232 NATURAL HISTORY OP 



THE AMERICAN SUB-TYPICAL STEM. 



THOUGH researches on the primitive population of 

 America may be deemed unphilosophical, because the 

 conclusions are not amenable to positive proofs, yet 

 the inquiry is not without profit ; and surely, so long 

 as physiologists continue to admit the maxim, that man- . 

 kind consists of one species only, it must involve, as a 

 consequence, the necessity of migration, in order to 

 people the earth in all its habitable portions ; or it de- 

 mands a plural creation of the single species, sufficiently 

 diversified to be adapted to the varieties of climate 

 and circumstances wherein they are found to exist ; in 

 which case, the term " species" assumes a different ac- 

 ceptation, and confounds the notions hitherto attached 

 to it, notwithstanding that no positive definition has 

 been undeniably established to guide the naturalist. 



Always regarding the flat-headed Paltas, Aturians, or 

 primaeval race of South America, as anomalous, though 

 evidently mixed with tribes of a more marked origin, 

 and admitting that of them some small clans, such as 

 the so-called Frog Indians, with probably others, are 

 still in being about the valleys on the east side of the 

 Cordilleras, we cannot but remark, considering the an- 

 tiquity of the deposits and extensive range where their 

 bones are discovered (from Brazil to the west coast of 



