The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers

by Unknown

MAN AND THE HUMAN FAMILY

In the colorless language of science, man is classed under the order Primates (Lat., primus, first) and suborder Bimana (Lat., bis, twice; manus, a hand) which means a two-handed animal. Although the contrast between man and other animals is more distinct among the higher members of the human species, it may be traced in all. It is less of degree than of kind, and is rather intellectual and spiritual than physical.

In size man is dwarfed by numerous animals; in strength he is no match for some that do not attain his proportions. He is short-sighted compared to the eagle; deaf compared to the hare; and almost without the sense of smell compared to the wild dog or the vulture, who perceives the faintest scent borne to it upon the breeze.

HOW MAN DIFFERS FROM
OTHER ANIMALS

In adult life man is unique in his erect posture, and in the freedom of his hands from any direct share in locomotion. His body is usually naked, his canine teeth are not longer than their neighbors, his thumbs are larger than those of monkeys, and his feet are distinguished by the horizontal sole which rests flatly on the ground. His face is notably more vertical than that of apes, lying below rather than in front of the forepart of the brain-case; the jaws, the orbits, and the ridges above them are relatively smaller; the nose-bones project more beyond the upper jaw; and the chin is more prominent than in other Primates.

BRAIN-POWER THE SUPREME
DIFFERENCE

Probably the most important difference between man and other members of the same or any order, is the higher physical development of the brain. Not only is the size greater in proportion to the rest of the body, but it presents a more elaborate series of folds, or convolutions. When it is understood that the physical processes corresponding to the highest mental activities are located in the cortex, or rind of the brain, it is seen that the extent and number of the convolutions, by increasing the area of the cortex, must play a considerable part in determining the intellectual effectiveness of the animal.

In addition to mere size of brain, may be noted the adaptability of his hands to many uses, allowing a degree of skill impossible to other animals. The senses, too, are so nicely balanced and accurately adjusted as to enable him to obtain an intimate acquaintance with the properties of the world around him, in a manner that will contribute to his pleasure, and at the same time ensure his elevation and happiness. He possesses the gift of language by which to denote his wants; the colors of the earth and sea and sky gladden his eye; melody enchants his ear; the sweet odors of flowers delight his nostrils; the fruits of summer please his palate; the glorious sun and the spangled canopy of heaven entrance him—and all lead him to the contemplation of the Deity, of whose wondrous scheme he is himself the corner-stone.

When differences other than physical are considered, the superiority of man is so great as to incline many to the opinion that he is a separate creation on the ground of his mentality alone.

However great this superiority is, it does not appear that man possesses any faculty or fairly fundamental mental process which is not possessed in some degree by some lower animal or other. Memory, the powers of abstraction, and of reasoning are possessed by certain animals, if only in a very simple form.

He alone can produce fire; and this acquaintance with fire and the art of cooking has also frequently been regarded as the most distinctive characteristic of the human race. Clothing and decoration are also early peculiarities of man. Alone among animals, he covers himself with the skins of the beasts he has slain, and adorns himself with feathers, shells, teeth, and bones. Yet from these simple beginnings all the arts gradually developed.

MAN AND HIS
DEAD

Man is one of the few animals to pay special attention to his dead. Funeral rites differ much from place to place, and form a special subject of anthropological study. Tumuli, pyramids, standing-stones, and other forms of funeral monument have each their history and implications. Especially does man almost everywhere believe in some sort of survival of the individual after death, and in the existence within himself of a soul or spirit which outlives its fleshly habitation. The origin of religion is largely connected with these ideas of a future life and a future world. Herbert Spencer traces it directly to the theory of hosts and ancestor-worship; Dr. Tylor, to what he calls animism, or the belief in souls universally pervading all natural objects.

Man alone also wilfully indulges in intoxicating, stupefying, or exciting substances, such as alcohol, tobacco, bhang, opium, hashish, etc.

THE GREAT QUESTION OF
MAN’S ORIGIN

As to man’s origin, two main views may be said at present to contest the field. Has man sprung from a single or from several stocks? Do the races of men constitute so many members of one family, or are they four or more unrelated groups? One answer, formerly the accepted one, is based either upon the literal interpretation of Scripture or upon natural theology, and regards him as a distinct creation, separate from and superior to the remaining animals. The other, accepted by many competent authorities, regards him as descended from a hairy ancestor, more or less remotely allied to the anthropoid apes. This theory of his antecedents has been elaborated in profuse detail by Charles Darwin, whose Descent of Man forms the great storehouse of information and speculation on the question. In the beginning, according to the evolutionary view, man was apparently homogeneous—a single species, speaking a single primitive rude tongue (largely eked out by signs and gesture-language), and not divided into distinct varieties. At an early period, however, the species broke up into several races, now inhabiting various parts of the world.

MAN’S PRIMEVAL HOME AND HIS
EARLIEST KNOWN REMAINS

If man is therefore essentially one, he cannot have had more than one primeval home. This human cradle, as it may be called, has been located with some certainty in the Eastern Archipelago, and more particularly in the island of Java, where in 1892 Dr. Eugene Dubois brought to light the earliest known remains that can be described as distinctly human. From the Pliocene (late Tertiary) beds of the Trinil district he recovered some teeth, a skull, and a thigh-bone of a being whom he named the Pithecanthropus erectus, thereby indicating an “Ape-man that could walk.”

In this “first man,” as he has been designated, the erect position, shown by the perfectly human thigh-bone, implies a perfectly prehensile (grasping) hand, with opposable thumb, the chief instrument of human progress, while the cranial capacity suggests vocal organs sufficiently developed for the first rude utterances of articulate speech.

PROBABLY THE FIRST
MIGRATIONS OF MAN

The Javanese man was thus already well equipped for his long migrations round the globe. Armed with stone, wooden, bone, and other weapons that lay at hand, and gifted with mental powers far beyond those of all other animals, he was assured of success from the first. He certainly had no knowledge of navigation; but that was not needed to cross inland seas, open waters, and broad estuaries which, indeed, did not exist in Pliocene and later times. The road was open across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar and South Africa by the now submerged Indo-African Continent. The Eastern Archipelago still formed part of the Asiatic mainland from which it is separated even now by shallow waters, in many places scarcely fifty fathoms deep. Eastwards the way was open to New Guinea, and thence across Torres Strait to Australia and thence to the Islands of the Pacific Ocean. In the northern hemisphere Europe could be reached from Africa by three routes, one across the Strait of Gibraltar, another between Tunis, Malta, Sicily and Italy, and a third from Cyrenaica across the Ægean to Greece, and the British Isles from Europe via the Strait of Dover and the shallow North Sea. Lastly, the New World was accessible both from Asia across Bering Strait, and from Europe through the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. Here were, therefore, sufficient land connections for early man to have gradually spread from his Javanese cradle to the uttermost confines of the habitable globe.

THE OLDEST EXTANT REMAINS OF THE HUMAN RACE

APE-MAN OF JAVA (Pithecanthropus erectus)	PILTDOWN MAN
as restored from the remains found by Dr. Dubois in Java in 1892. It is estimated that he lived at least 500,000 years ago.	of Sussex, England, whose antiquity is thought to be over 100,000 years. This restored model indicates a marked progress in type and intelligence.
NEANDERTHAL MAN	CRO-MAGNON MAN
whose remains were found in central France. It is probably a type of a hunting race existent more than 25,000 years ago.	skeletons of which type were found in the grotto of Cro-Magnon, Vézère valley, France, in 1868. Supposed antiquity, 12,000 years.

WHEN THE WORLD WAS
FIRST PEOPLED

Much trustworthy evidence has been collected to show that the whole world had really been peopled during the period which roughly coincides with what is known in geology as the Ice Age; that is, when a large part of the northern and southern hemispheres was subject to invasions of thick-ribbed ice advancing successively from both poles. The migrations were most probably begun before the appearance of the first great ice-wave, then arrested and resumed alternately between the glacial intervals, and completed after the last glacial epoch, say, some two or three hundred thousand years ago.

At that time the various wandering groups had already made considerable progress both in physical and mental respects, as is seen in the Neanderthal skull, which is the oldest yet found in Europe, standing about midway between the Javanese ape-man and the present low races. All were still very much alike, presenting a sort of generalized human type which may be called Pleistocene man, a common undeveloped form, which did not begin to specialize—that is, to evolve the existing varieties until the several primitive groups had reached their respective homes as disclosed at the dawn of history.

EVIDENCES OF MAN’S ADVANCEMENT
IN PREHISTORIC AGES

From human remains, weapons, tools and other vestiges of human activity, found in the more recent deposits on the earth’s surface, the presence of man in these far off ages is made increasingly certain. The Pleistocene or Quaternary epoch, as represented by these objects of primitive culture, ranged over a vast period of time which has been conveniently divided into two great epochs, the Paleolithic or Old Stone, and the Neolithic or New Stone Age, these being so named from the material chiefly used by primitive peoples in the manufacture of their weapons and other implements. The distinction between the two periods, which are not to be taken as chronological, since they overlap in many places, is based essentially on the different treatment of the material, which during the immeasurably longer Old Stone Age was at first merely chipped, flaked, or otherwise rudely fashioned, but in the New more carefully worked and polished.

MAN IN THE OLD
STONE AGE

Evidence is, however, that it is not always possible to draw any clear line between the Old and New Stone Ages. In one respect the former was towards its close even in advance of the latter, and quite a “Paleolithic School of Art” was developed during a long period of steady progress in the sheltered Vézère valley, of South France. Here were produced some of those remarkable stone, horn, and even ivory scrapers, gravers, harpoons, ornaments and statuettes with carvings on the round, and skilful etchings of seals, fishes, reindeer, harnessed horses, mammoths, snakes, and man himself, which also occur in other districts.

In Tunisia many implements lie under a thick bed of Pleistocene limestone deposited by a river which has since disappeared. The now absolutely lifeless Libyan plateau is strewn with innumerable worked flints, showing that early man inhabited this formerly fertile region before it was reduced by the slowly changing climate to a waste of sands. The same story of man’s great age is told by discoveries in Burma, India, North and especially South America, and now also in Great Britain.

MAN IN THE NEW
STONE AGE

Outstanding features of the New Stone Age are the Swiss and other lake-dwellings, the Danish peat-beds with their varied contents, the shell-mounds occurring on the seaboard in many parts of the world.

In the more civilized regions, such as Egypt, Babylonia, parts of Asia Minor, and the Ægean lands, the Stone Ages were at an early date followed by a period vaguely designated as “prehistoric,” during which stone as the material of human implements was gradually replaced by the metals, first copper, then various copper alloys (arsenic, sulphur, nickel, cobalt, zinc, and especially tin) generally called bronze, lastly iron.

1 to 29.—Implements of the Stone Age. 30 to 48.—Implements of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages. 49 to 60.— Implements of the Late Iron Age.

[Large illustration] (273 kB)

Thus were constituted the so-called Metal Ages, during which, however, overlappings were everywhere so frequent that in many localities it is quite impossible to draw any well-marked dividing lines between the successive metal periods. Indeed a direct transition from Stone to Iron may be suspected in some places, and in any case the pure copper period appears to have nowhere been of long duration except in America, where there was no iron and little bronze.

THE AGE OF LETTERS
OR PICTOGRAPHS

Besides the metals, letters also, or at least pictorial writings such as the old rock carvings of Upper Egypt, were introduced in the Prehistoric Age, which comprises that transitional period dim memories of which lingered on far into historic times. It was an age of popular myths, folklore, demi-gods, heroes, traditions of real events, and even philosophic theories on man and his surroundings, which supplied ready to hand the copious materials afterwards worked up by the early poets, founders of new religions, and later lawgivers.

So also in China the early historians still remembered the still earlier “Age of the Three Rulers,” when people lived in caves, ate wild fruits and uncooked food, drank the blood of animals, and wore the skins of wild beasts (our Old Stone Age). Later they became less rude, learned to obtain fire by friction, and built themselves habitations of wood and foliage (our New Stone Age).

Of strictly historic times the most characteristic feature is the general use of letters, most fruitful of human inventions, since by its means everything worth preserving was perpetuated, and all useful knowledge thus tended to become accumulative. Writing systems, as we understand them, were not suddenly introduced, but gradually evolved from pictures representing things and ideas to conventional signs or symbols which first represent words, as in the Chinese script and our ciphers, and then articulate sounds, as in our alphabet. Between the two extremes—the pictograph and the letter—there are various intermediate forms, such as the rebus and the full syllable, and these transitional forms are largely preserved both in the Egyptian and Babylonian systems, which thus help to show how the pure phonetic symbols were finally reached. That was probably six thousand years ago, since we find various ancient scripts widely diffused over the Greek Archipelago (Crete, Cyprus, Asia Minor) in very early times. The hieroglyphic and cuneiform systems whence they originated were very much older, since the rock inscriptions of Upper Egypt are prior to all historic records, while the Mesopotamian city of Nippur already possessed half-pictorial, half-phonetic documents some six thousand years before the New Era.

This is an inscription in hieroglyphic writing found at Meidum, Egypt. It records the life events of King Rahotep and his Queen Nefert.

Here is an Egyptian pictograph representing the Nubians bearing gifts to the King of Egypt.

Large illustrations:
[Top] (233 kB)
[Bottom] (232 kB)

DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN RACE THROUGH THE AGES

This chart falls within the [Cenozoic] (sē´no-zō´ik), or “Recent life,” Period of the Earth and should be compared with it. Estimated Age of the Cenozoic Period, 3,000,000 years.

Geological Epochs of the Earth		Successive Upward Stages in the Development of Civilized Man		Estimated Time and Duration of Periods
Quaternary (Kwä-ter´na-rĭ) or“Fourth” Sedimentary System of the Earth. Age of Man.	Recent or Alluvial Epoch; called by Geologists Holocene (ho´lo-sen)	Historic Period.—Rise of Civilization through the gradual organization ofmankind into social groups and nations, for the protection of life, liberty and property and the advancement of the arts, sciences andreligion.	Age of Letters or Pictorial Writing This period offersan unbroken record of eventsfrom the first dated monuments and documents down to the present day. With the discoveries of archæologists in Babylonia, Egypt,Southern Arabia, and the Ægean lands, the beginnings of historic times are constantly receding farther into the background, and tothe Mesopotamian city of Nippur is already ascribed an antiquity of about eight thousand years.	800 B.C. to Present Time.
			Late Iron Age In this age man begins to bestir himselftowards discovery and invention.He organizes into tribes, makes laws, records observations—in fact, develops into nations such as manifest themselves on theearliest monuments of Egypt and Babylonia. In Europe it is characterized by forms of implements, weapons, personal ornaments, and pottery,and also by systems of decorative design, which are altogether different from those of the Bronze Age.	In Europe, 500 B.C. to Roman times.
			Early Iron Age, or Hallstatt Period The earliest evidenceof this age was found nearHallstatt, in Upper Austria, in a famous Celtic burial-ground. The excavations here yielded swords, daggers, javelins, spears, helmets,axes, shields, and various forms of jewelry, also amber and glass beads; silver was apparently not known. Most of the weapons were ofiron, only a few being of bronze.	In Europe, 1000 to 500 B.C. In Orient 1800 to 1000 B.C.
			Bronze Age Here flint is cast aside, and gold as anornament begins to attract him.This was the stage reached by the Aztecs and the aborigines of Peru when discovered by Europeans in the early sixteenth century. Theimplements and weapons include knives, saws, sickles, awls, gouges, hammers, anvils, axes, swords, daggers, spears, arrows, shields. Theforms of each class differ in different areas, and vary with advancing time. The workmanship is always of a very high order, the shapesgraceful, and the finish fine.	In Europe, 2000 to 1000 B.C. In Orient 4000 to 1800 B.C.
	Pleistocene (plis´to-sēn) orGlacial Epoch		New Stone Age or Neolithic (Gr., neos, new; lithos, stone) The Neolithicimplements occur in river-terraces, alluvial deposits, lake dwellings and caves. The weapons and tools were made of highly polished stone.With the relics of Neolithic man are found remains of the Irish elk, the reindeer, beaver, brown bear, etc. Besides these were theremains of domesticated forms such as the cat, horse, sheep, dog, and goat. The tribes were acquainted with agriculture, and were advancedin the arts of weaving and pottery-making.	In Europe, about 12,000 to 3000 B.C. Cro-Magnon, and Grimaldi Races (about 10,000B.C.)
		Pre-historic Period.—Dawn of mind, industry and art. This period mergedimperceptibly into the more strictly historic period when letters were introduced.	Old Stone Age or Paleolithic (Gr., palaios, ancient; lithos,stone) Themen of this age were hunters, and the remains of successive hunting races have been found in the deposits of caves, river gravels, andother sediments. They used rude hatchets and other implements of rough, unpolished stone which occur in association with relics ofnorthern (mammoth, reindeer, cave-bear) and southern mammalia (lion, leopard, hippopotamus). The walls of their caves are covered withrough sketches of animals belonging to that period. The men who inhabited the caves of Europe in Paleolithic time were very similar tothe modern Eskimo.	In Europe, about 125,000 to 12,000 B.C. Neanderthal Man (about 25,000 B.C.) PiltdownMan (about 110,000 B.C.)
			Dawn Stone Age, or Eolithic Primitive man existed evenearlier than paleolithic man. Itis certain that, in order that man possess the necessary skill exhibited in the flint implements, he must have passed through a previousand necessarily less skillful stage. Evidences of this period have been claimed to exist in the Plateau-gravels of Kent, Belgium andEgypt.	About 525,000 to 125,000 B.C. Heidelberg Man (about 250,000 B.C.) Pithecanthropus(about 475,000 B.C.)
Tertiary (ter-shi-a-ri), or “third.” Age of mammals.	Pliocene (plī´ō-sēn), or“more recent.”		Period of the probable appearance of the Human Races.	...
	Miocene (mī´ō-sēn), or“less recent.”		Gradual formation of man-like types.	...

Geological Epochs of the Earth		Successive Upward Stages in the Development of Civilized Man		Estimated Time and Duration of Periods
Quaternary (Kwä-ter´na-rĭ) or“Fourth” Sedimentary System of the Earth. Age of Man.	Recent or Alluvial Epoch; called by Geologists Holocene (ho´lo-sen)	Historic Period.—Rise of Civilization through the gradual organization ofmankind into social groups and nations, for the protection of life, liberty and property and the advancement of the arts, sciences andreligion.	Age of Letters or Pictorial Writing This period offers anunbroken record of eventsfrom the first dated monuments and documents down to the present day. With the discoveries of archæologists in Babylonia, Egypt,Southern Arabia, and the Ægean lands, the beginnings of historic times are constantly receding farther into the background, and tothe Mesopotamian city of Nippur is already ascribed an antiquity of about eight thousand years.	800 B.C. to Present Time.
			Late Iron Age In this age man begins to bestir himselftowards discovery and invention.He organizes into tribes, makes laws, records observations—in fact, develops into nations such as manifest themselves on theearliest monuments of Egypt and Babylonia. In Europe it is characterized by forms of implements, weapons, personal ornaments, and pottery,and also by systems of decorative design, which are altogether different from those of the Bronze Age.	In Europe, 500 B.C. to Roman times.
			Early Iron Age, or Hallstatt Period The earliest evidenceof this age was found nearHallstatt, in Upper Austria, in a famous Celtic burial-ground. The excavations here yielded swords, daggers, javelins, spears, helmets,axes, shields, and various forms of jewelry, also amber and glass beads; silver was apparently not known. Most of the weapons were ofiron, only a few being of bronze.	In Europe, 1000 to 500 B.C. In Orient 1800 to 1000 B.C.
			Bronze Age Here flint is cast aside, and gold as anornament begins to attract him.This was the stage reached by the Aztecs and the aborigines of Peru when discovered by Europeans in the early sixteenth century. Theimplements and weapons include knives, saws, sickles, awls, gouges, hammers, anvils, axes, swords, daggers, spears, arrows, shields. Theforms of each class differ in different areas, and vary with advancing time. The workmanship is always of a very high order, the shapesgraceful, and the finish fine.	In Europe, 2000 to 1000 B.C. In Orient 4000 to 1800 B.C.
	Pleistocene (plis´to-sēn) orGlacial Epoch		New Stone Age or Neolithic (Gr., neos, new; lithos, stone) The Neolithicimplements occur in river-terraces, alluvial deposits, lake dwellings and caves. The weapons and tools were made of highly polished stone.With the relics of Neolithic man are found remains of the Irish elk, the reindeer, beaver, brown bear, etc. Besides these were theremains of domesticated forms such as the cat, horse, sheep, dog, and goat. The tribes were acquainted with agriculture, and were advancedin the arts of weaving and pottery-making.	In Europe, about 12,000 to 3000 B.C. Cro-Magnon, and Grimaldi Races (about 10,000B.C.)
		Pre-historic Period.—Dawn of mind, industry and art. This period mergedimperceptibly into the more strictly historic period when letters were introduced.	Old Stone Age or Paleolithic (Gr., palaios, ancient; lithos, stone) Themen of this age were hunters, and the remains of successive hunting races have been found in the deposits of caves, river gravels, andother sediments. They used rude hatchets and other implements of rough, unpolished stone which occur in association with relics ofnorthern (mammoth, reindeer, cave-bear) and southern mammalia (lion, leopard, hippopotamus). The walls of their caves are covered withrough sketches of animals belonging to that period. The men who inhabited the caves of Europe in Paleolithic time were very similar tothe modern Eskimo.	In Europe, about 125,000 to 12,000 B.C. Neanderthal Man (about 25,000 B.C.) PiltdownMan (about 110,000 B.C.)
			Dawn Stone Age, or Eolithic Primitive man existed evenearlier than paleolithic man. Itis certain that, in order that man possess the necessary skill exhibited in the flint implements, he must have passed through a previousand necessarily less skillful stage. Evidences of this period have been claimed to exist in the Plateau-gravels of Kent, Belgium andEgypt.	About 525,000 to 125,000 B.C. Heidelberg Man (about 250,000 B.C.) Pithecanthropus(about 475,000 B.C.)
Tertiary (ter-shi-a-ri), or “third.” Age of mammals.	Pliocene (plī´ō-sēn), or“more recent.”		Period of the probable appearance of the Human Races.	...
	Miocene (mī´ō-sēn), or“less recent.”		Gradual formation of man-like types.	...

From the pictorial and plastic remains recovered from these two earliest seats of the higher cultures it is now placed beyond doubt that all the great divisions of the human family had at that time already been fully developed. Even in the New Stone Age, the present European type had been thoroughly established, as shown by the remains of the “Cro-Magnon Race,” so called from the cave of that name in Perigord, France, where the first specimens were discovered. In Egypt, where a well-developed social and political organization may be traced back to the seventh century B. C., Professor Petrie discovered in 1897 the portrait statue of a prince of the fifth dynasty (3700 B. C.) showing regular Caucasic features. Still older is the portrait of the Babylonian King Sargon (3800 B. C.), also with handsome features which might be either Semitic or even Aryan. Thus the Caucasic, that is, the highest human type, had already been not only evolved but spread over a wide area (Europe, Egypt, Mesopotamia) some thousands of years before the New Era. The other chief types (Mongol, Negro, and even Negrito) are also clearly portrayed on early Egyptian monuments, so that all the primary groups had already reached maturity probably before the close of the Old Stone Age.

Early picture writing of the Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indians.

But these primary groups did not remain stationary in their several original homes; on the contrary they have been subject to great and continual fluctuations throughout historic times. Armed with a general knowledge of letters and other cultural appliances, the higher races soon took a foremost place in the general progress of mankind, and gradually acquired a marked ascendency, not only over the less cultured peoples, but to a great extent over the forces of nature herself. With the development of navigation, and improved methods of locomotion, inland seas, barren wastes, and mountain ranges ceased to present insurmountable obstacles to their movements, which have never been completely arrested, and are still going on.

HOW THE RACES ARE
CLASSIFIED

On the basis of bodily characteristics, including form, color and features, modern ethnologists have divided mankind into four primary groups, or families: the Caucasian, Mongolian (or Tartar), Negro and American; or, according to color, the white, yellow, black and red races. It must not be supposed that these types were sharply marked off from one another; indeed, there must have been a great range of varieties then, as now, due to the conditions under which man lived, as well as to actual race mixtures.

It is probable, however, that all these primary groups had reached definite characteristics before the close of the Stone Age.

The term Caucasian is taken from the mountain-range between the Black and Caspian seas, near which region the finest physical specimens of man have always been found. Mongolian is derived from the wandering races that inhabited the plateaus of central Asia. Negro is the Spanish word for “black.” American is applied to the red, or copper-colored, race found in this continent when it was discovered.

The sub-joined table brings into parallel columns the chief distinguishing characteristics of the races:

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL CHARACTERS OF THE PRIMARY HUMAN GROUPS

Points of Contrast	Caucasian, or White	Mongolian, or Yellow	Negro, or Black	American, or Red
Hair	Rather long, straight, wavy and curly, black, all shades of brown, red, flaxen.	Coarse, lank, dull black, round in transverse section.	Short, jet black, wooly, flat in transverse section.	Very long, coarse, black, lank, nearly round in section.
Skin	White, florid, pale, swarthy, brown and even blackish; altogether very variable.	Dirty yellowish and brown (Malays.)	Very dark brown or blackish.	Coppery, yellowish, various shades of brown.
Skull	Two distinct types; long, 74, and short, 80 to 90.	Short; index 84 to 90.	Long; index 72.	Very variable; ranging from 70 to over 90.
Cheekbone	Small, inconspicuous but high in some places.	High prominent laterally.	Small, somewhat retreating.	Moderately prominent.
Nose	Large, straight or arched (hooked, aquiline), narrow.	Very small, snub, but variable.	Flat, small, very broad at base.	Large, arched, rather narrow.
Eyes	Blue, gray, black, brown, moderately large, and always straight.	Small, black, oblique; vertical fold of skin over inner canthus.	Large, round, black, prominent, yellowish cornea.	Small, round, straight, black sunken.
Stature	Variable; 5 ft. 4 in. to 6 ft.	Undersized; 5 ft. 4 in., but very variable.	Above the mean; 5 ft. 10 in; Negrito often under 4 ft.	Above the mean; 5 ft. 8 in. to over 6 ft., but variable.
Speech	Mainly inflecting; in the Caucasus agglutinating.	Agglutinating, with postfixes; isolating, with tones.	Agglutinating; of various and postfix types.	Polysynthetic almost exclusively.
Temperament	Serious, steadfast, solid in the north; fiery, impulsive, south; active, enterprising, imaginative everywhere; science, art, and letters highly developed.	Sluggish, somewhat sullen with little initiative but great endurance, generally frugal and thrifty; moral standard low; little science; art and letters moderately developed.	Sensuous, indolent, improvident, fitful, passing easily from comedy to tragedy, little sense of dignity, hence easily enslaved; slight mental development after puberty.	Moody, taciturn, wary, impassive in presence of strangers; science and letters slightly, art moderately developed.