1877.] 06»J [Kane. 



more limited area, north of the town of Mapimi. Mapinii, an old Spanish 

 mining town, gives its name to a mountain near it, shaped somewhat like 

 a big purse (Plispanice BoUon). Tt appears to have been an after thought 

 with geographers to lay down a figure of this shape, large enough to in- 

 clude a great reach of desert* plain. A similar correction should be made 

 for the Barrial de la Paila, which is quite a narrow stretch of sterile plain 



lying on the west side of the Sierra de la Paila. 



******** 



II. ETHNOLOGICAL. 



After a review of Humboldt's work in New Spain, closing with a eulo- 

 gium on the great Explorer's thoroughness, General Kane proceeded : 



But Alexander von Humboldt did not visit the Northern Provinces of 

 Mexico. And I may say another thing without irreverence ; he was not 

 an ethnologist. In Spanish America, too, the persons who gave him most 

 information in Natural History were priests or members of religious orders 

 in the Roman Catholic Church. The minds of sincere persons in that com- 

 munion have ever been fettered by the dogma that " God hath made of one 

 blood all the nations of the earth," and they have seldom pursued ethno- 

 logical research with zeal, never with impartiality. 



I am sure that I do not overrate the value of Northern Mexico as a field 

 for ethnological study. I can say emphatically of it that in this respect it 

 is terreno desconocido ; territoric non explorado. 



It will be particularly interesting to us to seek the solution there of cer- 

 tain Historical Problems which have baffled our investigations. 



In the Old World we have not been able to divest ourselves of the bias 

 arising from our being in some manner or other parties to the discussion of 

 historical questions. Each specimen of us belongs to some particular race 

 or mixture of races, and, whether he has had a grandfather or not to take 

 a pride in, if his self-consciousness but carries him back a single generation, 

 he unites in feeling with those wiiom he thinks most like himself in mis- 

 taking what they accept as History for Science. Most of us in fact have a 

 direct political or religious interest or feeling involved in our preference for 

 deciding questions by the bulletin or historical pamphlet, rather than by the 

 scalpel and craniological caliper. Prejudice should blind us less in Mexico. 

 If we love our Dutch or Scotch, and hate our ancestral Spanish enemies, we 

 cannot help unduly praising our Orange-Nassaus, and hating our Alvas ; 

 while we do not care enough to cheat much regarding the respective merits 

 of the followers of Coanocotzinf or Ixtlilxochitl:j:. An imputation on the 

 standing of the Trinity, or the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, may 

 wound our feelings ; we care nothing for theories ascribing greater or less 

 exaltation to the gods Texcatlipoco,§ or Cu-at-li-cu-e. |[ 



In Northern Mexico, races have lived of the greatest variety of osteo- 

 logical structure. They have left, and they are now depositing in profusion, 



* Dcsirrfo, Desert, not nece=sxrily meaning uninhabitable desert. 

 fTexcocan enemy of Cort6s. JTexcocan friend of Cortes, 



g Of Heaven |1 Of Flowers. 



