258 NATURAL HISTORY OP 



artificial flattened occiputs ; but the figures of Yncas, 

 preserved in early Spanish documents, offer neithei 

 of these deformities. The first were most likely the 

 working castes, the second the privileged, and the last 

 appears to have been confined to one sacred family. 

 Cyclopean structures,* or walls, fortifications, and 

 pyramidal elevations, raised with enormous stones, be- 

 long certainly to the oldest population. It is likely 

 that others, particularly those evincing greater skill, 

 were constructed during the sway of the second, and 

 that the Ynca period only adapted them to the system 

 of solar Budhism, which it can scarcely be denied 

 formed the basis of -their institutions. Of the Crom- 

 lechs of America appearing to be identical with the 

 Celtic, known all over Europe and Asia, we wish not 

 to say more than that they are, to a certain extent, 

 evidence of the early wandering of some Gomerian 

 tribes to the New World ; and of the Northmen it 

 is now proved, that they reached the east coast by 

 a western course from Iceland, and wandered much 

 further to the south than was suspected in earlier times. 

 Whether any of these survived and amalgamated with 

 the local races, is a question not likely ever to be settled. 

 The decay, amounting to prospective extinction, ob- 

 served to be the lot of the American races, is moreover 

 a further proof that they are not a typical people, but 

 that they are stems occupying debateable ground, which 

 we have before shown are alone liable to annihilation, 



* Such as Chulucanas, on a secondary ridge of the Cor- 

 dilleras, as well as pyramidal instances of tombs. 



