To visualize them we need only to recall the
appearance of the Chinaman, perhaps the most familiar example of the
entire series. Here the hair is coarse and black, and straight because of
its round transverse section; the mustache and beard of the Caucasians are
seldom found except in later life; the skin is a fleshy yellow in color;
the skull is round, indeed, it is one of the roundest that we know; the
jaws are not so straight as in the Caucasian, for the angle at the point
of the chin is about sixty-eight degrees. The cheek bones project
laterally, with greater or less prominence; the nose is very small, tilted
up slightly at the end, and is usually hollowed instead of arched. The
eyes are small and black in color, set somewhat obliquely, and the upper
lid is drawn down over the eye at its inner corner so as to make the
obliquity still more marked. The teeth are larger than those of the
Caucasian. Finally, the Mongol is below the average of all men as regards
height, being usually about five feet four inches tall.
The original Mongolians probably developed the characteristic features we
have just noted in a Central Asiatic region, and then almost immediately
they divided into two great groups. Each of these evolved along certain
lines of its own, one sweeping northward to develop into what are now
called the Northern Mongols, the other working its way eastward and
southward to produce the peoples of China proper, Indo-China, and many
parts of Malaysia.
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