36 [June, 1841. 



greater number that were not flattened ; whence he infers that the 

 deformity was not natural, or characteristic of the nation, but the 

 result of mechanical compression. 



4. It was also remarked that those skulls which were flattened 

 were uniformly those of men, while the heads of the women always 

 retained the natural shape, the squared or spheroidal form which is 

 characteristic of the American race, and especially of the Peruvians. 



5. The most elongated heads were found in the largest and finest 

 tombs ; showing that the deformity was a mark of distinction among 

 these people. 



6. The researches of M. D'Orbigny confirm the statements 

 made at distant intervals of time by Pedro de Cieza, Garcilaso de 

 la Vega, and Mr. Pentland, and prove conclusively, what I have 

 never doubted, that these people were the architects of their own 

 tombs and temples ; and not, as some suppose, intruders who had 

 usurped the civilization, and appropriated the ingenuity of an ante- 

 cedent and more intellectual race. 



M. D'Orbigny found temples from 100 to 200 metres in length, 

 facing the east, and ornamented with rows of angular columns ; 

 enormous gateways made of a single mass of rock, and covered 

 with bas reliefs ; colossal statues of basalt ; and large square tombs, 

 wholly above ground, and in such numbers that they are compared 

 to towns and villages. 



My published observations go to show that the internal capacity 

 of the cranium, as indicative of the size of the brain, is nearly the 

 same in the ancient and modern Peruvians, viz. about seventy-five 

 cubic inches, a smallness of size which is without a parallel among 

 existing nations, excepting only the Hindoos. 



M. D'Orbigny even supposes the ancient Peruvians to have been 

 the lineal progenitors of the Inca family; a question which is not 

 led Supposing this to be the fact, we may inquire how it 

 happens that the Incas should have so entirely abandoned the prac- 

 tice of distorting the cranium ; especially as this, among the Ayma- 

 ras, was an aristocratic privilege ? 



I was at first at a loss to imagine how this singular elongation of 

 the head was effected ; for when pressure is applied to a spheroidal 



