204 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



ing their differences of feature and complexion; and the American nations, 

 he thinks, present a precisely parallel case. But this objection, which is far 

 from being a valid one, can by no possibility be urged against the analogous 

 remarks of M. D'Orbigny. 



Tn 184G, Dr. Morton contributed to the American Journal of Sciences,* Some 

 Observations on the Ethnography and Archceology of the American Aborigines, in 

 which he "avers that sixteen years of almost daily comparisons have only 

 confirmed him in the conclusions announced in his Crania Americana, that 

 all the American nations, excepting the Esquimaux, are of one race, and that 

 this race is peculiar and distinct from all others. The first of these propo- 

 sitions may be regarded as an axiom in Ethnography ; the second still gives 

 rise to a diversity of opinions, of which the most prevalent is that which 

 would merge the American race in the Mongolian." 



In the same year he published An account of his Craniological Collection ; with 

 remarks on the Classification of some Families of the Human Race, in the form of a 

 letter, addressed to Mr. JohnR. Bartlett, Secretary of the American Ethnologi- 

 cal Society.f ^ n tu ' s letter he thus writes : 



" The anatomical facts, considered in conjunction with every other species 

 of evidence to which I have had access, lead me to regard all the American 

 nations, excepting the Esquimaux, as people of one great race or group. From 

 Cape Horn to Canada, from ocean to ocean, they present a common type of 

 physical organization, and a not less remarkable similarity of moral and men- 

 tal endowments which appear to isolate them from the rest of mankind ; and 

 we have yet to discover the unequivocal links that connect them with the 

 people of the old world." 



Dr. Morton's last contribution to craniographical science, J which was 

 published after his death, shows conclusively that his views respecting the 

 homogeneity of the aboriginal American races had undergone no change 

 whatever. In this paper he still maintains the doctrine of a uniform, cranial 

 type for these races, with the same arguments and in language almost iden- 

 tical with that which he employed in his Inquiry ten years before. 



I make these references to his published opinious to show that Dr. Morton 

 perseveringly inculcated this doctrine from the inception to the very close of 

 his ethnological studies, comprising a period of about twenty-one years ; 

 that he was thoroughly convinced of its truthfulness, and regarded it as one 

 of the best established and most readily demonstrable of all the conclusions 

 at which he had arrived after a long and unwearied study of his cranial 

 collection. 



It is a remarkable fact, however, that opinions diametrically opposed to 

 these were maintained by two French ethnologists, with whose writings Dr. 

 Morton was familiar, and whose classifications he criticises adversely in Crania 

 Americana.^ I allude to Dr. Desmoulins and M. Bory de St. Vincent. 



As far back as 1826 Desmoulins divided the aboriginal Americans into two 

 species, the Columbians and the Americans. To the first he assigned as 

 their chief specific character an "elongated head," and to the second " a 

 generally spherical head." The Columbians occupied the whole of North 

 America, all the table lands and declivities of the Cordilleras, from Chili to 

 Cumaua, and also the Caribbean archipelago. The Americans comprised the 

 Omaguas, Gauranis, Coroados, Puris, Atures, Ottomacs, Botocudos. Guiacas, 

 Mbayas, Charruas, Puelches, and Tehulletts or Patagonians. "There is no 

 doubt," says Desmoulins, " that the Columbians, and still more the Ameri- 

 cans, are each again divisible into several species, as different from each other 

 as those of Africa. || 



* Vol. II. Second Series. 



f Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, vol. 2. p. 217. 



J Physical Type of the American Indians, in Schoolcraft's Information respecting the Ilistory, 

 Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States. Part 2, p. 315. 



g Pp 63, Si. 85. 



|| Tableau General, physique et geographique des Especes et des Races du Genre Humain, con- 

 tained in Uiatoire Naturelle des Races Ilumaines du Nord-est de l'Europe, etc. Paris, 1826. 



[May, 



