Caucasian Race

(Ethnol.) The white man, one of the three more remarkable varieties of the species Man, the two others being the Yellow or Mongolian, and the Black or Ethiopian. The C. R. occupies all Europe and Western Asia as far as the Ganges, likewise Northern Africa, and the greater part of America. To it belong the more highly civilized nations. The region of the Caucasus has been supposed to have been the cradle of the race, hence its name. A fair skin, elevated forehead, small cheek-bones, hair varying in color, but always smooth or wavy, together with high intellectual qualities, characterize the race. According to some modern ethnologists, the inhabitants of the Caucasus, so long held as the type of the European variety, should be excluded from it altogether, and cla ed with the sallow, flat-faced Mongols, to which it is considered the nature of their language and other facts ally them more closely than the symmetry of their shape, and complexion, do to the European variety. The narrow basis upon which the theory of the C. type was first formed is thus stated by Dr. Latham: "Blumenbach had a solitary Georgian skull; and that skull was the finest in his collection that of a Greek being the next. Hence it was taken as the type of the skull of the more organized divisions of our species. More than this, it gave its name to the type, and introduced the term Caucasian." This term is now little used by scientists, the white race being usually divided up into the two philological varieties of Aryan and Semitic (q. v.). Caucasus, ( kau'kah - sus ,) a great mountain range, almost connecting the mountains of Persia with the Car path i ans, and separating the great Aralo-Caspian region from the Black Sea, extends for about 700 miles in a continuous chain, and has several offshoots, or transverse ridges, penetrating both towards Ru ia and into Asiatic Turkey. The chief elevations are very lofty, the highest being estimated at 18,500 feet, and another peak, at no great distance, 16,500 feet. These two culminating points occupy nearly the central portion of the main chain, which is rather narrow. The limit of snow is 11,000 feet, and the whole of the central part of the mountain group is full of glaciers. The C. connects on the east with the lofty table-lands of Asia and Asia Minor, and hence with the serrated snowy range of the Taurus and Armenia, of which Mount Ararat (17,230 feet) is the culminating point. All the mountains of the C. are split and rent by deep gorges, and the valleys afford some of the most remarkable and picturesque mountain scenery that has ever been described. Caucasus, a lieutenancy of Ru ia, embracing the greater part of the Caucasian chain, and divided into 5 governments. It is bounded on the N. by the governments of Astrakhan and the Don Co acks; E. by the Caspian Sea; S. by the Persian and Turkish dominions; and W. by the Sea of Azof and province of Taurida. Desc. An extensive flat, covered with marshes, the steppes affording excellent pasturage, and the banks of the rivers teeming with fertility. Prod . Corn, silk, cotton, wine, cattle, and horses. Pop . (1897) abt. 7,500,000. -For History, see ASIA.