February, 1S44.] 13 



proving a diversity of ages, while all showed an antiquity ; making them most 

 interesting, even if they do not solve the question of coexistence. In Europe, 

 (says the Doctor,) the remains of the gi of terrestrial mammiferous 



animals are the only proof of their existence; as no mention is made of them in 

 history, consequently their extinction dates back more than three thousand years. 

 Applying the same result to the extinct species of Brazil, with which they agree 

 in their state, and atttibuting to the human bones found in a state perfectly 

 analogous to those which characterise these fossils, we take for them an age of 

 thirty centuries and upward. Admitting, then, the proofs of these documents, 

 the population of Brazil is derived from very remote times, and undoubtedly 

 anterior to the time of history. 



The question then arises, who were these people? what their mode of life? 

 of what race 1 and what their intellectual perfection] The answers to these 

 questions are, happily, less difficult and doubtful. He examined various crania, 

 more or less perfect, in order to determine the place they ought to occupy in the 

 system of Anthropology. The narrowness of the forehead, the prominence of 

 the zygomatic bones, the facial angle, the maxillary and orbital conformation, all 

 assign to these crania a place among the characteristics of the American race. 

 And it is known, says the Doctor, in continuation, that the race which approxi- 

 mates nearest to this is the Mongolian ; and the most distinctive and salient 

 character by which we distinguish between them, is by the greater depression 

 of the forehead of the former. In this point of organization, these ancient crania 

 show not only the peculiarity of the American race, but this peculiarity, in many 

 instances, in an excessive degree; even to the entire disappearance of the fore- 

 head. We must allow, then, that the people who occupied this country in those 

 remote times, were of the same race as those who inhabited it at the time of the 

 conquest. We know that the human figures found sculptured in the ancient 

 monuments of Mexico represent, for the greater part, a singular conformation 

 of head, — being entirely without forehead, — the cranium retreating backward im- 

 mediately above the superciliary arch. This anomaly, which is generally attri- 

 buted to an artificial disfiguration of the head, or the taste of the artist, now 

 admits a more natural explanation; it being now proved, by these authentic 

 documents, that there really existed on this continent a race exhibiting this ano- 

 malous conformation. The skeletons, which were of both sexes, were of the 

 ordinary height, although two of the men were above the common stature. 

 These heads, according to the received opinions in Craniology, could not have 

 occupied a high position in intellectual standing. This opinion is corroborated 

 by finding an instrument of imperfect construction joined with the skeletons. 

 This instrument is simply a smooth stone, of about ten inches in circumference, 

 evidently intended to bruise seeds or hard substances. 



In other caverns he has found other human bones, which show equally the 

 characteristics of fossils, being deprived of all the gelatinous parts, and conse- 

 quently very brittle and porous in the fracture. They were, unfortunately, un- 

 accompanied by the bones of any other animals, so that the principal point of 

 the question remains undecided ; although they go to prove the antiquity and 

 prolonged existence of the human race on this continent. 



