g6 DANIEL WILSON ON THE HIJEON-IROQUOIS OF 



the whole contiuent.'" In this they were sustained by the high authority of Agassiz, who, 

 after discussiug iu his " Provinces of the Animal World, and their relation to Types of Man," 

 the fauna peculiar to the American contiuent, and pointing out the much greater uniformity 

 of its natural productions, when its twin continents are compared with those of the eastern 

 hemisphere, thus summed up the result of his investigations: " With these facts before 

 us, we may expect that there should be no great diversity among the tribes of man inhabit- 

 ing this continent; and indeed the most extensive investigation of their peculiarities has 

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

 Esc[uimaux down to the southernmost extremity of the continent. But, at the same time, 

 it should be remembered that, iu accordance with the zoological character of the whole 

 realm, this race is divided into an infinite number of small tribes, presenting more or less 

 difference one from another." It was natural and reasonable that the men of the six- 

 teenth century should believe in Calibans, or Ewaipanoma, " the Anthropophagi, and men 

 whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." America was to them, in the most literal 

 sense, another world ; and it was easier for them to think of it as peopled with such 

 monstrosities, than with human beings like ourselves. But it is curious to note in this 

 nineteenth centiiry the lingering traces of the old sentiment ; and to see men of science 

 still finding it difficult to emancipate themselves from the idea that this continent is so 

 essentially another world, that it is inconceivable to them that the races by which it is 

 peopled should bear any affinity to themselves or to others of the old world. American 

 ethnologists long clung to the idea of an essentially distinct indigenous race ; and Dr. Nott, 

 Dr. Meigs, and other investigators welcomed every confirmation of the view of Dr. Morton 

 as to the occupation of the whole American continent by one jpeculiar type from which 

 alone the Eskimo were to be excepted, as an immigrant element, possibly — according 

 to the ingenious speculations of one distinguished student of science, — of remotest 

 European antiquity. Professor Huxley iu an address to the Ethnological Society in 

 1869, suggests hypothetically, that the old Mexican and South American races represent 

 the true American stock ; and that the Eed Indians of North America may be the product 

 of an intermixture of the indigenous native race with the Eskimo. It is noticeable, at any 

 rate, that nearly all writers, however widely differing on other points, follow Humboldt 

 iu classing the Eskimo apart as a distinct type. He remarks in his preface to his 

 " American Researches," that " except those which border the polar circle, the nations of 

 America form a single race characterized by the formation of the skull, the colour of the 

 skin, the extreme thinness of the beard, and the straight, glossy hair." Some of the charac- 

 teristics thus noted are undoubtedly widely i^revalent ; but the head-form, or " formation 

 of the skull," is the most important ; and a careful comparison of the skulls of different 

 tribes has long since modified the opinion, expressed by the great traveller and reasserted 

 by distinguished American ethnologists. 



In reality, were the typical feature most insisted on as universal as it was assumed 

 to be, it would furnish tlic strongest argument for classifying the predominant Asiatic 

 and American types as one. All the points appealed to suggest afiinity to the Asiatic 

 Mongol. But to this the Canadian race, to which attention is here specially directed, 

 presents a striking exception ; and it is deserving of notice that the dolichocephalic head- 



1 Tyi»? of Mankind, p. 291. 



