learned Vater makes to the comparisons of Dr. Barton, in regard to the manner of their compilation, must certainly be considered as entirely removed, at least as far as human industry, sagacity and learning and the lapse of many years could do them away; but those which arise from the nature of the subject itself, from the inexplicable and disappointing results obtained, do appear to us still applicable in a great de gree to the learned and persevering labours of the European philologist. The comparisons are still few and sparse, and selected from a vast variety of remote dialects, many of them without visible approximation or connexion. The resemblances enumerated amount, as we count them, to 104 between the American languages and those of Asia and Aus tralia, 43 with those of Europe, and 40 with those of Africa; in all 187. We must take leave to ask whether these are sufficient to prove a connexion between 400 dialects of America and the various languages of the old world. Lost in an ocean of multifarious forms of speech, selected, as they offer themselves, from the whole length of America, including Greenland, from amid tribes the most diversified in appearance and habits, the most widely separated nations of the old world selected for the parallels, Tungooses and Biscayans, Tartars and Boshiesmen, those who wrote the sacred language of the Hindoos, with the bards of Wales and the historians of ancient Ireland, quoted in bewildering confusion, or only classed by continents, can these coincidences be considered as leading to any available conclusion? One hundred and seven languages and dialects are compared to discover them, thus affording an average of little more than two or three comparisons in each case in which connexion is sought for. We would wish to speak of the labours of learned and illustrious men with all becoming modesty; but does not this profound investigator over-estimate the results of his inquiries when he pronounces these coincidences to be more than

the work of chance; or, to speak more correctly, are they not the effect of the similarity, among all the races of mankind, of the organs of speech? We have seen it probable that the identity of the human intellect, under the same circumstances, will lead to a similarity of manners and customs. Is it not equally evident that, from the structure of our bodies, certain sounds are produced with more facility than others, and are, from this cause, more frequently employed in the gradual construction of languages? It is, we believe, the opinion of philologists that forty or fifty letters will express all the elementary sounds employed in human intercourse in any part of the world. If the number of simple sounds be so small, will not certain easy conjunctions of them become peculiarly familiar among different unconnected nations, and is it not reasonable to presume that some of these will be employed in more tribes than one at the same time, to designate those familiar ideas which have been selected by philologists for their vocabularies of comparison? With all proper reserve, we should suggest that this principle, which is assented to by Professor Vater, appears sufficient to account for the resemblances enumerated above; and that it therefore cannot be considered proved at present that the languages of America, with the exception of the ease of the Esquimaux and Tschuktschi, have any connexion with those of the old world.

We should not lose sight of the great difficulty and liability to error essentially inherent in the inquiry. Mistakes of considerable number and magnitude are unavoidably committed from the necessary disadvantages of intercourse in an unknown language, with imperfect or heedless interpreters. An amusing and yet striking example of this occurs in Mariner's account of the Tonga islands, where Captain Cook appears to have been misled by this cause. Among other instanccs, the celebrated circumnavigator gives a word as the

Tonga, for "good," whereas, says Mariner, this signifies, "give it. me if you please," the native having begged for the object which Captain Cook thought he was merely praising. Again, when he asked what was the Tonga for 100,000, the savage, whose arithmetic probably did not extend so high, replied by a phrase supposed by the reporter to express that number, but which really means “nonsense” or "foolish discourse."

The prosecution of this curious inquiry, carried on, as it is, by men of profound understanding and unbounded learning, can hardly fail to lead to many highly interesting results with regard to the affiliation of the tribes of mankind both on our own and the older continent. We are bound to state that one extensive section of this field of inquiry yet remains open to future labourers. We may mention the Mayo language, now spoken in Honduras, and which appears to have been the maternal stem of the dialects of the exterminated population of Cuba, Hayti, and Porto Rico. This possesses analogies with some of the dialects of the southern ramifications of Mount Atlas, in Africa; analogies which are considered worthy of attention by Balbi. The great empire of Brazil contains numerous languages, and the relics of more, which are either unknown or very imperfectly known to the ethnographer. As these are directly opposite to the continent of Africa, across an ocean of more moderate width than that of the North Atlantic or Pacific, this circumstance, together with the constant prevalence of the trade winds, renders migration from east to west at that point by savage families a more probable occurrence; and as some other circumstances render that a point which it is interesting to examine in regard to emigration, we have a right to expect from that quarter a considerable mass of additional evidence on the difficult problem of American colonization.

Another argument in favour of the Mongolian origin by

north eastern Asia, and one generally assumed and mu sisted on, is the similarity in conformation said to be with between the American Indians and the men of M lian descent now encountered in Asia. This has, of been generally held as incontestable; and we are surpris the facility with which persons who have been well of other difficulties have given in to this opinion. T the more remarkable, as the materials for a correct judg are so easy of access, and the point of which a judgm to be formed so visible and conspicuous. The leading racters of the Mongol conformation are a yellow cold forehead rather low and contracted, the facial angle rathe than in the European, the cheek bones wide and projec giving a broad and flat appearance to the face, and causin nose to appear but little prominent, seeming buried a the other features, the opening of the eyes narrow and having the outer angle a little raised and the inner depre and the stature rather moderate, except in the ext northern variety, in which it is dwarfish. Those of American Indian are a colour usually styled red, cheek b a little elevated, but not remarkably wide or projecting wards, nose nearly as prominent, according to Blumen as in the European, eyes alleged to be similar to those o Mongol, stature moderate, proportions slender, except civilized, employed in labour and well fed, when, accor to Heckewelder, he becomes thick and muscular,

We feel as if treading dangerous ground when questio the accuracy of an inference so generally received as th a resemblance between these two sets of characters; bu may be permitted to inquire whether this reverence for We names and established opinions, which has so often been means of retarding the growth of science, has not oper to a disadvantage in the present inquiry. It really app to the writer of these sheets that there is no particular

semblance such as has been described, other than in the fact of a slender conformation, a quality which is easily produced in all varieties of men, by an active mode of life, without heavy labour, and with a sparing or irregular nutrition. The yellow colour contrasts with a hue which we call red, and which is certainly no shade of yellow, and resembles in no degree that of the Mongolian Chinese who are occasionally brought to this part of the world. The low forehead and facial angle are assumed by Blumenbach as a distinction. of the Mongol from the Caucasian or European race, and is common to all the other nations of mankind, excepting that it is rather smaller in the negro. The form of the opening of the eyelids described as narrow, and with the outer angle raised, has not appeared conspicuous to us in the most familiar Indian faces, nor in the drawings of these people which we have seen; and certainly it is far from evident in the engraving which Professor Blumenbach has given us as an example. With regard to the next peculiarity, it has always appeared to the writer of these sheets that a confusion of ideas existed among authors, and that the elevated cheek bones of the American variety of mankind bore none but an imaginary resemblance to the projecting and widely spread cheek bones of the Mongol. Certain it is that the face of the American Indian in our vicinity is far from a flat one; the nose projecting, as is indeed acknowledged by Professor Blumenbach, nearly as much as in the European. Indeed, the writer of this has been informed by a member of the Missouri expedition that the prominent or Roman nose is very common among the Indians of that quarter; so much so that it is considered a mark of personal beauty, of which the warriors are frequently proud. In one tribe, according to Mr. Say, the established hieroglyphic character for beauty, was a bent line, expressing the contour of such a nose.

The face of the portrait given by Blumenbach as an il