SEPTEMBER. 225 



that the great subject of the origin of races is, and is 

 likely to be, in a miserably chaotic state. The craniolo- 

 gist, the philologist, and archgeologist agree only to disa- 

 gree ; and the student of general anthropology can not 

 yet, it is quite certain, blend the strong arguments of 

 these specialists, and reach to a plausible conclusion. The 

 stronger the argument of any one phase of anthropologi- 

 cal science, the more decidedly contradictory is it of the 

 assertions of the others. It was not a cheering outlook 

 when, at a recent scientific gathering, an eminent anato- 

 mist remarked that he " did not care a rap for languages 

 as a means of race identification," to which a philologist 

 replied, " What is so variable as the shape of a skull ? " - 

 But the shape of a skull seems to have some bearing 

 on the question of racial origin in connection with the 

 Serpent Mound. The recent exhaustive examination of 

 the broad plateau stretching southeastward from the 

 earth-work has yielded, among others, the very significant 

 fact that two peoples have used the place as one of burial, 

 and that one antedates the other ; and it is further very 

 significant that the evidently more recent occupants were 

 historic Indians. After all, the shape of the skull does 

 mean something is a tangible fact ; and the difference 

 between the crania of Indians and of the earlier mound- 

 builders is too persistent to be denied or explained away 

 as a mere coincidence. In the burial place that I have men- 

 tioned, the more ancient interments those, that is, that 

 may be safely referred to the time of the Serpent Mound 

 and its builders are of a short-headed people, that were 

 of the same stock as the ancient Mexicans. I would not be 

 understood as saying that the mound-builders were Mexi- 

 cans or vice versa, but that they were both offshoots from 

 a brachycephalic race that reached America by a trans- 

 pacific route. This is the view that has been expressed 

 by Prof. Putnam in recent lectures, and his most recent 



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