242 PHYSICAL ETHNOLOGY. 



withstanding tlie prominent position of tlie face, the teeth are for the most part 

 vertical." 



The views thus set forth, on such high authority, have exercised an important 

 influence on all subsequent investigations ; of whicli, perhaps, no instance is 

 more illustrative than that of Stephens, who submitted to Dr. Morton the broken 

 fragments of a skull rescued by him from an ancient grave in the rums of Ticul; 

 and though the observant traveller had already noted essential differences of 

 ethnical characteristics between the physiognomies and head-forms sculptured 

 on the ruins o£ Central America and those of the living race of Indians, he 

 appears to have implicitly resigned his judgment to the homogeneous theory of 

 Dr. Morton, and reproduces his opinion of the skull as that of a female, pre- 

 senting "the same physical conformation which has been bestowed with amazing 

 uniformity upon all the tribes on the continent, from Canada to Patagonia, and 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean '* 



This supposed prevalence of a remarkable uniformity of cranial conformation 

 throughout tribes occupying forest, prairie, mountain plateau, or oceanic archi- 

 pelago, and ranging from the arctic circle through every degree of latitude 

 almost to the antarctic circle, being assumed as an established truth, has furnished 

 the basis for further deductions of an equally comprehensive kind. Professor 

 Agassiz, in discussing the provinces of the animal world and their relation to 

 the different types of man, points out certain physical features of the western 

 hemisphere which tend to adapt it for a much more uniform distribution of 

 fauna than the European, Asiatic, and African regions present in corresponding 

 latitudes. " The range of mountains which extends in almost unbroken con- 

 tinuity from the Arctic to Cape Horn, establishes a similarity between North 

 and South America which may be traced also to a great degree in its plants and 

 animals. Entire families which are peculiar to this continent have th(^ir repre- 

 fientatives in North as well as South America — the cactus and didelphis, for 

 instance ; some species, as the puma or American lion, may even be traced from 

 Canada to Patagonia. Thus, with due qualification, it may be said that the 

 whole continent of America, when compared with the corresponding twin conti- 

 nents of Europe — Africa or Asia — Australia is characterized by a much greater 

 uniformity of its natural productions, combined with a special localization of 

 many of its subordinate types. With these facts before us, we may expect that 

 there should be no great diversity among the tribes of man inhabiting this con- 

 tinent ; and, indeed, the most extensive investigation of iheir peculiarities has 

 led Dr. Morton to consider them as constituting but a single race, from the 

 confines of the Esquimairx down to the southernmost extremity of the conti- 

 aent."t That the elements of diversity dependent on physical geograiihy and 

 the consequent influences of climate on food, temperature, &c., by which the 

 distribution of the fauna of every region is controlled, are much less varied 

 throughout the American continent than elsewhere is indisputable. But the 

 effects of this comparative uniformity, or rather smaller range of diversity of 

 climate and physical influences, in so far as they control the distribution of 

 plants and animals, differ essentially from the operation of the same causes in 

 producing an apparent uniformity among the tribes of men inhabiting the same 

 continent. Fin, Celt, German, Sclave, Magyar, and Turk, all present as great 

 a superficial resemblance as the diverse tribes and nations of the New World, 

 where they have been long subjected to the same equalizing influences of climate, 

 social intercourse, and intermingling of blood. But the ethnologist still finds 

 the osteological indices of diversity of race unobllterated ; and the results of 

 the investigations set forth here have sufficed to satisfy me that the same diversity 

 iis still traceable among the ancient and living tribes and nations of this continent. 



"Siephens's Yucatan, vol. I., p. 284 



j Provinces of the Animal World, &c. Types of Mankind, p. Ixix. 



