Di" Mui'tou's Crauiuhyical Collection. 145 



The anatomical facts, considered in conjunction with every otlier spe- 

 cies of evidence to which I have had access, lead me to regard all the 

 American nations, excepting the Esquimaux, as people of one great 

 race or group. From Cape Horn to Canada, from ocean to ocean, 

 they present a common type of physical organisation, and a not less 

 ren)arkable similarity of moral and mental endowments, which appear 

 to isolate them from the rest of mankind ; and we have yet to dis- 

 cover the unequivocal links that connect them with the people of the 

 Old World. 



Both Europeans and Asiatics may, in former times, have visited 

 this continent by accident or design. That the Nortlinien did so, is 

 matter of history. The Plieniclans, Welsh, and Gauls, may possibly 

 have done the same thing. They may have had some influence on 

 the language and institutions of the country, and modified and ex- 

 tended its civilization. But, granting all this (for the entire evi- 

 dence is wanting), where are now these intrusive strangers \ We 

 answer, that if they ever inhabited tiiis continent, they have long 

 since been swallowed up in the waves of a vast indigenous population, 

 which, in its present physical characteristics, preserves no trace of 

 exotic intermixture. The Indian, in all his numberless localities, is 

 the same exterior man, and unlike the being of any other race. His 

 multitudinous tribes are not only linked by a common physiognomy 

 and complexion, and by the same moral and mental attributes, but 

 also, as the learned and justly distinguished Mr Gallatin has shewn,* 

 by the structure of their languages, and by their archasological re- 

 mains. The latter (wherever we find them) present evidences of 

 the same constructive talent, varying only in the degree or extent 

 of its development. It is seen on the grand and imposing scale in 

 Yucatan and Palenque, and in the sepulchral islands of Titicaca ; 

 and it is not less obvious in those humbler efforts that are every- 

 where scattered over the great valley of the Mississippi. Open the 

 mounds, as Dr Davis, Mr Squier, and Dr Dickeson have so labo- 

 riously and successfully done ; and the very same arts and inventions, 

 though in a mere rudimentary state, everywhere meet the eye. All 

 point to one vast and singularly homogeneous race. 



But it is necessary to explain what is here meant by the word race. 

 T do not use it to imply that all its divisions are derived from a single 

 pair ; on the contrary, I believe that they have originated from 

 several, perhaps even from many pairs which were adopted from the 

 beginning, to the varied localities they were designed to occupy ; 

 and the Fuegians, less migratoi'y than the cognate tribes, will serve 

 to illustrate this idea. In other words, I regard the American na- 



Mr Gallatin includes the Esquimaux dialect in this great family of lan- 

 guages. Further investigations may prove tliem to be an clement of the great 

 American race ; but 1 confess my own materials for this investij^ation have 

 hitherto been altogether inadequate. 



VOL. XLVII. NO. .XCIll. — .FULV 1849. K 



