[103] Apud hanc gentem agarici cujusdam succus potui, inter convivia inservit. Ebrietatem inducit; quodque magis mirum est, urina ebriorum, quæ ipsa ab aliis potatur, idem pollet. Neque vim amittit per tertiam vel quartam vesicam transmissa. F. AMERICAN MONGOLIDÆ. The phænomena which occur in Asiatic ethnology, in Caucasus and High Asia, prepare us for those of the ethnology of America. In Asia we found, on one side, the Turk tribes spread over a space nearly as large as Europe, and that with but little variation--a typical instance of what constitutes a large ethnological area. Then, on the other hand, were the fastnesses of Caucasus, where we found, packed up within a very limited area, a multiplicity of mutually unintelligible languages, languages that were counted by the dozen and the score--the Circassian, Georgian, Lesgian, Mizjeji, and their subordinate dialects. So that within a small geographical range we had, in juxtaposition with each other, the _maximum_ of extension and the _maximum_ of limitation. Now this is what we shall find in America--large areas, like the Turk, in contact with small ones, like the Ossetic. But, in America, there are two points of difference-- 1st. The multiplicity of languages within a limited area is the rule rather than the exception. 2nd. There is not always so peculiar a class of physical conditions as is to be found in the mountain fastnesses of Caucasus to account for it; since in America we find steppes and prairies, like those of Turkestan and Mongolia, inhabited by tribes as different from each other as those of the most isolated and isolating mountain-valleys. Furthermore--when the American languages differ from one another, they differ in a manner to which Asia has supplied no parallel. Also--when the American languages agree with one another, they agree in a manner to which Asia has furnished no parallel. This, however, is at present only indicated. Its explanation will find place when we have treated of the Eskimo, Kolúch, and certain other families. THE ESKIMO. Unimportant as are the Eskimo in a political and historical view, their peculiar geographical position gives them an importance in all questions of ethnology: since one of the highest problems turns upon the affinities of this family. It has long been known that the nation which inhabits Greenland and Labrador is the nation which inhabits the North-western parts of Russian America as well. It is found on the American side of Behring's Straits, and it is found on the Asiatic side also. So that the _Eskimo is the only family common to the Old and New World_; an important fact in itself, and one made more important still by the Eskimo localities being the only localities where the two continents come into proximity.