278 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



genera bos, ovis, capra, ursus, canis, felis, sua, and other extant natural 

 families, repr sentative remains of which- have been found in strata apper- 

 taining to geological epochs anterior to our own. Difference of species for Ursus 

 maritimuS and Ursus Americanus could not be predicated upon tbe skulls 

 only of these animals. The crania of Felis canadensis, F. concolor, F. chaly- 

 beata, &c, in the Museum of the Academy, are identical in form and dentition 

 with the skull of F. tigris. So, also, the skulls of Canis lupus, and C. familiaris 

 are identical with each other. I doubt if there is the anatomist living who 

 from the study of one or several bones of the head of one of the above 

 mentioned species, could unerringly refer them to their proper species. 

 Still less, if the animal were extinct, could they restore the species. To their 

 appropriate genus these bones might be restored, and this genus might 

 be reconstructed, but nothing more. So, also, supposing the Jew, the 

 Gipsey, and the Eskimo, all long-headed people, were extinct, I feel very cer- 

 tain that no ethnologist could, from their crania alone, restore the distinctive, 

 ethnic features of these people, the prominent, unmistakable nose and mouth 

 of the first, the long, dark and squinting eyes, and narrow radix nasi of the 

 second, the stunted form and flat,, lozenge-face of the last. On the other hand 

 suppose the Finn, the Lapp, the Turk and the Sclav, all long-headed people, 

 were among the past and gone. Then the problem would be, if anything, still 

 more difficult. For these crania resemble each other much more closely than 

 do those of the Eskimo, Gipsey and Jew. If we were to contrast the skull of 

 an Eskimo with that of a Sclav or a Turk, or thesku'l of a Gipsey or Jew with 

 that of a Finn or Lapp we should soon discover that there were greater differ- 

 ences between the crania thus compared, than between the different species 

 of Ursus, or of Canis, or of Felis. The most striking difference is to be found 

 ;n the length or antero-posterior dimensions of the two classes of skulls. Upon 

 this feature, indeed, Retzius has founded his two groups of human crania 

 the dolichokephalic and brachykephalic. But this difference in length is ac- 

 companied by other characters, some of which though less striking to the 

 ordinary observer, are not the less valuable and distinctive, in an ethnical 

 point of view. If all skulls were either long or short the craniographer might 

 readily refer any particular skull submitted to his inspection to one or other 

 of these two classes. But there are many crania which are shorter than the 

 so-called " long skulls," and yet longer than the so-called "short skulls." 

 These constitute a class intermediate between the dolichokephala? and brachy- 

 kephala?, into which they graduate on either hand so insensibly that they are 

 separable from them by no trenchant lines. A skull having been placed 

 among the dolichokephalae, or it may be among the brachykephalse, it is still 

 as far from being minutely classified as the head of a dog which has been 

 located in a group called simply "Canis." It may be orthognathic or prog- 

 nathic, it may be square-, oblong-, oval-, or lozenge-faced ; it may have an oval, 

 triangular or square crown. In many skulls these features may be, and, in- 

 deed, are, variously combined. Individual crania of the same group not 

 unfrequently exhibit these features differently combined. On the other hand 

 two skulls closely resembling each other may belong to distinct races differing 

 in general appearance, in language, in habits, in intellectual and instinctive 

 traits. Contrast, for example, the skull of a Graeco-Egyptian, No. 837 of the 

 collection, with that of an ancient Swede, No. 1249. These heads differ no 

 more from each other, than they respectively do from the other specimens of 

 the groups to which they severally belong. Upon our side of the Atlantio the 

 Swedsh crania find their representatives in the Arickaree Indian skulls. 



The Academy's collection furnishes other examples of this seeming paradox ; 

 some of them exhibited by races which occupy widely separated localities, 

 and of the assumed community of origin of which there is not only no scien- 

 tific proof of a positive oharacter, but even no presumptive testimony that is 

 reliable. The recognition of such facts led me, more than two years ago, to 



[Sept, 



