A PROBLEM m AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY. 475 



then be discussed with the equanimity with which it is now approached. 

 The storm caused by Darwin's Origin of Speci(\s had not yet come to 

 wash away old prejudices and clear the air for the calm discussion of 

 theories and facts now permitted to all earnest investigators. Well 

 do 1 remember when, during- those stormy years, a most worthy 

 bishop made a fervent appeal to his people to refrain from attending 

 a meeting of the association, then being held in his cit}', on account of 

 what he claimed to be the atheistic teachings of science. Yet ten 

 years later this same venerable ])ishop stood before us, in that verv 

 cit}', and inv^oked God's blessing upon the noble work of the searchers 

 for truth. 



At the meeting of 1S5T one of our early presidents, the honored 

 Dana, read his paper, entitled '"Thoughts on species," in which he 

 described a species as '.' a specific amount or condition of concentrated 

 force defined in the act or law of creation," and, applying this prin- 

 ciple, determined the unit}' of man in the following words: 



"We have, therefore, reason to believe, from man\s fertile inter- 

 mixture, that he is one in species, and that all organic species are 

 divine appointments which can not be obliterated unless b}^ annihilating 

 the individuals representing the species." 



Another paper was by Daniel Wilson, recently from Scotland, where 

 six years before he had coined that most useful word, "prehistoric," 

 using the term in the title of his volume. Prehistoric Annals of Scot- 

 land. In his paper Professor (afterwards Sir Daniel) Wilson contro- 

 verted the statement of Morton that there was a single form of skull 

 for all American peoples, north and south, always excepting the 

 Eskimo. After referring to the views of Agassiz, as set forth in the 

 volumes of Nott and Gliddon, he said: 



"Since the idea of the homogeneous physical characteristics of the 

 whole aboriginal papulation of America, extending from Tiei'i-a del 

 Fuego to the Arctic C'ircle, was first propounded by Dr. Morton it has 

 been accepted without question, and has moi'e i-ecently been made the 

 basis of many widely (^omprtdiensive (k'ductions. Philology and archae- 

 ology have also been caUed in to sustain this doctrine of a spcM-ial unity 

 of the American race, and to prove that, notwithstanding some partial 

 deviations from the prevailing standard, tl|e American Indian is essen- 

 tially separate and peculiar — a race distinct from nil ot/nrK. 'i'he 

 stronghold, however, of the argument for the essential oneness of the 

 whole tribes and nations of the American continents is the supposed 

 uniformitv of phvsiological and especially of physiognomical and cra- 

 nial characteristics— an ethnical postulate which has not yet been called 

 in (lUi^stion." 



After a detailed discussion of a lunnberof Indian crania tioni Canada 

 and a comparison with those from other parts of AMicrica. as (h'scnltcd 

 by Morton, Wilson makes the following statements: 



'' But making full allowance for such external influences, it seems to 

 me, after thus*re^'ie^ving the evidence on which the assumed unity of 



