The CRYSTALLINE ROCKS, Granite, Syenite, Porphyry, Greenstone, Trap, &c. Depth, various, vast, not assignable.

[E.]

Referred to at page 65.

DISSERTATIONS ON THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.

It would be wrong to conceal the difficulties with which this subject is surrounded, however satisfied we may be with the evidence in favour of the descent of all mankind from one original pair of ancestors. The consideration of those difficulties has betrayed some men of eminence in physiological science into the opinion, that there are four or five races of the one species. The fact of a revelation from the Supreme Being, as contained in the Israelitish and the Christian Scriptures, is so firmly established by moral evidence, that we can no longer call it into question. We are entitled to regard it as a thing settled, as much as the chief facts of our national history: and the derivation of all men from the single pair created in Eden, plainly appears to be asserted in scripture, and to form an article of the Christian doctrine. But, independently of that part of the inquiry, it is not too much to say, that the progress made in all the other lines of investigation is constantly removing, or at least abating, the reasons for doubt. For instance; the diversity of those which appear to be the primitive stems in the classification of languages, has seemed quite unaccountable, upon the hypothesis of a common origin. But the believer in revelation may see, in this circumstance, a ground for believing, that the just and not less merciful interposition of divine power in the plains of Shinar, inflicted upon the distinct parties, into which the social mass was broken up, such a radical difference in the vocables as extinguished the idea of a previous intercommunity. Upon this very point also, where unassisted research seemed to be baffled, we are met by a fact undeniable, and directly applying to the subject. The affinity of the ancient Egyptians and the Hindoos has been established by the minute and extensively pervading resemblances in tradition, religion, arts, modes of life, and every important characteristic besides, language excepted. Yet this exception is most remarkable, and it contradicts all our notions of antecedent probability. Another class of facts is pointed out by the eminent scholar and naturalist to whom I have referred. An extensive field of inquiry is opened by the observation, that traces exist, among the most distant African nations, of ancient connexion with the Egyptians.- -The traces of animal-worship, the belief in metempsychosis, circumcision, and a variety of observances recorded by travellers, among the Kafirs, the native people of Madagascar, as well as among tribes in the western parts of Africa, are too exten