It would seem that man at least might present at the pole the homogeneity supposed by the theory. It is not so, however, whatever may be the assertions of Agassiz upon this subject. “A peculiar race of man,” he says, “live there, known in America by the name of Esquimaux, elsewhere by that of Lapps, Samoyedes or Tchouktchis.... The uniformity of their characters throughout the whole extent of the Arctic seas unites them in a striking manner with the fauna with which they are so closely connected.” There are, in these words of Agassiz, grave ethnological and anthropological errors. The uniformity of characters of which he speaks does not exist at all. It will suffice to remind my readers that the Lapps are one of the most brachycephalic, and the Esquimaux one of the most dolichocephalic races with which we are acquainted. In fact, these two races are so entirely distinct that no anthropologist has ever dreamt of establishing a connection between them. As to the Samoyedes and Tchouktchis, they have not always inhabited the icy lands where we now meet with them. The former have still a recollection of having come from the south, and M. de Tchiatchef has discovered the original stock upon the confines of China. The latter settled at Behring’s Straits but a short time ago to free themselves from Russian conquest, against which they had bravely struggled. They subjugated and absorbed the Yukagires, their predecessors. They differ, moreover, equally from Esquimaux and Lapps. Thus, in the Arctic Kingdom, where all the most favourable conditions for the display of any truth which the ideas of Agassiz may possess are brought together, everything protests against these ideas. In spite of his vast knowledge, he could not characterise it zoologically in a precise manner; the special fauna which he admits does not exist; the identity of populations which he proclaimed disappears under the slightest examination. Finally, the theory which attaches a human race to every centre of appearance as a local product of that centre, ought to be rejected by anyone who sets the least value upon the results of observation. CHAPTER XV. PROGRESSIVE LOCALISATION OF ORGANISED BEINGS.—CENTRES OF APPEARANCE.—ORIGINAL LOCALISATION OF MAN. I. An eminent man may draw incorrect conclusions from the existence of centres of appearance without their existence being any the less real. Unconnected with animal or vegetable centres, the human races might have their own; man might have come into existence wherever we meet with him. But, before we accept this original cosmopolitanism, we must assure ourselves that it subjects man to general laws. Now we shall see that this hypothesis is, on the contrary, at variance with all general facts presented by plants as well as animals. II. Let us first prove that no animal or vegetable species inhabits, as man does, almost the entire globe.