144 Dr Morton on the Distinctive Characteristics of the 
dern nations of our continent ; for the oldest skulls from the 
Peruvian cemeteries, the tombs of Mexico and the mounds of 
our own country, are of the same type as the heads of the 
most savage existing tribes. Their physical organization 
proves the origin of one to have been equally the origin of 
all. The various civilized nations are to this day represented 
by their lineal descendants who inhabit their ancestral seats, 
and differ in no exterior respect from the wild and unculti- 
vated Indians ; at the same time, in evidence of their lineage, 
Clavigero, and other historians inform us, that the Mexicans 
and Peruvians yet possess a latent mental superiority which 
has not been subdued by three centuries of despotism. And 
again, with respect to the royal personages and other privi- 
leged classes, there is indubitable evidence that they were of 
the same native stock, and presented no distinctive attributes 
excepting those of a social or political character. 
The observations of Molina and Humboldt are sometimes 
quoted in disproof of this pervading uniformity of physical 
characters. Molina says that the difference between an in- 
habitant of Chili and a Peruvian is not less than between an 
Italian and a German; to which Humboldt adds, that the 
American race contains nations whose features differ as essen- 
tially from one another as those of the Circassians, Moors, and 
Persians. But all these people are of one and the same race, 
and readily recognised as such, notwithstanding their differ- 
ences of feature and complexion ;* and the American nations 
present a precisely parallel case. 
I was at one time inclined to the opinion that the ancient 
Peruvians, who inhabited the islands and confines of the 
Lake Titicaca, presented a congenital form of the head en- 
tirely different from that which characterizes the great Ame- 
rican race ; nor could I at first bring myself to believe that 
their wonderfully narrow and elongated crania, resulted solely 
from artificial compression applied to the rounded head of the 
Indian. That such, however, is the fact has been indisputa- 
bly proved by the recent investigations of M. D’Orbigny. 
* A portion of the Moorish population of Africa is a very mixed race 
of Arabs, Berbers, Negroes, &c. 
