264 PHYSICAL ETHNOLOGY, 



crania seems to prove tliat botli classes are small, indicating a people of inferioi 

 size and stature, and presenting essential differences, even in the brachycephalic 

 class, from those of the mounds. Their small vertical diameter is spcjciallj 

 noticeable. In this, as well as in other respects, the greater correspondence 

 between the jMexican brachycephali and the jMouud crania is suggestive, and 

 calculated to increase our desire for the acquisition of a sufficient number ot 

 examples of both, whereby to test the evidence of physical correspondence 

 between the elder races of Analiuac and the people who have left such remark- 

 able evidences of a partially developed civilization in the Mississippi valley,. The 

 two extremes are the Peruvian brachycephali and the Esquimaux — 



Length. Breadth. Heifjht. O. F. arch. 



Peruvian 6.3:;: 5.62 5.18 13.27 



Esquimaux 7.28 5.2v 5At 14.8^ 



But between these the range of variations sufficiently illustrates the f illacy of 

 the supposed unitorm cranial type affirmed to prevail throughout the whole 

 western hemisphere from the Arctic circle to Cape Horn. 



If the data thus selected as examples of the different groups furnish any 

 approximation to their relative cranial measurements, it seems scarcely possible 

 to evade the conclusion that the ideal American typical head has no existence 

 in nature, and that, if a line of separation between the Peruvian, or so-called 

 Toltecan head, and other American forms is to be drawn, it cannot be introduced 

 as heretofore to cut oft' the Esquimaux, and rank the remainder under varieties 

 of one type, but must rather group the hyperborean American cranium in the 

 same class with others derived from widely separated regions, extending into 

 the tropics and beyond the equator. In reality, however, the results of such 

 attempts at a comparative analysis of tin; cranial characteristics ot the Aineri 

 can i-aces go far beyond this, and prove that the form of the human skull is just 

 as little constant among the different tribes or races of the New World as of the 

 Old; and that, so far from any simple subdivision into two oi three groups suffic- 

 ing for American craniology, there are abundant traces of a tendency of devel- 

 opment into the extremes of brachycephalic and dolichocephalic or kumbeceph- 

 alic forms, and again of the intermediate gradations by which the one passes 

 into the other. A much larger number of examples would be required to illus- 

 trate all the intermediate forms, but sufficient data are fia-nished here to point in 

 no unmistakable manner to the conclusion indicated. If crania measuring 

 upwards of two inches in excess in the longitudinal over the parietal and verti- 

 cal diamciters, or nearly approximating to such relative measurements — without 

 further reference here to other variations of occipital conformation — m ly be 

 affirmed, without challenge, to be of the same type as others where the longi- 

 tudinal, parietal, and vertical diameteis vary only by minute fractional differ- 

 ences: then the distinction between the brachycephalic and the dolichocephalic 

 type of head is, for all purposes of science, at an eird, and the labors of Blum- 

 enbach, Itetzius, Nilsson, and all who have trod in their footsteps, have been 

 wasted in pursuit of an idle fancy. If differences of cranial conformation of so 

 stron.uly defined a character, as are thus shown to exist between various ancient 

 and modern people of America, amount t(^ no more than variations within the 

 normal range of the cmnmon type, then «tll the important distinctions between 

 the crania of ancient Europe^tn barrows and those of living races amount to 

 little, and the m(n-e delicate details, such as those, for example, which have been 

 supposed to distinguish the Celtic from the (jrermanic cranium, the ancient Uoman 

 Irom the Etruscan or Greek, the Slave from the Magyar or Turk, or the Gothic 

 Spaniard from the Basque or Morisco, must be utterly valueless. But the legit- 

 imate deduction from such a recognition, alike of extreme diversities of cranial 

 form and of many intermediate gradations, characterizing the nations of the 

 New World as well as of the Old, is not that cranial formation has no ethnic value, 



