of the continent. If they could flourish and increase in population for one century in that region, it is very evident that, so far as climate is concerned, they could for two or more. For we know, that climate has a more baneful influence upon the first settlers of an unhealthy district, than upon those who are subsequently born and reared in it. If then the Caucasian race could not live there, the original immigrants must have perished, instead of growing into large and flourishing states. The causes leading to their final deterioration we might perhaps conjecture, but we have no records upon the subject. Their descendants evidently constitute some of those tribes of central Africa, who preserve the Mahometan creed, have some remnants of literature, and, notwithstanding a black skin, have a form and features nearly and often quite corresponding with the Caucasian type. The Fellatahs of Houssah, evidently came from Barbary or Egypt.

When the Egyptians, about the close of the 15th century, visited the eastern coast of Africa, they found it almost entirely in possession of the Arabs, who had been in occupation of it for centuries. Instead of becoming "extinct” from the effect of the climate, as a reader of the Lecture would be led to suppose, they were conquered by the Portuguese who still remain there. Mr. Salt, says there is a population at Mozambique alone, of 500 Portuguese and 800 Arabs. The Portuguese are much straitened in their dominion here, and with difficulty maintain possession against the warlike tribes which surround them. Quiloa was wrested from them, by the Imaum of Muscat who still retains it. In Congo, the native population is itself very small, yet the Portuguese still keep up a mission there. Something then besides climate has interfered with the colonies of Africa, and it is not true that they have become extinct, or that the Caucasian race cannot live in that country. The argument from the fatality of the climate, as it is only partial, seems to us to amount to no more than this:not that the natives of Africa are a distinct species, but that those countries whose settlement is attended with great mortality, are not intended for human residence. But will any one assent to a proposition which implies treason against nature, in most of the original white settlers of the flat country of tropical America, nay, of the low country of our own Southern States? Are they not unwholesome

regions to the Whites, and their climate also better endured by the Negroes? Is not the progress of the white population greatly checked by reason of much annual sickness and mortality? If it be not so extreme as in tropical Africa or Asia, we should still like to know, what must be the ratio of mortality and sickness in order to a prohibition of settlement; and what the amount of endurance requisite to constitute the population a distinct species.

"On the other hand, the proofs are quite as positive to show that the Negro is equally unsuited to a cold climate. Though a constant influx of negro slaves takes place from Soudan into Turkey, it is without effect or impression.... No black race in short has been or can be established at any great distance from the Equator." p. 19.

We think "on the other hand," that there is very little if any proof that the Negroes cannot live at a "great distance from the Equator," at least nearly throughout the temperate zones. We know that they are a hardy race in New-England, and we believe the same may be said of those in Canada. Very old Negroes are still living in Nova Scotia, notwithstanding the extreme change of climate, who were taken from South-Carolina by the British during the Revolution. The mortality among those in the Northern States is certainly not greater, if so great, than among that class of Whites which occupies about the same rank in the social scale. But we must here let the Doctor answer himself. It happens in several instances, that he forgets in one part of his Lectures what he said in another. When it suits his argument to maintain the inferiority of the Mulatto to the Negro, he holds a very different language. He first quotes the authority of a writer in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, who, "from authentic statistics and extensive corroborating information, obtained from sources of unquestionable authority, together with his own observations," maintains the following thesis :

"That those [Negroes] of unmixed extraction in the free States are not more liable to sickness or premature death, than the Whites of their rank and condition in society; but that the striking mortality, so manifest among the free people of color, is in every community and section of the country, invariably confined to the Mulattoes." p. 30. The italics are Dr. Nott's. He himself adds,

"I have no facts yet to ground an opinion upon, but I have little doubt that it will be found that these effects," (idiocy and insanity,) "like disease and early deaths; are confined mostly to the Mulattoes." p. 23.

Yet he had said on p. 19, that he "could prove positively, that climate has its influence" in causing "deaths amongst the blacks," "in our northern cities," "where the proportion is three to one compared to the whites," and repeated the same thing on p. 29. He had also told us, that a “cold climate so freezes their brains, as to make them insane or idiotical." p. 19. If this statement were correct, we should unhesitatingly infer their inordinate power of physical endurance, in being able to live and move with their brains frozen. Surely the rigor of the poles could not destroy such a race.

As to the "influx of negro slaves into Turkey," we neither know their amount nor condition, nor the actual "impression" which they make. But as our author's argument is based on the influence of climate, we know not why that of Turkey should be more unfavorable than that of Virginia and Maryland, where they have surely made an "impression." And so in the case of the black colony at Colchis, we cannot see sufficient cause of extinction in the climate of a country, situated at the head of the Euxine, flanked by mountains, indeed, yet warmer than the same parallel in the United States. We ought to know something of their later history, before peremptorily deciding that their extinction is the effect of climate. We think we have some right in this case to assume, as we have some where seen it argued, that in the course of ages, by the influence of climate and of social and intellectual improvement, these people lost their negro color and feature and reverted to the Caucasian type. But we are not disposed to assume this, "Facilis descensus," etc. Easy is the progress to shades of darkness, but to recall the original grade of color is more difficult.* We should rather conjecture, that they have been lost by amalgamation with the stronger nations around them, by subjugation, or

* Yet it would seem to be not impossible. "I shall produce only the instance of a Negro in Maryland, which is recorded in the Medical Repository of New-York, and by Dr. Barton of Philadelphia, and whom I have myself seen and examined, who, about the age of forty, lost his black color by degrees, and in a few years became a perfect white man. His whiteness was not of that pallid and diseased hue which distinguishes the Albino race, but exhibited that pure and healthful complexion which is seen in the ordinary class of Anglo-American laborers. In this man, in proportion as the black color forsook his skin, and the white extended itself over his head and body, wherever there had been wool it entirely disappeared, and gave place to a fine straight hair, almost of silky softness." Lectures on Mor. and Polit. Philosophy, by S. S. Smith, D. Ď., L. L. D.

by expulsion. Certainly in a case involving such important points, we may assume any thing possible and feasible to account for their disappearance, rather than attribute it to climate, which is contrary to other similar cases, and is opposed by their own history. It is not a little singular, that the writer should offer this case in support of his position. The colony at Colchis certainly flourished for a long period, and maintained an important and extensive commerce. It was first settled there, as we learn from Herodotus, by a portion of the army of Sesostris during his northern expedition, which was somewhere about the year 1570 B. Č.* It was in existence in the time of Herodotus, about 450 B. C., and, for any thing we know to the contrary, for many centuries afterwards. But its certain history comprises a period of more than 1100 years. Yet the black race cannot live at any great distance from the Equator!

There is a difficulty in reference to this people which we have never seen solved. Herodotus calls them Egyptians, and yet describes them as μελάγχρους και ουλότριχες, which has been supposed to mean black skinned and woolly haired. As he had been in Egypt, he must have been well aware that the true Egyptians did not come within such a description, although these characteristics are a part of his reason for regarding them as Egyptians. He says, "this indeed is not conclusive, for others have these peculiarities. I give more importance to the fact that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only nations that practice circumcision." It is evident from this that he did not confound the Egyptians with the Ethiopians, at least nationally. The peculiar characteristics of the latter he must have known, as he had travelled as far up as Meroe, the capital of Ethiopia. If then we suppose the Ethiopians of Herodotus were of the Negro type, we should naturally infer, that, in referring the Colchi to the Egyptians instead of the Ethiopians, he did not mean to describe them as Negroes, which he must have known the Egyptians were not. Did he not mean then by those words, brown skinned and frizzle haired? The first is so used Od: 16, 175; and peas, with many of its compounds and derivates, often describes a brown color. Ammianus Marcellinus describes the Egyptians as dark or blackish: "subfusculi sunt et atrati.” The second is compounded of a word that does not mean woolly, though it be descriptive of wool, but crisped, curled, frizzled. Hence we find υλη coupled with λάχνη, II. 10, 134. We also find the word descriptive of hair which is not woolly, as ouλaι xópai, Od 6, 231. Egiorgiss would have left no room for doubt. Although ouérgixes then may be descriptive of woolly hair, without necessarily signifying it, may it not in this case designate that kind of hair, short and frizzled but not woolly, which is found among the Abyssinians at the present day. Herodotus may have seen in Upper Egypt a population of this description, and thus from their country, without any reference to the better national physiognomy as exhibited in the population of Lower Egypt, have called them Egyptians. Aristotle speaks of Egyptians and Ethiopians in the same way, characterizing both as having reixas duλrègas, hair more frizzled, (without intending to intimate an equal degree of it in each ?) than other nations.

As we do not deem it necessary for the defence of Scripture, to maintain the universality of the Deluge, nor to suppose it more extensive than was necessary for the destruction of the human race, nor to deny the exertion of creative power in the reproduction of plants and animals after that event, we shall not follow our author in the consideration of those topics. We must, however, take some notice of his science as brought to bear on them. He argues the question on the supposition that fossile remains are antediluvian, and sustains himself by a page or more of quotations from Pritchard. He has given us no reference to volume or page, and we have not Pritchard's works at hand, but we suspect he has quoted from the earliest volume, published some twenty years since, if we recollect aright. But whenever published, we feel confident the distinguished author would not utter the same language now, and, if he did, that he would not be entitled to a hearing on the subject of Geology. But as the doctrine of the antediluvian origin of fossile remains is endorsed by Dr. Nott, although discarded by all Geologists of note, and utterly untenable, we shall venture a few remarks upon it.

“All Naturalists admit the following facts." says the Lecturer, and quotes from Pritchard as follows:

"The remains of animals found in the oldest strata, or those deposited in the earliest period, are known to display a very simple structure, and are very remote from the present forms. At successive periods the nature of animals became more complete, or rather more complicate, and more approaching those at present in existence. Many of the species which existed before the flood are now extinct, and new ones have risen up-nearly all the carnivora, for instance, are post deluvian." p. 20.

The premises are all correct, but the last sentence is an extreme non sequitur. We cannot be mistaken in its import, for on the same page we have the following from the same author:

"It is known that the fossile remains of animals, which have been discovered in various parts of the earth, and which appear to be relics of the antediluvian world, chiefly belonged to species different from those which now exist. These species were probably exterminated in that great catastrophe."

By the first passage, we learn that there are several series of fossile remains, successively characterized by more complex structure We know from the researches of Geologists,