208 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OP 



doubt founded in truth, yet it must be allowed to be liable to numerous ex- 

 ceptions."* 



In November, 1856, Prof. Wilson, of Canada, who, for some time before, 

 had been especially directing his attention to the conformation of the Ameri- 

 can Indian cranium, published an account of the discovery of some Indian 

 remains in Canada West.f "No indications," he wrote on that occasion, 

 "have yet been noticed of a race in Canada corresponding to the brachyce- 

 phalic or square-headed mound-builders of the Mississippi, although such an 

 approximation to that type undoubtedly prevails throughout this continent 

 as, to a considerable extent, to bear out the conclusions of Dr. Morton, that a 

 conformity of organization is obvious in the osteological structure of the 

 whole American population, extending from the southern Fuegians, to the 

 Indians skirting the Arctic Esquimaux. But such an approximation, and it 

 is unquestionably no more, still leaves open many important questions rela- 

 tive to the area and race of the ancient mound-builders. On our northern 

 shores of the great chain of lakes, crania of the more recent brachycephalic 

 type have unquestionably been repeatedly found in comparatively modern 

 native graves. Such, however, are the exceptions, and not the rule. The 

 prevailing type, so far as my present experience extends, presents a very 

 marked predominance of the longitudinal over the parietal and vertical di- 

 ameter ; while, even in the exceptional cases, the brachycephalic character- 

 istics fall far short of those so markedly distinguishing the ancient crania, 

 the distinctive features of which some observers have affirmed them to ex- 

 hibit." 



In August, 1857, Dr. Wilson read before the meeting of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science, a valuable and interesting paper on 

 the Supposed prevalence of one Cranial Type throughout. the American Aborigi- 

 nes. % In this article, the mere doubt expressed a year before now becomes a 

 positive conviction, that native American crania do not belong to one type, but 

 are referrible to dolichocephalic and brachycephalic forms; "and that a 

 marked difference distinguishes the northern tribes, now, or formerly occupy- 

 ing the Canadian area, in their cranial conformation, from that which pertains 

 to the aborigines of Central America and the southern valley of the Missis- 

 sippi ; and that in so far as the northern differ from the southern tribes, they 

 approximate more or less, in the points of divergence, to the characteristics 

 of the Esquimaux. " In the second edition of Prehistoric Man, published eight 

 years later, he concludes that "the results of his attempts at a comparative 

 analysis of the cranial characteristics of the American races show that the form 

 of the human skull is just as little constant among different tribes or races of 

 the New World as of the Old ; and that so far from any simple subdivision 

 into two or three groups sufficing for American craniology, there are abundant 

 traces of a tendency of development into the extremes of brachycephalic and 

 dolichocephalic forms, and again of the intermediate gradation by which the 

 one passes into the other. ' 



It will thus be seen that Desmoulins, Bory de St. Vincent, Alcide d'Orbigny, 

 Retzius, D'Omalius d'Halloy, Latham, and, more recently, Wilson, have all 

 expressed their conviction, in terms more or less emphatic, that the American 

 races are divisible, according to the form of the skull, into dolichocephalic and 

 brachycephalic groups. Retzius and Zeune have gone a step further, by re- 

 ferring the crania of these races to three distinct forms or types. According 

 to Zeune, these crania are divisible into long, broad, and high forms, corres- 



* Crania Britannica, Decade 3, p. 10. 



I Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art, Nov., 1856, p. 



\ The Canadian Journal, Nov., 1857. See also Kdin. Philosoph. Journal, N. S.. vol. vii. This 

 paper, enlarged and somewhat altered, constitutes chap. 21 of the first edition, and chap. 20 of the 

 sicond edition ot Dr. Wilson's Prehistoric Man; and Part I of Lectures on Physical Ethnology, 

 contributed by the same author to the Smithsonian Report for 1862. 



$ Page 483. 



[May, 



