authority, is characterized as "a relic of the genuine Toltecan stock, having been exhumed from an ancient. cemetery at Cerro de Quesilas, near the city of Mexico." No. 4 is also from an ancient tomb near that city, where it was exhumed along with some of the remarkable terracottas, pottery, masks, etc., now preserved with it in the collection of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. The remainder are in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

TABLE V.-MEXICAN BRACHYCEPHALIC CRANIA.

Of the brachycephalic group (Table v.), Nos. 1, 2, are in the collection of the Natural History Society of Boston. No. 2 is characterized as an Aztec skull, but is referred to in the Proceedings of the Society (vol. iii. p. 272), on the authority of Dr. Kneeland, as belonging to the Toltecan family. Nos. 3, 4, are from ancient tombs of Otumba; and Dr. Morton remarks, in reference to No. 3, that its striking resemblance to Peruvian skulls cannot be overlooked; while of No. 5, with its remarkable vertical diameter, he notes its no less striking presentation of "all the prominent characteristics of the American race." No. 6 is figured by Morton, pl. xvii. No. 7 is a pure breed native Mexican of the modern race. A comparison of those tables, along with the incidental comments of Dr. Morton on some of the more remarkable crania, suffices to show how little dependence

can be placed on any theory of homogeneous cranial characteristics pertaining to the races of Anahuac. From such evidences of the diversity of cranial type, which are found alike within the Mexican and Peruvian limits, we may admit, with the less hesitation, that a certain conformity may be traced between some of the ancient Mexican and Peruvian skulls and those of northern barbarous tribes. Notwithstanding the greater apparent proximity of Mexico than Peru, much more accurate cranial data have hitherto been obtained from the latter than the former country; and while the great collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia is furnished with ample materials for the study of Peruvian craniology, and has been largely augmented in this department since Dr. Morton's death; it is still very imperfectly supplied with illustrations of the more complicated ethnic characteristics of the Mexican plateau, and has no materials derived from the ancient cemeteries of Central America. Until intelligent native Mexican observers shall carry on extensive observations on the spot, and classify the ancient crania, by means of archæological and other trustworthy evidence, so as to furnish some means of determining what is the typical Olmec, Toltec, and Aztec cranium, no satisfactory comparisons can be drawn between ancient Mexican crania and the corresponding types of the barbarous northern tribes. Unfortunately the Spanish-American colonists of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America, have hitherto, with a few honourable exceptions, rather impeded than cooperated in any investigations calculated to throw light on the history and ethnology of those remarkable seats of a native American civilisation.

The Peruvians and Mexicans, with the ancient populations of Central America and Yucatan, constitute the Toltecan family of the two great divisions into which Dr.

Morton divided his one American "race or species." The nations lying to the north of those seats of a native civilisation, were all classed by him into one family of the barbarous tribes, resembling the other in physical, but differing from it in intellectual characteristics. Yet, as we have seen, even Dr. Morton recognised some differences among them; and Professor Agassiz speaks of their tendency to split into minor groups, though running really one into the other. The following tables, however, will show that the differences are of a far more

clearly defined nature, and in reality embrace the two well-marked classes of brachycephalic and dolichocephalic forms; while of these, the latter seems decidedly the most predominant. The examples are chiefly derived from the Philadelphia collection, though with additional illustrations from the Boston cabinets already referred to, as well as from Canadian collections. This table, which illustrates the form of head most widely diverging in proportions from the theoretical type, shows in reality the prevailing characteristics of the north-eastern tribes, and could easily be greatly extended. The opposite or brachycephalic cranial formation is illustrated in Table VII.

TABLE VII.-AMERICAN BRACHYCEPHALIC CRANIA.

6.8 5.8 4.2 5.6
6.6 5.7 4.5 5.3
6.8 5.4 4.3 5.5
6.7 5.0 4.2 5.3
6.7 5.2 4.1 5.7
6.7 5.2 4.3 5.3
6.7 5.7 4.2 5.4
6.8 5.7 4.3 5.5
6.6 54 44 4.9
6.6 5.5 4.1 5.4
6.5 5.5 4.0 5.4
6.7 5.6 4.3 5.5
6.5 5.7 4.3 5.9
6.5 54 4.2 5.2
6.6 5.7 4.3 5.2
6.5 5.9 4.6 5.3
6.9 5.7 4.6 5.4
6.5 5.1 4.0 4.7
6.4 5.1 4.0 5.1
6.4 5.3 3.9 5.0
6.7 5.3

5.2

...

20 "Ohio Mound," F. 21 Goajiro,

13.4 19.3

13.0 18.5

6.62 5.45 4.24 5.30 14.63 4.25 13.85 19.44

But I now turn to the region around the northern lakes, where opportunities of personal observation first suggested to me the obvious discrepancies between the

actual evidence disclosed by exhumation on the sites of native sepulture, and the theory of a typical unity manifested in the physical and peculiar cranial characteristics of the most widely-separated tribes and nations of the American continent. The Scioto Mound skull, characterized by Dr. Morton as "the perfect type of Indian conformation to which the skulls of all the tribes from Cape Horn to Canada more or less approximate," presents the remarkable anterior development of a cranium whereof two-thirds of the cerebral mass was in front of the meatus auditorius externus; whereas in the elongated Peruvian skull, unaltered by artificial means, this is almost exactly reversed, showing by the proportions of the cerebral cavity that fully two-thirds of the brain lay behind the meatus auditorius. These may be considered as representing the two extremes; but both of the two great stocks between whom the northern region around the great lakes has been chiefly divided since the first intrusion of Europeans, belong to the dolichocephalic division. These are the Algonquins and the Iroquois, including in the latter the Hurons, who, with the Petuns, Neuters, and Eries, all belonged to the same stock, though involved in deadly enmity with each other. In the supposed typical Scioto Mound skull the longitudinal, parietal, and vertical diameters vary very slightly; and as the Mexican and Peruvian crania chiefly attracted Dr. Morton's attention, and are illustrated minutely, as a series, in his great work, it only required the further theory, which referred all the elongated skulls to an artificially modified class, to confirm in his mind that idea of a peculiarly formed cranium pertaining uniformly and exclusively to the New World. To the theoretical type of a head very nearly corresponding in length and breadth, though not in height, the most numerous class of Peruvian and Mexican brachy

VOL. II.

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