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I. Page 127.

CHINESE ASTRONOMY.

THE following, from the Shu-King, is the entire original passage on which is based the high claim for the Chinese of a knowledge of astronomy as early as the 24th century B. C.:

"Thereupon Yaou commanded He and Ho, in reverent accordance with their observation of the wide heavens, to calculate and delineate the movements and appearances of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the zodiacal spaces, and so to deliver respectfully the same to the people.

"He separately commanded the second brother He to reside at Yu-e, in what was called the Bright Valley, and there respectfully to receive, as a guest, the rising sun, and to adjust and arrange the labors of the spring. 'The day,' he said, 'is of the medium length, and the star is in Neaou. You may thus exactly determine mid-spring. The people begin to disperse, and birds and beasts breed and copulate.'

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"He further commanded the third brother He to reside at Neankeaou, and arrange the transformations of summer, and respectfully to observe the extreme limit of the shadow. The "day,' said he, 'is at its longest, and the star is Ho; you may thus exactly determine mid-summer. The people are more dispersed; and the birds and beasts have their feathers and hair thin, and change their coats.'

"He separately commanded the second brother Ho to reside at the west, in what was called the Dark Valley, and there respectfully to convoy the setting sun, and to adjust and arrange the completing labors of the autumn. 'The night,' he said, 'is of the medium length, and the star is Heu; you may thus exactly

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determine mid-autumn. The people begin to feel at ease, and birds and beasts have their coats in good condition.'

"He further commanded the third brother Ho to reside in the northern region, in what was called the Sombre Capital, and there to adjust and examine the changes of the winter. 'The day,' said he, 'is at its shortest, and the star is Maou; thus you may exactly determine mid-winter. The people keep their cosy corners; and the coats of birds and beasts are downy and thick.'

"The emperor said, 'Ah, you! He and Ho, a round year consists of three hundred and sixty and six days. By means of an intercalary month do you fix the four seasons, and complete the determination of the year. Thereafter, in exact accordance with this regulating the various officers, all the works of the year will be fully performed." Chinese Classics, vol. iii. part i. pp. 18-21. * "Now here are He and Ho. They have entirely subverted, their virtue, and are sunk and lost in wine. They have violated the duties of their office, and left their posts. They have been the first to allow the regulations of heaven to get into disorder, putting far from them their proper business. On the first day of the last month of autumn, the sun and moon did not meet harmoniously in Fang. The blind musicians beat their drums; the inferior officers and common people bustled and ran about. He and Ho, however, as if they were mere personators of the dead in their offices, heard nothing and knew nothing so stupidly went they astray from their duty in the matter of the heavenly appearances, and rendered themselves liable to the death appointed by former kings. The statutes of the government say, 'When they anticipate the time, let them be put to death without mercy; when they are behind the time, let them be put to death without mercy!'” — Id. p. 165.

J. Page 198.

SUPERFICIAL CHARACTER OF DIVERSITIES BETWEEN RACES.

THE greatest physical difference between any two races is, of course, that which exists between the blacks and the whites, or rather between the Negro and the Caucasian. If this be not sufficient to constitute difference of species, it will be conceded that such difference does not exist. Upon this point the following statements are worthy to be considered:

"The ablest living anatomist of Germany - Professor Tiedemann - has lately directed his researches with singular felicity to the vindication of the uncivilized man's capacity for improvement. In the works mentioned at the head of this article, and in the translation read at the Royal Society of London, of which the professor is a foreign member, that important question seems to be set at rest forever. The results of a most exact analysis of cases are thus stated by him:

"1. The brain of the negro is, upon the whole, quite as large as that of the European and other human races. The weight of the brain, its dimensions, and the capacity of the cavum cranii, prove this fact. Many anatomists have also incorrectly asserted that Europeans have a larger brain than negroes.

"2. The nerves of the negro, relatively to the size of the brain, are not thicker than those of Europeans, as Soemmerring and his followers have said.

"3. The outward form of the spinal cord, the medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, and cerebrum of the negro show no important difference from those of the European.

"4. Nor does the inward structure

the order of the cortical

and medullary substance - nor the inward organization of the negro brain show any difference from those of the European.

5. The negro brain does not resemble that of the orangoutang more than the European brain, except in the more sym-” metrical distribution of the gyri and sula. It is not even certain that this is always the case. We can not, therefore, coincide with the opinion of many naturalists, who say that the negro has more resemblance to apes than Europeans in reference to the brain and nervous system.""

And after a minute survey of proofs respecting the intellectual faculties of the negro, Professor Tiedemann concludes in the following words: —

“The principal result of my researches on the brain of the negro is, that neither anatomy nor physiology can justify our placing them beneath Europeans in a moral or intellectual point of view." *

Another distinguished ethnologist, in defining a negro,

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"The negroes are referable to an extreme rather than a normal type; and so far are they from being co-extensive with the Africans, that it is almost exclusively along the valleys of rivers that they are to be found. There are none in the extratropical parts of Northern, none in the corresponding parts of Southern Africa, and but few on the table-lands of even the two sides of the equator. Their areas, indeed, are scanty and small. One lies on the Upper Nile, one on the Lower Gambia and Senegal, one on the Lower Niger, and the last along the western coast, where the smaller rivers that originate in the Kong Mountains form hot and moist alluvial tracts."

Again :

"If the word negro mean the combination of woolly hair with a jetty black skin, depressed nose, thick lips, narrow forehead, acute facial angle, and prominent jaw, it applies to Africans as

For. Quarterly Review, Oct., 1839.

widely different from each other as the Laplander is from the Samoeid and Eskimo, or the Englishman from the Finlander. It applies to the inhabitants of certain portions of different riversystems, independent of relationship, and vice versa. The negroes of Kordofan are nearer in descent to the Copts and Arabs than are the lighter-colored and civilized Fulahs. They are also nearer to the same than they are to the blacks of Senegambia. If this be the case, the term has no place in ethnology, except so far as its extensive use makes it hard to abandon. Its real application is to anthropology, wherein it means the effects of certain influences upon certain intertropical Africans, irrespective of descent, but not irrespective of physical condition. As truly as a short stature and light skin coincide with the occupancy of mountain ranges, the negro physiognomy coincides with that of the alluvia of rivers." *

Dr. Livingstone, the great African traveler, is a writer whose opinions few will dare to dispute. He says,

"All the inhabitants of this region, as well as those of Londa, may be called true negroes, if the limitations formerly made be borne in mind. The dark color, thick lips, heads elongated backwards and upwards, and covered with wool, flat noses, with other negro peculiarities, are general; but while these characteristics place them in the true negro family, the reader would imbibe a wrong idea if he supposed that all these features combined are often met with in one individual. All have a certain thickness and prominence of lip, but many are met with in every village in whom thickness and prominence are not more marked than in Europeans. All are dark, but the color is shaded off in different individuals from deep black to light yellow. As we go westward, we observe the light color predominating over the dark; and then again, when we come within the influence of damp from the sea air, we find the shade deepen into the general blackness of the coast population. The shape of the head, with its woolly crop, though general, is not universal. The tribes on

* Latham, Man and his Migrations, p. 147.

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