extent than that of the gorilla and the orang.

VIII. Is it possible to go still further and to endeavour to determine the geographical position of the human centre of appearance? I cannot here enter into the details of this problem. I shall confine myself to determining its meaning, and to indicating the probable solutions of it from the data of science of the present time.

I must observe, in the first place, that in considering an animal or vegetable species, even those whose area is most circumscribed, no one thinks of trying to discover the precise spot upon which it may have first appeared. There is always something very vague in such a determination and it is necessarily approximative. It is still more difficult when the species in question is of universal distribution. Within these limits we are justified in at least forming conjectures which, as such, have a certain amount of probability.

The question presents very different aspects according as we confine ourselves to the present or take into consideration the geological antiquity of man. Nevertheless, the facts are of the same order and seem to indicate two extremes. The truth lies, perhaps, between the two.

We know that in Asia there is a vast region bounded on the south and south-west by the Himalayas, on the west by the Bolor mountains, on the north-west by the Ala-Tau, on the north by the Altai range and its offshoots, on the east by the Kingkhan, on the south and south-east by the Felina and Kuen-Loun. Judging from the present state of things, this great central region might be regarded as having contained the cradle of the human species.

In fact, the three fundamental types of all the human races are represented in the populations grouped round this region. The black races are the furthest removed from it, but have, nevertheless, marine stations, where we find them either pure or as mixed races, from the Kioussiou to the Andaman Islands. Upon the continent they have inter

mixed with almost every inferior caste and class of the two peninsulas of the Ganges; they are still found pure in both, ascend as high as Nepaul, and extend west as far as the Persian Gulf and Lake Zareh, according to Elphinstone.

The yellow race, either pure or in places mixed with white elements, seems to be the only one which occupies the space in question; it peoples all the north, east, south-east, and west. In the south it is more mixed, but forms, nevertheless, an important element in the population.

The white race, from its allophylian representatives, seems to have disputed the central area itself with the yellow race. In early times, we find the Yu-tchi and the Ou-soun to the north of the Hoang-ho; and in the present day cases of white populations have been observed in Little Thibet and in Eastern Thibet. The Miao-Tsé occupy the mountain region of China; the Siaputh are proof against all attack in the gorges of the Bolor. Upon the confines of the area we meet with the Aïnos and the Japanese of high caste, the Tinguianes of the Phillippine Islands; in the south with the Hindoos. In the south-west and west the white element, either pure or mixed, reigns supreme.

No other region of the globe presents a similar union of extreme human types distributed round a common centre. This fact, alone is sufficient to suggest to the mind of the naturalist the conjecture which I have expressed above; but we may appeal to other considerations.

One of the most important is drawn from philology. The three fundamental forms of human language are found in the same countries and under similar relations. In the centre, and south-east of our area, the monosyllabic languages are represented by those of China, Cochinchina, Siam and Thibet. As agglutinative languages, we find in the north-east and north-west the group of Ougro-Japanese, in the south that of the Dravidian and Malay, and in the west the Turkish languages. Lastly, Sanscrit with its derivatives, and the Iranian languages represent in the south and south-west the inflectional languages.

It is to the linguistic types gathered round the central region of Asia that all human languages must be referred; whether from their vocabulary or their grammar, some of these Asiatic languages bear a close resemblance to languages spoken in regions often very distant, or separated from the area in question by entirely different languages. We know that several philologists, M. Maury among others, establish an intimate connection between the Dravidian languages and Australian idioms, and that M. Picot has discovered numbers of Aryan words in our oldest European languages.

Finally, it is from Asia again that our earliest domesticated animals are derived. Isidore Geoffroy is entirely agreed with Dureau de la Malle upon this point.

Thus, the present epoch alone considered, everything points to this great central plateau, or rather to this great enclosure. There, we are inclined to say, the first human beings appeared and multiplied till the populations overflowed as from a bowl and spread themselves in human waves in every direction.

IX. Palæontological studies have, however, very recently led to results which are capable of modifying these primary conclusions. MM. Heer and de Saporta have informed us that in the Tertiary period Siberia and Spitzbergen were covered with plants, indicating a temperate climate. MM. Murchison, Keyserlink, de Verneuil, and d'Archiac tell us that, during the same period, the barren lands of our day supported large herbivorous animals, such as the reindeer, the mammoth, and the tichorhine rhinoceros. All these animals made their appearance at the commencement of the Quaternary period. It seems to me that they did not come alone.

I have said above that the discoveries of M. l'abbé Bourgeois testify, in my opinion, to the existence of a tertiary man. But everything seems to show that as yet his representatives were but few in number. The Quaternary populations, on the contrary, were, at least in distribution, quite as numerous as the life of the hunter permitted. Are we justified in imagining that during the Tertiary period man

lived in polar Asia side by side with those species which I have just mentioned, and that he supported himself by hunting them as he afterwards did in France? The fall of temperature compelled the animals to migrate southwards; man must have followed them to find a milder climate, and to be within reach of his customary game. Their simultaneous arrival in our climates and the apparently sudden multiplication of man would thus be easily explained.

The centre of human appearance might then be carried considerably to the north of the region I have just been discussing. Perhaps prehistoric archæology or paleontology will some day confirm or confute this conjecture.

However this may be, no facts have as yet been discovered which authorise us to place the cradle of the human race elsewhere than in Asia. There are none which lead us to seek the origin of man in hot regions either of existing continents, or of one which has disappeared. This view, which has been frequently expressed, rests entirely upon the belief that the climate of the globe was the same at the time of the appearance of man as it is now. Modern science has taught us that this is an error. From that time there is nothing against our first ancestors having found favourable conditions of existence in northern Asia, which is indicated by so many facts borrowed from the history of man, and from that of animals and plants.

BOOK V.

PEOPLING OF THE GLOBE

CHAPTER XVI.

MIGRATIONS BY LAND.-EXODUS OF THE KALMUCKS FROM THE VOLGA.

I. AT the point which we have now reached, the connection of facts and of their consequences proposes a fresh problem. Physiology has proved that there exists but one species of man, of which the human groups are races. Zoological geography has taught us that this species was originally localised in a relatively very limited space. It is now met with everywhere, because it has spread by irradiation in every direction from this centre. The peopling of the globe by migrations, is the necessary consequence of the preceding facts.

Polygenists, and the partisans of the autochthony of nations have declared that these migrations are impossible in a certain number of cases, and have brought forward this pretended impossibility as an objection to the doctrine which I uphold. Here, again, I turn to facts for my answer.

IJ. I confess that I never understood how any value could be attached to this argument. Migrations are almost universal in history, and in the traditions and legends of the new as well as of the old world. We find them among the uncivilised nations of our time, and among tribes which are still lingering in the lowest stage of savage life. With every