TURKS, the name of a numerous, important, and widely-spread family of the human race, members of which are to be found as well on the banks of the Lena in Siberia, as on those of the Danube and the shores of the Adriatic in Europe. The Turks belong to the second of Blumeubach's five great divisions of mankind—viz., Mongolians; and to the first, or Mongolicla, in Dr. Latham's threefold classification. In this latter classifica tion, the Turks form a branch of the Turanian stock of Altaic Mongolidm. Their geographical distribution, according to Dr. Latham, iJ as follows: " 1. As a continuous population. East and w.; from the neighborhood of the lake Baikal, 110° e. long., to the eastern boundaries of the Greek and Slavonic countries of Europe, about 21° e. long. N. and s.; from the northern frontiers of Thibet and Persia, about 34' n. lat., to the country u. of Tobolsk, about.59' n. hit. 2. Asan isolated population. Along the lower course of the Lena, and the shores of the White sea, chiefly within the Arctic circle. 3. As portions of a mixed population in China, Thibet, Mongolia. Persia, Armenia, the Caucasian countries, Syria, Egypt, Barbary, Greece, Albania, and the Slavonic portion of Turkey in Europe." The names Tourkoi, Turkai, and Turcte occur in some ancient authors as applied to a Scythian people dwelling in Asiatic Sarmatia, and it is very likely that the Scythians of antiquity were allied in blood with the numerous existing Turkish tribes, if not absolutely their ancestors. The original seat of the Turks was probably upon the northern slopes of the Altai range, from which, while a portion emigrated into independent Turkistan, others going s.s.e,, established themselves upon the confines of the Chinese empire. MM. Abel-Remusat, Klaproth, Ritter, and other high authorities concur in tracing all the now existing Turkish tribes to the Hiong-nu, a powerful nation who, prior to the Christian era, threatened to overrun and subjugate China, and who then occupied the whole of the vast region now called Mongolia, from the n. of China to mount Altai. Dr. Prichard coincides in this opinion. The lliong-nu (or vile slaves, so called by the Chinese), indeed, for some time succeeded in establishing a kind of rule. in China, and even intermarried with the imperial family; but about the commencement of the Christian era, their power in China began to wane, and before the end of the 2d c. they were driven back as far as independent Turkistan. " After the fall of the empire of Hiong-nu," says Prichard, the Turks "are known in Chinese history by the name of Thu-k'iti, or Turks, and Whey-ou-eul, by Europeans written Huy-hurs, and more correctly, Uigours. The Uigours, or eastern Turks, whose history has been elucidated by Abel-Remusat, are the link of connection between these more remote nations and the Seljuki and Osmanli Turks, who are known to European historians."'
After the fall of the Hiong-nu empire in China, the tribes who composed its strength separated, some maintaining themselves of their acquired settlements, and even con quering portions of China; but by far the greater number spread westward over western Mongolia, e. and w. Turkistan, and southern Siberia, and gradually lost their power and unity as a nation. Out of this of a fallen people arose, in the 5th c., the great empire (the empire of Kiptchalc) of the Thu-k'iti, which contested the supremacy of central Asia with the Chinese on the e., and the Sassanidve (q.v.) on the w., ulti mately falling in 744 before the Hoei-he, a confederation of Turkish tribes which had hitherto been subject to it. The Hoei-he, attacked in the w. by the Hakas (the ancestors of the present Kirghis), yielded to their assailants in 848, but retained their power e. of the Bolor-tagh, and for 150 years longer ruled supreme from that range to the Hoang-lio. During the eight centuries succeeding their expulsion from China, a regular though slow progress westward had been maintained by some of the Turkish tribes, a portion of whom appear (5th c. A.D.) in southern Russia, and on the northern frontier of the Byzantine empire, driving before them the kindred race of the Avars. They were found in Syria and Mesopotamia in the 7th c., and about the same time wandered into northern and eastern Khorassan. But the seat of power of the Turkish race still was in central Asia, whence in the 10th c. the Seljuks (q.v.) emerged, conquering Persia, Syria, and Asia Minor, .and establishing an empire which reached from Constantinople to the borders of Mongolia. The subdivision of the Seljuk empire in south-western Asia led to its gradual absorption by the Khaurezmians in the n., and the Kurds in the w., till the irresistible tide of Mongol invasion under Genghis Khan (q.v.), rolling over central and western Asia, and the e.. of Europe, completely overwhelmed Turkish dominancy. The great empire of Timur (q.v.) was Turk, with a strong infusion of the Mongol ele ment, the residue of Genghis's irruption; and its destroyers, the Uzbeks (q.v.), and the various other tribcs—Khirghis, Kiptchaks, Turkomans, etc.—which now possess its extensive domains, are also of Turkish race. The Osmanli-Turks arc descended from a portion of the Turkish tribe of the Kayi, which fled from its settlements in Khorassan before the Mongols, and look refuge with the Scljuks of Iconium. Sec OTTOMAN EmPittc. SELJURS, etc.