SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

NATURAL FIISTORT,

The Natural History of the Human Species, its Typical Forms, Primeval Distriba- tion, Fillatluns, and Migrations. By Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith

K.H. and S.W., F.R. and L.S., &c. &c Highky; Lizars, Edinburgh.

TRAVELS,

Twelve Years' Wanderings in the British Colonies, from 1835 to 1847. By J. C. Byrne.

In two volumes Bentley, Hudson's Bay; or Every-day Life in the Wilds of North America, during six years. Residence in the Territories of the Honourable Hudson's Bay Company. With lustrations. By Robert M. Baliantyne BkIC4100(4, FICTION,

The Rival Beauties ; a Novel. By Miss Pardoe, Author of "The City of the Sultan,. " Louis XIV. and the Court of France in the Seventeenth Century," " TheCoa-

fessions of a Pretty Woman," &c. &c. In three volumes Bentley.

CRITICISM,

The Philosophy of the Beautiful. From the French of Victor Cousin. Translated, with Notes and an Introduction, by Jesse Cato Daniel, Cheshunt College.

Pickering.

COLONEL HAMILTON SMITH'S NATURAL HISTORY or THE HUMAN SPECIES.

THERE are many books stuffed full of truths, or truisms, that in reality teach us nothing, and affect us as little. There are others whose main positions are hypothetical, and whose proofs may be insufficient, incon- clusive, or faulty, yet instruct us by the knowledge they exhibit and the masterly thought with which it is applied ; expanding the mind by the vastness of their views, even when confessedly wandering in those regions of speculation where precise conclusion is impossible and the plausible takes the place of the ascertained. Such a book is Colonel Smith's Natural History of the Human Species. Its main position —the different origin of the Caucasian or bearded, the Mongolic or beardless, and the Negro or woolly-haired races—may not only be open to dispute, but have the weight of authority against it ; and the subordinate arguments or lesser views-may be attacked by philosophers, or ridiculed by wits, but the extent of the survey, the multitude of curious and important facts, as well as the speculations deduced from them, possess a value which neither authority nor satire can diminish.

It is upwards of fifty years since Colonel Smith first directed his at- tention to the subject of the physical and mental differences among man- kind; beginning during a residence in the West Indies in the days of the slave-trade, (1797-1807,) when he had opportunities of examining the general formation and characteristics of various tribes of Negroes, which are now no longer attainable. In 1832, he began to put his collections of facts and reading into a popular shape, for a series of lectures upon the natural history of man, delivered before the Plymouth Institution ; and he has been for two years engaged in the composition of this volume in its present form.

Though the main position of the work is the various origin of the hu- man species, there are other leading views equally exposed to cavil, not so much upon the truth or falsehood of the views themselves as for the reli- gious conclusions following from them. It is Colonel Smith's opinion that various convulsions of nature, as disturbing as the Mosaic deluge, if not more so, have occurred since man was an occupant of the earth ; and that some race of the genus Homo was a contemporary with several extinct species of animals. From the progressive development or advance observ- able throughout nature, he inclines to think that the Negro, as the most inferior race, was the first created, then the Mongolic, and lastly the Cau- casian. A more specific theory, with the arguments based upon it, does not, however, support this view ; for Colonel Smith holds that the primmval seat of mankind was the lofty central table-land beyond Thibet, whence the race migrated over the world ; and his text, as well as his diagram, aims at showing that this race was Caucasian. He may, however, only mean that this region was the cradle of the species whence arts and civilization arose. This last view he maintains, not only by arguments drawn from tradition and analogous proofs, but from the nature of things.

"Although in central Asia no very distinct evidence of a general diluvian action, so late as to involve the fate of many nations, can be detected; still, there cannot be a doubt, that with scarce an opposable circumstance, all man's historical dogmatic knowledge and traditionary records, all his acquirements, inventions, and domestic possessions, point to that locality, as connected with a great cata- clysis, and as the scene where human development took its first most evident distribution.

"The animals subdued for household purposes by the earliest nations are found upon or around it, in all directions; like the dog, universally spread where man resides; and the hog, found radiating from points, where the wild species occur, from South-east to North-west; the horse, ass, and camel, in directions originally commencing from the West side; so again, the ox, sheep, and goat, still existing wild in the form of more than one species on the same borders; whilst even the elephant walked once through the more Southern woods; and the wild cat, similar to the European, now haunts the same, and prowls far onwards in the North. Of birds, gallinaeea, all originating in the South-east of Asia; several kinds of poultry are wild in the woods; and one domesticated species, at least, was carried, in man's earliest migrations, onward to Egypt and the West Europe, as well as to the furthest islands in the South Seas; perhaps even to Chili, before the ar- rival of the Spaniards. "On the IN totem side, at least, are found the parent plants of many fruit- bearing trees and shrubs now naturalized in Europe; the walnut, chestnut, filbert; the apple, medlar, cherry, and almost all the wild and cultivated berries, and the vine at no great distance. Wheat and barley, of more than one variety or species, occur on the skirts of the same central region; some thriving at more than 10,000 feet of elevation in the Himalayas and in China, with buck-wheat and oats, on the plains of the North-west, and onions, turnips, &e., growing wild in many places; wild flax and hemp on the Northern plains; and in Cashmere the valleys even possess edible gourds, pumpkins, and melons, whereof one or two species flourish in the arid deserts; even the lotus, celebrated in Egypt, was derived from some part of India. "It would be vain to look for so many primitive elements of human subsistence, in a social state, in any other portion of the globe. Nearly all of them were originally wanting in the Western Caucasus; and the civilized development of Egypt could not have occurred without the possession of wheat, barley, flax, and the leek, garlic, and many other objects, all foreign to Africa."

Colonel Smith's work consists of four parts, of very unequal lengths. The first contains a review of the geological changes that, in the author's opinion, have taken place on our globe, in the remote time when possibly man and certainly the higher mammalia were occupants, and of the alter- ations that have occurred since mankind assuredly were on the earth, not only within the historic ages but even recently. And this section will be found very curious, for the great number of unquestioned facts which are brought together, the manner in which probability is given to tradition—such as the submersion of Atlantis—and the skilful way in which inferences are drawn from the existing state of continents, islands, or sea-soundings. The second part discusses the subject of human bones among fossil remains ; summarily bringing together all the recorded facts upon the subject, and briefly touching upon human traditions of extinct species of animals, which are often, but, as the author thinks, too readily assumed to have ceased to exist prior to the appearance of man. The third part is devoted to this question and the sequences following the conclusion of Colonel Smith, " Whether mankind is wholly derived from a single species, divided by strongly marked varieties, or sprung suc- cessively or simultaneously from a genus having no leas than three dis- tinct species, synchronising in their creation, or produced by the hand of Nature at different epochs ; each adapted to the peculiar conditions of its period, and all endowed wiih a power of intermixing and reproducing filiations, up to a certain extent ? ". Having concluded in favour of the genus with its three distinct species, and glanced at abnormal races—as giants, dwarfs, and the extinct Flatheads of America—Colonel Smith reaches the last division of his subject: This embraces the characteristics and history of the existing families of mankind in their three types of woolly-haired, bearded, and beardless, with their various stems or crosses —as the Malay and the Red Indian ; or others, still classed by the author under subtypical stems, but rather belonging to tribes or peoples—as the Basques, the Etruscans, the Egyptians. The leading conclusions in this division will of course be open to question, if not to vehement dispute. The lesser points of the mental and physiological characteristics of the different types and races, with the migrations of the different peoples, whether recorded in historic nations or inferred from natural facts, do not affect religions dogmas, and so will not be condemned for conclusions to which they seem to lead, rather than for their own truth or falsehood. Those who may not agree with all the conclusions of the author, will admit the value of the: facts which he has brought together, connected with the natural history of the human race, and the ingenuity with which he applies them.

This account of Colonel Smith's volume must be looked upon as a mere outline; for to indicate his arguments or follow him into his largest details would require a great space. It will be seen from this outline, that his arrangement, when its scope is comprehended, is both exhaustive and distinct : his composition is clear, close, and sometimes eloquent, from the largeness of the speculation, the ingenuity of the view, and the force of the facts. But the merit of the work is not so much in its form or its execution, both of which might be improved, as in the extent, variety, and originality of its views and matter; for the collection and application of the facts give to them a species of originality—such of them as we knew Wore have a new use. It may be remarked as re- gards the composition, that the author restricted himself to space, which may sometimes have occasioned curtness ; and there are several imper- fections obviously arising from insufficient correction of the press. The special characters of Colonel Smith's work must be sought in the volume; an extract or two will convey an idea of its more general matter.

YOUNG CREATION.

In a mental physiological retrospect we might, perhaps fancifully, but not without truth, cast a pictorial glance over the aspect of organic nature as it may have been presented to the light'of day in the brightness of youthful creation, with verdant meads and dense forests, composed of botanical families still extant, abounding in palms of different genera, in species of giant aranclinacea and marsh plants, at this day flourishing in warm regions. Imagination might be- hold remaining pachyderms on the borders of lakes; huge ruminants swarming on the plains; saurian not as yet reduced in location, and numbers basking or floundering on the banks of the waters; hyaenas by the borders of the wood, or glaring from opening caverns; and, perhaps, a distant solitary column of white smoke ascending from the forest, the certain indication of man's presence,—as yet humble, and in awe of the brute monarchs around him; possessing no weapons beyond a club, nor a tool beyond a flint knife; timid on earth, because he is still unacquainted with his own rising superiority over other animated beings, though they be more powerful than himself; and ignorant of his destiny to survive their duration of existence, though he may already have witnessed convulsions which, while they tend to benefit hun and set bounds to the rest, are yet causes of ap- prehension, because he cannot wholly escape their operation.

STAGES OF THE HUMAN BRAIN.

The higher order of animals, according to the investigations of M. de Serres, passes successively through the state of inferior animals, as it were in transitu, adopting the characteristics that are permanently imprinted on those below them in the scale of organization. Thus, the brain of man excels that of any other animal in complexity of organization and fulness of development. But this is only attained by gradual steps. At the earliest period that it is cognizable to the senses, it appears a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty distinguishable into three parts, and having a little tail-like prolongation, which indicates the spinal marrow. In this state it perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish; thus assuming, in transits, the form that is permanent in fish. Shortly after, the structure becomes more complex, the parts more distinct, the spinal marrow better marked. It is now the brain of a reptile. The change continues by a sin- gular motion. The corpora quadrigemina, which had hitherto appeared on the upper surface, now pass towards the lower: the former is their permanent situa- tion in fishes and reptiles, the latter in birds and mammalia. This is another step in the scale. The complication increases; cavities or ventricles are formed, which do not exist in either fishes," reptiles, or birds. Curiously organized parts, such as thecorpora striata, are added. It is now the brain of mammalia. Its last and final change is wanting—that which shall render it the brain of man, in the structure of its full and human development. But although, in this pro- pasive augmentation of organized parts, the full complement of the human brain is thus attained, the Caucasian form of man has still other transitions to undergo before the complete chef creme of nature is perfected. Thus, the hu- man brain successively assumes the form. of the Negroes, the Malays, the Ameri- cans, and the Mongolians, before it attains the Caucasian. Nay more, the face Partakes of these alterations. One of the earliest points where ossification com- mences is the lower jaw. This bone is therefore sooner completed than any other of the head, and acquires a predominance which it never loses in the Negro. -Daring the soft pliant state of the bones of the skull, the oblong form which they naturally assume approaches nearly the permanent shape of the American. M birth, the flattened face and broad smooth forehead of the infant, the position of the eyes, rather towards the sides of the head, and the widened space between, represent the Mongolian form; which in the Caucasian is not obliterated but by degrees, as the child advances to maturity.

The volume is illustrated by a great variety of engravings of skulls and heads, picturing the descriptions or supporting the arguments of the text.