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on the amount of evidence produced, adverse to opinions re-affirmed under such various forms by so high an authority as Dr. Morton, and adopted and made the basis of such comprehensive inductions by his successors.

TABLE III.-CRANIAL MEASUREMENTS.-SIX NATIONS.

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The intimate relations in language, manners, and the traditions of a common descent, between those Northern and Southern branches of the Iroquois stock, render these two tables, in so far as they present concurrent results, applicable as a common test of the supposed homogeneous cranial characteristics of the aboriginal American, in relation to the area of the great Lakes. Twenty-nine skulls, such as the first table supplies, or thirty-six as the result of both, may, perhaps, appear to be too small a number on which to base conclusions adverse to those promulgated by an observer so distinguished and so persevering as Dr. Morton, and accepted by writers no less worthy of esteem and deference. Still more may these data seem inadequate, when it is remembered that Dr. Morton's original observations and measurements embraced upwards of three hundred American skulls. But-in addition to the fact that the measurements now supplied, are only the more carefully noted data which have tended to confirm conclusions suggested by previous examinations, in a less detailed manner, of a larger number of examples—an investigation of the materials which supplied the elements of earlier inductions, will show that only in the case of the ancient "Toltecan" tribes did Dr. Morton examine nearly so many examples; while, in relation to what he designated the "Barbarous Race," to which the Northern tribes belong, even in Dr. Meigs' greatly enlarged catalogue of the Morton Collection, as augmented since his death, the Seminole crania present the greatest number belonging to one tribe, and these only amount to sixteen.

In contrast to the form of head of the true American race, Dr. Morton appends to his Crania Americana drawings and measurements

of four Esquimaux skulls, familiar to me, if I mistake not, in the collection of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. In commenting on the views and measurements of these, he remarks: "The great and uniform differences between these heads and those of the American Indians will be obvious to every one accustomed to make comparisons of this kind, and serve as corroborative evidence of the opinion that the Esquimaux are the only people possessing Asiatic characteristics on the American continent." In some respects this is undoubtedly true; the prognathous form of the superior maxilla, and the very small development of the nasal bones, especially contrast with well known characteristics of the American aborigines. But having had some little familiarity in making comparisons of this kind, it appears to me, notwithstanding these distinctive points, that an impartial observer might be quite as likely to assign even some of the examples of Iroquois and other northern tribes figured in the Crania Americana, to an Esquimaux, as to a Peruvian, Mexican, or Mound-Builder type. Compare, for example, the vertical and occipital diagrams, furnished by Dr. Morton, of the Esquimaux crania (p. 248) with those of the Iroquois and Hurons (pp. 192-194). Both are elongated, pyramidal, and with a tendency towards a conoid rather than a flattened or vertical occipital form; and when placed alongside of the most markedly typical Mexican or Peruvian heads, the one differs little less widely from these than the other. The elements of contrast between the Hurons and Esquimaux are mainly traceable in the bones of the face: physiognomical, but not cerebral.

Plate

Taking once more their cranial measurements as a means of comparison; these, when placed alongside each other, equally bear out the conclusions already affirmed. For comparison, I select, in addition to the Scioto Valley Mound-Builder, the following, as those pointed out by Dr. Morton's own descriptions as among the most characteristic he has figured: Plate XI. Peruvian from the Temple of the Sun "a strikingly characteristic Peruvian Head." : XI, C. "Here again the parietal and longitudinal diameter are nearly equal. The posterior and lateral swell of this cranium are very remarkable, and the vertex has the characteristic prominence." Of the Mexican skulls Dr. Morton remarks, of Plate XVII: "with a better forehead than is usual, this skull presents all the prominent characteristics of the American race,-the prominent face, elevated vertex, vertical occiput, and the great swell from the temporal bones upward;" and of Plate XVIII: "a remarkably well characterised Toltecan head, from an ancient tomb near the city of Mexico."

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If the data which this table supplies furnish any fair illustration of the cranial measurements of the different nations selected, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion, that-in so far as this test is to be relied on,-if a line of separation is to be drawn, it cannot be introduced, as heretofore, to cut off the Esquimaux from all others, but must rather group the Iroquois with them, on the one side, while the Toltecans and the Mound-builders stand as the representatives of a diverse class, on the other. These examples I refer to in preference to those derived from other sources, or presented in the previous table as the result of my own observations, as they are necessarily unbiassed. They are the specimens of the very races referred to, selected or brought by chance under the observation of Dr. Morton, and included as the characteristic or sole examples in his great work. But the same conclusions are borne out by the examples obtained within the Canadian frontiers; and they seem to me to lead inevitably to this conclusion: that if crania measuring in some cases, two inches in excess in the longitudinal over the parietal and vertical diameters, and in others nearly approximating to such relative measurements,-without further reference here to variations in occipital conformation,—if such crania may be affirmed, without challenge, to be of the same type as others where the longitudinal, parietal, and vertical diameters vary only by small fractional differences, then the distinction between the brachycephalic and the dolichocephalic type of head is, for all purposes of science, at an end, and the labours of Blumenbach, Retzius, Nilsson, and all who have trod in their footsteps have been wasted in pursuit of an idle

fancy. If differences of cranial conformation of so strongly defined a character, as are thus shown to exist between various ancient and modern people of America, amount to no more than variations within the normal range of a common type, then all the important distinctions between the crania of ancient European barrows, and those of living races amount to little; and the more delicate details, such as those, for example, which have been supposed to distinguish the Celtic from the Germanic cranium; the ancient Roman from the Etruscan or Greek; the Sclave from the Magyar or Turk; or the Gothic Spaniard from the Basque or Morisco, must be utterly valueless.

For the purpose of testing the assumed predominance of one uniform cranial type throughout the whole American area south of the Arctic circle, by a comparison of measurements of ancient and modern skulls with those of the exceptional Arctic American, the Esquimaux measurements given by Dr. Morton, have been placed alongside of the others derived from the Crania Americana, in table IV. Through the obliging courtesy of Dr. J. Aitken Meigs, however, I am enabled to present the following table, embracing measurements of fourteen Esquimaux skulls, with one exception, in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, to which they have been added since Dr. Morton's death. Seven of these, Nos. 200, 674,-679, were procured at Godhavn, Disco Island, on the coast of Greenland, by Dr. B. Vreeland, U.S.N. Five of them, Nos. 1558,-1562, were obtained from different localities and ancient graves or cairns, by the lamented Arctic voyager, Dr. E. K. Kane. No. 1563, from the Danish Settlement at Upernavick, was presented to the Academy by Dr. S. W. Mitchell; and the remaining example (A.) is added from a private source. The measurements in this table differ in some respects from the previous ones. The fractions are here sixteenths, instead of tenths. The parietal diameter in the previous tables indicates the extreme breath of the skull between the parietal bones; in this it is invariably taken between the parietal protuberances. In lieu of the mastoid processes, the meati are here selected as yielding measurements of more unvarying uniformity and precision; though they have the disadvantage of being less applicable to comparisons with the living head. Bearing these variations in view, the following table presents additional means for instituting comparisons between the Indian and Esquimaux cranium; and also supplies some valuable data for testing the characteristics of the Esquimaux skull. This Dr. Meigs describes as "large, long, nar

row, pyramidal; greatest breadth near the base; sagittal suture prominent and keel like, in consequence of the junction of the parietal and two halves of the frontal bones; proportion between length of head and height of face as 7 to 5. ... forehead flat and receding; occiput full and salient; face broad and lozenge-shaped, the greatest breadth being just below the orbits; malar bones broad, high, and prominent, zygomatic arches massive and widely separated: nasal bones flat, narrow, and united at an obtuse angle, sometimes lying in the same place as the naso-maxillary processes."* The remarks of Mr. J. Barnard Davis on the last named peculiarities, are worthy of note. In the Esquimaux of the eastern shores of Baffin's Bay, he observes, the nasal bones are scarcely broader, though frequently longer than in some Chinese skulls, where they are so narrow as to be reduced to two short linear bones. "In those of the opposite, or American shores of Baffin's Bay they are very different, presenting a length, breadth, and angle of position, almost equal to those of European races, having aquiline noses." This slight yet striking + anatomical difference seems to supply a link of considerable value as indicative of a trait of physiognomical character in the more southern Esquimaux, tending,-if confirmed by further observation,-like other physical characteristics already noticed, to modify the abrupt transition assumed heretofore as clearly defining the line of separation between the contrasting Arctic and Red Indian races of the New World.

TABLE V.-CRANIAL MEASUREMENTS.-ESQUIMAUX.

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In the above table the great length and narrowness of the Esquimaux skull is abundantly apparent, with no very remarkable elevation of the crown. A comparison, however, with the corresponding

* Catalogue of Human Crania, A.N.S., 1857, p. 50. + Crania Britannica, p. 30.

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