48 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



pletion of a labor commenced by the author many years before, of which some 

 partial results were printed in 1816. No more perfect monument of industry and 

 patient research connected with this subject has been published. The author's field 

 of inquiry was the whole American continent. He made no personal explorations, 

 but contented himself with collecting under different heads the facts related by 

 those who wrote from obseiwation, and arranging with them analogies derived from 

 every historical and literary source within his reach ; thus forming a convenient 

 cyclopedia of that kind of information. All that relates specifically to the mounds 

 and fortifications of North America is contained in a brief appendix ; but much 

 of the entire work has a pertinent bearing upon the questions of their nature and 

 history. It demonstrates with how little safety affinities of race, or an identity of 

 origin, can be deduced from partial similarities of customs, arts, or superstitions ; 

 which often proceed from the instincts of a common human nature; and even for 

 practices apparently the most anomalous the author finds parallels elsewhere. He 

 pursues his search for definite conclusions, through the complexity of his accumulated 

 facts and illustrations, with untiring patience ; and his opinions have this claim to 

 deference, if no other, that they are the result of painful and protracted study. They 

 are liable, however, to whatever diminution of weight is due to the mistakes and 

 misrepresentations of the authorities on whom he relies; a source of error to which 

 such a compilation of miscellaneous evidence is peculiarly exposed. 



In his chapter on the complexion and appearance of the American Indians, after 

 rejecting, for reasons shown, the term copper colored applied to the Americans, as 

 not being either correct or distinctive, and adopting that of broivn as more gene- 

 rally accurate, he finds described by different writers, three classes of complexion 

 among the aborigines, viz : white, brown, and black ; not to mention the interme- 

 diate shades. The existence of a white class is supported by extracts from the 

 journals of travellers who profess to have observed in certain tribes the complex- 

 ional characteristics of the races to which that term is usually applied — red and 

 white cheeks, a fair skin, and varied shades of color in the hair, some chestnut, 

 some auburn, some flaxen, as well as some black and curling. The Mandans and 

 Gros-ventres of the United States, the Guayanas of Brazil and Paraguay, the Eski- 

 maux, and the Greenlanders, are adduced as instances of this peculiarity. The light 

 complexion of the Eskimaux led Dr. Kobertson to conjecture that they were descend- 

 ants of the Norwegian discoverers. Captain Lyon and Captain Parry had remarked 

 that their skins, when washed, and such portions as were kept covered by clothing, 

 were clear and transparent, and not darker than that of the natives of southern 

 Europe. Captain Dixon is still more explicit in his statement to that effect; and 

 La Peyrouse, Marchand, Cook, and sundry others whom he mentions, testify to the 

 whiteness of the children at their birth. Baron Humboldt, the Abbe Molina, 

 Ilerrera, Dobrizhoffer, &c. &c, are quoted as authorities for the existence of tribes in 

 South America that may more probably be called white than copper colored or 

 brown. 



Dr. McCulloh's opinion, that aboriginal Hacks or negroes had been found on this 

 continent, was grounded on the statements of Torquemada, La Peyrouse, and 

 Langsdorf, that some tribes of Indians in California were black, and, as asserted by 



