228 METHODS AND RESULTS OP ETHNOLOGY. 



to olive. The face is broad and scantily bearded; 

 the skull wide and high. Such people extend 

 from Patagonia to Mexico, and much farther north 

 along the west coast. In the main a race of 

 hunters, they had nevertheless, at the time of the 

 discovery of the Americas, attained a remarkable 

 degree of civilization in some localities. They had 

 domesticated ruminants, and not only practised 

 agriculture, but had learned the value of irrigation. 

 They manufactured textile fabrics, were masters 

 of the potter's art, and knew how to erect massive 

 buildings of stone. They understood the working 

 of the precious, though not of the useful, metals; * 

 and had even attained to a rude kind of hiero- 

 glyphic, or picture, writing. The Americans not 

 only employ the bow and arrow, but, like some 

 Amphinesians, the blow-pipe, as offensive weapons: 

 but I am not aware that the outrigger canoe has 

 ever been observed among them. 



I have reason to suspect that some of the 

 Fuegian tribes differ cranially from the typical 

 Americans; f and the Northern and Eastern 

 American tribes have longer skulls than their 

 Southern compatriots. But the Esquimaux, who 

 roam on the desolate and ice-bound coast of Arctic 

 America, certainly present us with a new stock. 

 The Esquimaux (among whom the Greenlanders 



[* With the exception of copper and bronze. — 1894.] 

 [t A suspicion subsequently verified. See a memoir on 



American Skulls, Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. 



Vol. 1C— 1894.] 



