74 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



or family as the Tartars, precisely of the same color, of the same form of skull, of 

 the same species of hair, not to mention the language and their names." 1 



Jefferson says, in his Notes on Virginia, " The resemblance between the Indians 

 of America and the eastern inhabitants of Asia, would induce us to conjecture 

 that the former are descendants of the latter, or the latter of the former ; except- 

 ing, indeed, the Esquimaux, who, from the same circumstances of resemblance, and 

 from identity of language, must be derived from the Greenlanders, and these, pro- 

 bably, from some of the northern parts of the old continent." 2 



Still, notwithstanding that kind of similitude which is best expressed by the 

 phrase tout ensemble, a decided difference of particular features has been evident to 

 careful observers. While pointing out the remarkable resemblance between the 

 Americans, Mongols, and Malays, Alexander Von Humboldt refused to admit a 

 necessary identity of race, asserting that, in fact, osteology teaches us that the 

 cranium of the American differs essentially from that of the Mongol. 3 



In the very difficult operation of drawing lines of demarcation between the 

 assumed varieties of mankind, some test more certain than color, or any merely 

 external attribute, has been regarded as necessary. Camper and Blumenbach 

 advanced the idea more than half a century ago that a comparison of crania was a 

 principal requisite in such inquiries. But, according to Cardinal Wiseman, this 

 conception of deriving from cranial peculiarities a basis of classification originated 

 with our Provincial Governor, Thomas Pownal, who was equally remarkable for 

 political sagacity and a love of philosophical research. 4 Camper has the merit of 

 devising a rule by which the crania of different nations might be mutually com- 

 pared, so as to give definite results, and his system of observation was matured and 



1 Knox's New Coll. of Voyages, II, 213. 



3 Notes on Yirginia, p. 148. 



In the Boston News Letter of June 29, 1749, is a notice of a meeting between three Indians from 

 Greenland and two from Surinam, and some Delawares and Mohegans, at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, 

 they being all converts of Moravian missionaries. Though their native lands were so wide asunder, 

 "what they observed of each other's hair, eyes, and complexion, convinced them that they were all of 

 the same race." 



3 "What we have been stating as to the exterior form of the indigenous Americans, confirms the 

 accounts of other travellers of the striking analogy between the Americans and the Mongol race. This 

 analogy is particularly evident in the color of the skin and hair, in the defective beard, high cheek 

 bones, and in the direction of the eyes. We cannot refuse to admit that the human species does not 

 contain races resembling one another more than the Americans, Mongols, Mantchoux, and Malays. 

 But the resemblance of some features does not constitute an identity of race. In fact, osteology teaches 

 us that the cranium of the American differs essentially from that of the Mongol ; the former exhibits a 

 facial line more inclined, though straighter, than that of the negro ; and there is no race on the globe 

 in which the frontal bone is more depressed backwards, or which has a less projecting forehead. The 

 cheek bones of the American are almost as prominent as those of the Mongol ; but the contours are 

 more rounded, and the angles not so sharp. The under jaw is larger than the negro's, and its branches 

 are less dispersed than the Mongol's. The occipital bone is less curved (bombe), and the protuberances 

 which correspond to the cerebellum, to which the system of M. Gall attaches great importance, are 

 scarcely sensible."— Political Essay, Black's trans., I, 153-155. 



An equal difference in the form of the nose is noted in his Personal Narrative, III, 224, 2d Lond. ed. 



♦ Wiseman's Lectures, 5th Lond. ed., I, 158. 



