"We shall clearly perceive, in tracing the following outline of ethnography, that the varieties of colour refer themselves, in part, to climates, elevations of land, proximity to the sea-coast, or distance from it. It can hardly be doubted that these conditions have likewise an effect on the configuration of the human body. But there is, perhaps, some truth in the remark, though frequently made on little better foundation than conjecture, that the prevailing form or configuration of the body is more liable to be influenced by the habits of different races, and their manner of living, than by the simple agencies of climate. It would be an interesting discovery, could it be shown that there is any apparent connexion between the display of particular forms, or the leading physical characters of human races, and their habits of existence. If I may venture to point out any such relation, it would be by remarking, in a very general manner, and without pretending to make the observation as one which holds without many exceptions, that there are in mankind three principal varieties in the form of the head and other physical characters, which are most prevalent respectively in the savage or hunting tribes, in the nomadic or wandering pastoral races, and in the civilized and intellectually cultivated divisions of the human family. Among the rudest tribes of men, hunters and savage inhabitants of forests, dependent for their supply of food on the accidental produce of the soil or on the chase, among whom are the most degraded of the African nations and the Australian savages, a form of the head is prevalent which is most aptly distinguished by the term _prognathous_, indicating a prolongation or extension forward of the jaws; and with this characteristic other traits are connected which will be described in the following pages. A second shape of the head, very different from the last mentioned, belongs principally to the nomadic races, who wander with their herds and flocks over vast plains, and to the tribes who creep along the shores of the Icy Sea, and live partly by fishing, and in part on the flesh of their reindeers. These nations have broad and lozenge-formed faces, and what I have termed _pyramidal_ skulls.