AMERICAN ASPECTS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 159 



so as to combine a group of individuals into one generalized portrait, 

 should have a thorough trial on groups of Iroquois, Aztecs, Caribs, 

 and other tribes who are so far homogeneous in feature as to lend 

 themselves to form an abstract portrait. A set of American races 

 thus " Galtonized " (if I may coin the term) would very likely be so 

 distinctive as to be accepted in anthropology. Craniological measure- 

 ment has been largely applied in America, but unfortunately it was 

 set wrong for years by the same misleading tendency to find a uni- 

 formity not really existent. Those who wish to judge Morton's dic- 

 tum applied to the Scioto mound skull, " the perfect type of Indian 

 conformation, to which the skulls of all the tribes from Cape Horn to 

 Canada more or less approximate," will find facts to the contrary set 

 forth in chapter xx of Wilson's " Prehistoric Man," and in Quatrefages 

 and Hamy, " Crania Ethnica." American crania really differ so much 

 that the hypothesis of successive migrations has been brought in to ac- 

 count for the brachycephalic skulls of the mound-builders as compared 

 with living Indians of the district. Among minor race-divisions, as 

 one of the best established may be mentioned that which in this dis- 

 trict brings the Algonquin and Iroquois together into the dolichoce- 

 phalic division ; yet even here some divide the Algonquins into two 

 groups by their varying breadth of skull. What may be the interpre- 

 tation of the cranial evidence as bearing on the American problem it 

 would be premature to say ; at present all that can be done is to sys- 

 tematize facts. It is undisputed that the Esquimaux in their com- 

 plexion, hair, and features approximate to the Mongoloid type of North 

 Asia ; but when it comes to cranial measurement the Esquimaux with 

 their narrower skulls, whose proportion of breadth to length is only 

 seventy-five to eighty, are far from conforming to the broad-skulled 

 type of North Asiatic Mongoloids, whose average index is toward 

 eighty-five. Of this divergence I have no explanation to offer ; it illus- 

 trates the difiiculties which have to be met by a young and imperfect 

 science. 



To clear the obscurity of race-problems, as viewed from the ana- 

 tomical standing-point, we naturally seek the help of language. Of 

 late years the anthropology of the Old World has had ever-increasing 

 help from comparative philology. In such investigations, when the 

 philologist seeks a connection between the languages of distant re- 

 gions, he endeavors to establish both a common stock of words and a 

 common grammatical structure. For instance, this most perfect proof 

 of connection has been lately adduced by Mr. R. H. Codrington in 

 support of the view that the Melanesians and Polynesians, much as 

 they differ in skin and hair, speak languages which belong to a com- 

 mon stock. A more adventurous theory is that of Lenormant and 

 Sayce, that the old Chaldean language is connected with the Tartar 

 group ; yet even here there is an a priori case based at once on analo- 

 gies of dictionary and grammar. The comparative method becomes 



