364 Morton’s Crania Americana. 
developed laterally, or backwards, and still preserve ite iden- 
tity and uses. This, indeed, is Dr. Morton’s own conclusion, in 
regard to the brain in the flat-headed Indians. He gives an 
interesting and authentic description of the instrument and pro- 
cess by means of which the flat-head tribes of Columbia River 
compress the skull, and remarks that “besides the depression 
of the head, the face is widened and projected forward by the 
process, so as materially to diminish the facial angle ; the breadth 
between the parietal bones is greatly augmented, and a striking 
irregularity of the two sides of the cranium almost invariably 
follows; yet the absolute internal capacity of the skull is not 
diminished, and, strange as it may seem, the intellectual facul- 
ties suffer nothing. The latter fact is proved by the concurrent 
testimony of all travellers who have written on the subject.” 
Dr. Morton adds, that in January, 1839, he was gratified with a 
personal interview with a full blood Chenouk, in Philadelphia. 
He is named William Brooks, was 20 years of age, had been 
three years in charge of some Christian missionaries, and had ac- 
quired great proficiency in the English language, which he un- 
derstood and spoke with a good accent and general grammatical 
accuracy. His head was as much distorted by mechanical com- 
pression, as any skull of his tribe in Dr. Morton’s possession. 
“« He appeared to me,” he adds, ‘ to possess more mental acute- 
ness than any Indian I had seen, was communicative, cheerful, 
and well mannered,” The measurements of his head were 
these : longitudinal caine 7.5 inches; parietal diameter, 6.9 
inches ; frontal diameter, 6.1 inches ; breadth between the cheek 
nes, 6.1 inches ; facial angle, shout 73 degrees. Dr. Morton 
considers it certain that the forms of the skull produced by com- 
pression, never become congenital, even in successive generations, 
but that the characteristic form is always preserved, unless art 
has directly interfered to distort it. pp. 206, 207.* 
* Mr. George Combe, in his late lectures in New Haven, mentioned, that in May, 
pa he had been introduced, in New York, to the Rev. jets Lee, who h in 
missionary among the Indians, 2000 mites beyond the Rocky Mountains, and 
ae had with him Thomas ‘A daiiees young Indian of about 20 years of age, of 
Cloughewallah tribe, located about 25 miles from the Columbia River. This 
young man’s head had been compressed by means of a board and cushions, in in- 
fancy. Mr. C. examined his head, and found that the parietal was actually greater 
" than the frontal and occipital diameter. The oe in the superciliary ridge of 
the forehead were fully developed; the upper part of the forehead was flat and 
