162 Dr Morton on the Distinctive Characteristics of the 
istics of the American race, let us now briefly inquire 
whether they denote an exotie origin; or whether there is 
not internal evidence that this race is as strictly aboriginal 
to America as the Mongolian is to Asia, or the Negro to 
Africa. 
And, first, we turn to the Mongolian race, which, by a 
somewhat general consent, is admitted to include the Polar 
nations, and among them the Esquimaux of our continent. it 
is a very prevalent opinion that the latter people, who obvi- 
ously belong to the Polar family of Asia, pass insensibly into 
the American race, and thus form the connecting link be- 
tween the two. But without repeating what has already been 
said in reference to the Indian, we may briefly advert, for 
the purpose of comparison, to the widely different character- 
istics of the Esquimaux. These people are remarkable for a 
large and rather elongated head, which is low in front and 
projecting behind ; the great width and flatness of the face 
is noted by all travellers ; their eyes are small and black, 
the mouth small and round, and the nose is so diminutive 
and depressed, that, on looking at a skull in profile, the nasal 
bones are hardly visible. Their complexion, moreover, is 
comparatively fair, and there is a tendency throughout life 
to fulness and obesity. The traveller Hearne, while in com- 
pany with a ‘tribe of northern Indians, mentions a circum- 
stance which is at least curious, because it shews the light in 
which the Esquimaux are regarded by their proximate neigh- 
bours on the south. He was the unwilling witness of a pre- 
meditated and unprovoked massacre of an entire encampment 
of Esquimaux, men, women, and children ; and i+ is curious to 
remark that the aggressors apologised for their cruelty not 
only on the plea of an ancient feud, but by asserting that their 
unoffending victims were a people of different nature and 
origin from themselves, even in respect to sexual conforma- 
tion. 
The moral character of the Esquimaux differs from that of 
the Indian chiefly in the absence of the courage, cunning, 
cruelty, and improvidence so habitual in the Red man, who, 
in-turn, is inferior in mechanical ingenuity, and, above all, 
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