272 PHYSICAL ETHNOLOGY. 



of Dr. '^foi-tion: During a visit of Mr. Gliddon to Paris, in 1846, he presented a 

 copy of die Crania JEi^yptiaca to the celebrated oriental scholar, M. l^'resnel, 

 and excited hi^ interest in the labors of its author. Upwards of a year after 

 he received, at Philadelphia, a box containing a skull, forwarded from .Naples, 

 but without any iufoi'ina' ion relative to it. " It was handed over to Morton," 

 says Dr. Patterson, "who at once perceived its dissimilarity to any in his 

 possession. It was evidently very old, the animal matter having almost entirely 

 disappeared. Day after day would Morton be found absorbed in its conlcm- 

 pLition. At last he announced his conclusion. He had never seen a Phoenician 

 skull, and he had no idea where this one came from; hut it was what he con- 

 ceived a Phoeniciiin skull should be, and it could be no oiJier."'*' Six mouLhs 

 aftei wards Mr. Gliddon received, along with other letters and papers forwarded 

 to him from Naples, a slip of paper, in the handwriting of M. Fresnel, contain- 

 ing the hicitory of the skull, which had been discovered by him during his 

 exploiation of an ancient tomb at IMalta. Dr. Meigs refers to this in his cataliigiie 

 of the collection, (No. 1352,) as an illustration of the " Avouderful power of dis- 

 crunination, the tactus visus, acquired by Dr. Morton in his long and critical 

 study of craniology." Such was my own impression on tirst reading it ; but I 

 conffss the longer I reflect on it the more am 1 puzzled to guess by what classical 

 or other data, or process short of absolute intuition, the ideal type of the Phoeniciaa 

 head could be determined. 1 suspect, therefore, if we had the statement of Dr. 

 Morton's own words, it would fail short of such an absolute craniological in- 

 duction. The following is the sole entry made by him in his catalogue : "Ancient 

 Phoenician'? 1 received this highly interesting relic from M. S. Fresuel, the 

 distinguished French archaeologist and traveller, with the following memorandum, 

 A D. 1847 : — Crane proveuant des caves sepulchrales de Ben-Djemma, dans 

 I'lle de Malte. Oe crane parait avoir appartenu a un individu de la race qui, 

 dans les temps les plus anciens, occupait la cote septcntrionale de I'Afrique, et 

 les lies adjacentes." The sepulchral caves of Ben-Djemma are a series of 

 galleries with Literal chambers or catacombs liewn in the lace of the cliffs on 

 the southwest side of the island of Malta. Other traces besides the rock-hewn 

 tombs indicate the existence of an ancient town there, although no record of its 

 name or history survives. M. Frederick Lacroix remarks, in his Malfe ct le 

 Goze, " Whoever the inhabitants of this city may have been, it is manifest from 

 what remains of their works that they were not strangers to the processes of art. 

 The sepulchral caves, amounting to a hundred in number, receive light by means 

 of litile apertures, some of which are decorated like a finished doorway. In 

 others, time and the action of the humid atmosphere have obliterated all traces 

 of such ornaments, and left only the weathered rock. . . The chamlxn's set 

 apart for sepulture are excavated at a considerable distance from the entrance, 

 in the inmost recesses of the subterranean galleries. The tombs are of admirable 

 design and style of art, and the details of their execution exhibit remarkable 

 ingenuity and purity of taste. The author of the Voyage Pi toresque de Sicile 

 does not hesitate to declare that they surpass in elegance any that he has seen 

 executed on the same scale. Wht/t hand has hewn out these gloomy recesses 

 in the rock '/ To that we can give no reply. The chronicles of Malta are silent 

 on this point. Time has defaced the vestiges which might otherwise have 

 helped to the solution of the problem." + 



C)ther and very remarkable remains of antiquity abound in Malta and the 

 neigliboring island of Goza, including the cyclopeau ruins styled La tour des 

 Gfints, which have also been assigned by some writers to a Phoenician or Punic 

 origin, as a temple dedicated to Astarte; and the Tadarnadur Isrira, a mega- 

 lithic structure for which a Pehisgic origin is assumed. But in drawing any 

 comparison between the chambered galleries of Ben-Djemma and the megalithic 



* Memoir of Samuel G. Morton, p, xl. 

 t M.ali6 et It Goze, p. 21. 



