NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 209 



ponding to three similar types in the Old World ; and according to Retzius, 

 into Asiatic dolichocephalic, (Chinese,) Mongolian, and Semitic forms. Zeune, 

 in his comparative table, has indiscriminately grouped together normal and 

 artificially deformed skulls. His classification has, consequently, no ethno- 

 logic value. To Prof. Retzius is due the credit, as far as I can learn, and as 

 appears from the above chronological reference to the literature of this sub- 

 ject, of being the first to perceive the true ethnological import of the data 

 set forth in Crania Americana. From 1842 to 1S60, the year of his death, he 

 as positively opposed the doctrine of aboriginal American unity as Dr. Morton 

 zealously supported it. Dr. Wilson has indisputably confirmed the views of 

 Retzius as to the division of the American tribes into long and short heads, 

 and their consequent cranial non-unity, by means of a valuable series of com- 

 parative tables of measurements, accompanied with important critical obser- 

 vations, showing very considerable, judicious, and even enthusiastic research.* 

 Like Humboldt and Pickering, he favors the Mongolian classification of the 

 American Indian, and thinks that this classification is " borne out by many 

 significant points of resemblance in form, color, texture of hair, and peculiar 

 customs and traits of character."! 



From a careful examination of the Morton Collection, I am convinced that 

 the division of aboriginal American crania into dolichocephalic and brachy- 

 cephalic groups merely, is wholly inadequate to exhibit thoroughly the ethnic 

 differences which dispart them, in some instances, quite widely. It is easy 

 to point out crania which are comparatively shorter than most of the so-called 

 long skulls ; and others again, which are longer than the so-called short-heads. 

 Such deviations fall naturally into an intermediate or mesocephalic group, 

 which differs from the two extreme classes not in length only, but in other 

 characters also. Moreover, the ethnic value of dolichocephalism and brachy- 

 cephalism, or of length as compared with heighth and breadth, is by no means 

 fully determined. This character is not always of primary importance. On 

 the contrary, it is frequently of secondary value in classification. Two or 

 more skulls may be equally dolichocephalic, and yet belong to different types 

 or forms. Compare, for example, the cranium of the typical wooly-haired 

 negro represented on page 325 of Indigenous Races, with the skull of an 

 ancient Roman, or of a Circassian, figured on pages 312 and 316, respectively, 

 of the same work. These are all dolichocephalic ; but the slightest inspection 

 shows that they belong to very different types, and that the typical or differ- 

 ential characters are located in the facial bones chiefly. In like manner, if we 

 compare together the Ottawa and Mound skulls Nos. 1007 and 1512, which 

 are both brachycephalic, we readily perceive that the one belongs to the 

 spherical or globular form, and the other to the square-headed or cubical type. 

 In order to establish indisputably the cranial diversity of the American races, 

 it is obviously necessary, in view of the above facts, not only to point out 



* In his paper, read before the American Association in 1857. a year after Retzius had publicly 

 announced his matured views upon American crania to the Scandinavian Association, anil through 

 it to the scientific world generally Dr. Wilson says: " Scarcely any point in relation to ethno- 

 graphic types is more generally accepted as a recognized postulate than the approximative homo- 

 genous cranial characteristics of the whole American race." "The stronghold of the argument 

 for the essential oneness of the whole tribes and nations of the American continents, is the sup- 

 posed uniformity of physiological, and especially of physiognomical and cranial characteristics: an 

 ethnical postulat" which has not yet. so far as I am aware, been called into question." (Canadian 

 Journal, Nov., 1857, pp. 409, 416.) When these lines were written, Dr. Wilson appeal not to 

 have been acquainted with the labors of Retzius in this field; he certainly makes no allusion 

 to them whatever. These statements are reproduced in 1862, in the first edition of his " Prehis- 

 toric Wan," (pp. 205, 212.) and again in 1866, in the second edition of this deeply interesting work, 

 (pp. 425, 430, 431.) In both these editions he alludes to Retzius simply as amongst those who 

 have recorded conclusions similar to his own. He refers the reader, for the views of Retzius. to the 

 " Archives rles Sciences Naturelles," published at Geneva in 1860, and, in his "Lectures on Physical 

 Ethnology," in the Smithsonian Report for 1862, p. 244, accompanies this reference with the state- 

 ment that his own views on this subject were first published by him at the meeting of the Ameri- 

 can Association in 1857. 



f Prehistoric Man, 2d edit., p. 47i5. 



1866.] 14 



