104 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



discoveries of William Burckliardt Barker, who, in 1845, obtained a large quantity 

 of terra-cotta images from a mound on the site of the ancient Tarsus. Among 

 these were many specimens of flattened or compressed heads, exhibiting, in some 

 instances, the precise contour of the heads upon the monuments of Central America. 

 Others illustrated the form produced by downward pressure in the direction of the 

 spinal column. The whole collection having been submitted to Mr. Abington, a 

 gentleman skilled in artistic pottery, he was led by the resemblance between a por- 

 tion of the heads and those portrayed by Mr. Stephens in his Incidents of Travel in 

 Central America and Yucatan, to the construction of a theory connecting them 

 together. He imagined that the anomalous faces were faithful portraits of Huns, 

 or the Hiongnu, whose inhuman faces and horse-like heads so terrified the inhabit- 

 ants of the countries they invaded, and one division of whom, after sweeping all 

 before them as far as China, and penetrating the wilds of Siberia, might, as Hum- 

 boldt has suggested, have crossed to America. In addressing Mr. Barker, he says: 

 " Perhaps you have the gratification of first bringing before the world a true and 

 exact representation of that once terrible but now forgotten race, and that too 

 by an illustration probably unique ; also of removing the veil which has hitherto 

 concealed the mysterious origin of the men who have left the memorials of their 

 peculiar conformation upon the sculptured stones of America." 1 



With the heads above described, Mr. Barker obtained images of the divinities of 

 classical Greece and Rome in great numbers, and in a high style of art — the "Lares 

 and Penates" which give the title to his book; and, what is very remarkable, the 

 disfigured heads were also crowned with the tokens of divinity, indicating that 

 they also had at some time been objects of worship. These curious facts may be 

 added to the many coincidences that have been supposed to imply an Asiatic 

 derivation for at least a portion of the original population of this country. 



The statement that, under* the microscope, the hair of the American Indians 

 exhibits a form and structure peculiar to itself, or at least distinguishing it from 

 that of whites and negroes, should not be omitted from this physiological sum- 

 mary. This subject has been elaborately investigated by Peter A. Browne, Esq., of 

 Philadelphia, and the results are given, with illustrations, in the third volume of 

 Mr. Schoolcraft's general work; having before appeared in literary and scientific 

 journals. It is claimed that the hair of the American natives is cylindrical in 

 form, while in the Caucasian races it is oval, and among negro nations it is eccen- 

 trically elliptical. These distinctions, if sustained, are expected to have an im- 

 portant bearing upon the affinities and diversities of races. It has, however, been 

 questioned by other naturalists whether the phenomena observed are sufficiently 

 uniform to establish a scientific principle. 2 



1 Lares and Penates; or Cilicia and its Governors, &c. By Wm. Burckhardt Barker, M. R. A. S. 

 Lond., f 853, p. 203, et seq. 



a Dr. Carpenter asserts that the characters specified by Dr. Browne will not stand the test of exten- 

 sive observation; that the form of the shaft varies greatly in the hairs of the same race, and even in 

 those of the same individual ; for not only is it sometimes round, sometimes oval, and more rarely 

 eccentrically elliptical, or nearly flat, but may be even rcniform, or channelled on one side.— Oyc. of 

 Annt. unit Phys., Part XLI, p. 1338. 



