THE YEttow RACE. The yellow race is the most typically Asiatic of all. It numbers seven tenths of the population of the continent, anal covers practically all its extent outside of the do mains of the Aryo-Semites—into whiell, indeed, it has not failed to intrude, first in prehistorie ages and again in modern times, with the result that there is a large Mongolian element in the Caucasians of Asia Minor, Afghanistan, Behich istan. and India. The race may he divided into two great geographical groups—one in the north, embracing all the tribes of Siberia and Turkes tan, with their centre somewhere near the Altai Mountains; the other in the south, comprehend ing the peoples of China and Farther India, with their primitive home in the mountains of Tibet. (1) The Siberian branch of the yellow raee in cludes a large variety of stocks. In the extreme north, on the borders of the Arctic Ocean, live a handful of aboriginal groups, the survivors of numerous tribes which lived there in ancient times, destined themselves to speedy extinction. Such are the l'ukaghirs, the Tchuktehis, the Na mollos, the Koriaks, and the Kamchatkans, mim bering in all about ten thousand. Farther west is the great Ural-Altaic stock, consisting of a large number of families which are themselves subdivided into powerful• tribes. These include the Samoyed group, which comprises the Yenisei and the ()stinks, living near the shores of the Arctic; the Finno-Lapponie group, including the Votiaks, Alordwins, and Vognis. dwelling in the neighborhood of Tobohsk. Tomsk, and the 'Ural Mountains, as well as the Magyars of Hungary and some of the population of the Balkan region and European Russia, now Aryanized as to the Turko-Tatar group, Yakuts, trigu•s, Turkomans, and Khirgiz. occupying a vast terri tory in Southwestern Siberia and Central Asia; the Mongol group, subdivided geographically into North Mongols, the East Mongols, and West Mongols (Kalmuks), with their centre of popu lation around Lake Baikal, but found also in the region bounded by the Volga, the Don, the Caucasus, and the Caspian Sea, and in China ; fumlly, the Tunguse group, consisting of the 'Funguses proper, the Manehus, and the Orotong peoples which dwell in the forests of Eastern Siberia and extend into Northern China. To the Siberian branch also belong the Japanese, the Koreans in part. the natives of the Liu-Kiu Islands, and, some would have it, the _lino. In Turkestan and the region of the Caucasus are minor peoples of mixed origin. who belong by
language or by blood to the Siberian branch of the yellow race.
(2) The southern branch of the yellow race, the SinRie or Tibeto-Chinese, embraces the Chi nese proper, with many variations in language and much mixture of blood: the Tibetans, to whom should be added as related by blood more than by language, minor peoples of the southern 1 slope of the Himalayas; the races of Farther India, comprising the Annamese, the Burmese, the Siamese, the Cambodians, the Karel's. the Khamtis, and a number of others. In addition, some ethnologists make the 'Malays and Poly nesians. and el:en the Amerinds, mere subdivi sions of the yellow race. The two great branches of the yellow race diverge in the mode of inflect ing their language, just as the two great branches of the white race in Asia, the Semites and the Aryans do, the Siberian peoples possess ing polysyllabic agglutinative vernaculars, while those of the Chinese peoples are monosyllabic, isolating. The Japanese Innguage is polysyllabic and akin to the Malian, though its alphabet has been adopted from the Chinese. The theory which made the yellow race the first inhabitants of most of Europe and of all of Western Asia (Turanians, Accado-Sumerians, etc.), seems no longer tenable; neither eon it be asserted that the oldest culture of the yellow race in China, Korea, and Japan is either a copy of the old Babylonian civilization or the result of compara tively recent Aryan influence. Chinese civiliza tion mast be regarded as having originated witlt the removal of the prehistoric raves from the pla teau of Tibet to the rich river lands of Eastern China, just as Aramaic civilization originated with the immigration of the Semites of Arabia into the plains of Mesopotamia. Chinese civili zation, therefore, may be considered as the first great accomplishment of the yellow race. The characteristics of that civilization—inveterate conservatism, general apathy, and unlimited sub missiveness—should not. however, be considered as inherent in the race, one great branch of which. the Japanese. have only recently demon strated the possession of quite the opposite qual ities. The Siberian members of the race are mote notable for what they have done in Europe than for the part they have played in Asia ; the mighty empires of Genghis Khan, Timm-, and Baker were not enduring; on the other hand, the inroads of the Bulgarians, Finns, and Magyars into Europe have produced lasting results.