Crania of Aboriginal Americans, 126 



is naturally on a par with the European ; and he contends that 

 the opposite and popular notion is the result of superficial ob- 

 servation, and is true only of certain degraded tribes on the 

 coast of Africa.* 



We entertain a great respect for Prof. Tiedemann, but we 

 cannot subscribe to his principle that the whole brain is the 

 measure of the intellectual faculties ; a proposition which as- 

 sumes that the animal and moral feelings have no seat in this 

 organ. 



We shall now present a brief view of the manner in which 

 Dr Morton applies his own principles, and of some of the con- 

 clusions at which he has arrived. 



He divides the native American nations into two great fa- 

 milies, the Toltecan and American. " It is in the intellectual 

 faculties," says he, " that we discover the greatest difference 

 between them. In the arts and sciences of the former we see 

 the evidences of an advanced civilization. From the Rio Gila 

 in California, to the southern extremity of Peru, their archi- 

 tectural remains are every where encountered to surprise the 

 traveller and confound the antiquary ; among these are pyra- 

 mids, temples, grottos, bas-reliefs, and arabesques ; while their 

 roads, aqueducts, and fortifications, and the sites of their 

 mining operations, sufficiently attest their attainments in the 



* Tiedemann's Essay has been critically exjiminedby Dr A. Combe, in the 

 Phrenological Journal, (vol. xi.) who shews not only the error of principle 

 committed by the author in assuming the whole brain to be the organ ex- 

 clusively of the intellectual faculties, but the more striking fact that Tiede- 

 mann's own tables refute his own conclusions. Tiedemann's measurements 

 are the following : 



li 

 Average length of brain in 4 Negroes, 

 do. do. do. 7 European males, . 



do. do. do. 6 European females, 



do. greatest breadth in 4 Negroes, 

 do. do. do. 7 European males, 



do. do. do. 3 European females, 



do. height of brain in 3 Negroes, 

 do. do. do. 7 European males, 



do. do. do. 4 European females, 



The inferiority of the Negro brain iu size, is self-evident from these di' 

 mentions. 



