Camper's method was abandoned for the vertical method, or norma verticalis, invented by Blumenbach. The object being to collect the greatest number of charac teristics—" The best way," says Blumenbach, "of obtaining this end is to place a series of skulls with the cheek-bones on the same horizontal line resting ou the lower jaws; and then viewing,them from, behind,- and fixing the eye on the vertex-of each, to mark all the varieties irf klieVshapel of parts that contribute' most to the national character, whether they consist in the direction of the maxillary and malar bones, in the breadth or narrowness of the oval figure presented by the vertex, or in the flattened or vaulted. form of the frontal bone.". Founding upon this mode of admeasurement applied to a. large collection of skulls of different nations, accumulated by himself, Blumenbach classified the human family into the following five varieties—viz., the Caucasian, Mon golian, Ethiopian, Malay, and American. In the first of these—which he made to include the Caucasians or Circassians proper, the Celts, the Teutons, the Shemites, the Libyan family, the Nilotic family, and the Hindustanic family—the skull is large and oval, the forehead expanded, the nasal bones arched, the chin full, and the teeth verti cal. In the second—which embraces the Chinese and Indo-Chinese, the natives of the polar regions, the Mongol Tartars, and the Turks—the skull is oblong, but flattened at the sides, the forehead low and receding, the nose broad and short, and the cheek-bones broad and flat, with salient zygoinatic arches. In the third—embracing the Negroes, Kafirs, Hottentots, Australians, Alforians and Oceanic Negroes—the skull is long and narrow, the forehead low, the nose broad and flat, the cheek-bones prominent, the jaws projecting like a muzzle, the lips thick, and the chin small. In the fourth—embracing. the Malays and Polynesians generally—the skull is high and square, the forehead low, the nose short and broad, and the jaws projecting. In the fifth—embracing the Ameri can family and the Toltican family—the skull is small, the apex high, and the back part flat, the forehead receding, the cheek-bones high, the nose aquiline, the mouth large, and the lips tumid.
This classification of the human family, with the added characteristics, under each class, of complexion, hair, and eyes, is, upon the whole, the most popular, Blumenbach having taken considerable pains to elaborate it, and present it to the world in a form acceptable to scientific inquirers. Later researches, however, have proved it to be not quite tenable. Thus, Cuvier reduced the five classes of Blumenbach to three—viz., the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Ethiopian, treating the Malay and American as subdivisions of the Mongolian. Jacquinot does the same. Dr. Prichard, who brought to the study of E. not only a large acquaintance with physiology, but a considerable knowledge of languages, admits a greater number of varieties than Blumenbach, but divides his Cau casian class into two independent groups, which he calls the Syro-Arabian or Semitic, and the Aryan or Indo-Germanic. Moreover, he objects to the term Caucasian, as representing the notion that mankind had their origin on mountain heights. For him
self, Prichard holds with the view that it was rather on the banks of large rivers and their estuaries that the primitive nations developed themselves. " The cradles or nurseries of the first nations, of those at least who became populous, and have left a, name celebrated in later times, appear to have been extensive plains or valleys, traversed by navigable channels, and irrigated by perennial and fertilizing streams. Three such regions were the scenes of the earliest civilization of the human race, of the first founda tion of cities, of the earliest political institutions, and of the invention of the arts which embellish human life. In one of these, the Semitic or Syro-Arabian nations exchanged the simple habits of wandering shepherds for the splendor and luxury of Nineveh and Babylon. In a second, the Indo-European or Japetic people brought to perfection the most elaborate of human dialects, destined to become in after-times, and under differ ent modifications, the mother-tongue of the nations of Europe. In a third, the land of Ham, watered by the Nile, were invented hieroglyphical literature, and the arts in which Egypt far surpassed all the rest of the world in the earlier ages of history." Dr. Prichard, in his well-known Natural Ilistory of Man, commences with a description of these three divisions of the human race, not as discriminated one from the other by the form of the skull, but as comprising nearly all the civilized communities, and indeed most of the tribes of people known to antiquity. " They were neither nomades nor savages, nor do they display in their crania either of the forms principally belonging to races iu those different states of existence. They had all heads of an oval or elliptico spherical form, which are observed to prevail chiefly among nations who have their faculties developed by civilization." As they cannot, however, by any means be made to comprehend all the types of man, after the Egyptians, he describes the great body of the nations of Africa, embracing tribes sunk in the lowest state of degradation; and after the Ayrans, or Indo-Europeans, the people of high Asia, chiefly nomades, inhabiting vast steppes, and never rising in the scale of civilization beyond the condition of wan dering shepherds, though in this capacity possessing some wealth, and acquainted with the use of clothing, tents, and wagons. "These classes of nations," he observes, "have different physical characters. Among the African savages we find the prognathous form of the head and all its accompaniments; and these traits display themselves in propor tion to the moral and physical degradation of the race. In Northern Asia, most of the inhabitants have the pyramidal and broad-faced skulls." Referring our readers to the articles ARYAN RACE, EGYPT, and SITEMITIC NATIONS respectively, for more detailed information on the subject of these three grand divisions of mankind, we shall here only notice Dr. Prichard's subdivisions of one of them, namely, the Aryan race.