OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 271 



can nations. The Scandinavians colonized Greenland in 986 ; and when they 

 subsequently came in contact with the Greenland Eskimo they bestowed upon them 

 derisively the name of Skraellings, " expressive of their dwarfish and imbecile 

 appearance." 1 About the year 1000 these enterprising navigators are supposed, in 

 Vineland, to have discovered the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. From 

 their description of the natives of Vineland, Von Biier and others believed them to 

 have been Eskimo. Be the fact as it may, when Jacques Cartier, in 1535, entered 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence the Eskimo dwelt upon its north shore ; and subsequently 

 to this event they were found in possession of tire coast of Labrador. On the west 

 side of Hudson's Bay they occupied as far south as Churchill River. The migra- 

 tion of a portion oi the Eskimo from the arctic into the temperate climate, and from 

 the treeless regions of the north into the forest areas, is a significant fact, tending 

 to show a disposition, at least, to transfer themselves out of their polar habitat. 



The physical ability of mankind, by the general process of acclimation, to endure 

 all climates, suggests the inference that the natural habitat of man is coextensive 

 with the surface of the earth. In this respect he differs from all other animals, 

 whose habitats are more or less circumscribed. The spread of the Aryan family 

 in Europe, Asia, and America, of the Turanian in Asia, and of the Ganowanian in 

 North and South America, assuming for the present that the American aborigines, 

 with the exception of the Eskimo, constitute a single family, contains, on the part 

 of each family, nearly sufficient evidence to demonstrate this proposition. The 



rower than the Cherokee, while it is three-tenths of an inch longer than the former, and four-tenths 

 of an inch longer than the latter. The facial angles are respectively 73, 75, and 77. 



It should be stated that in the selection of the Indian skulls for comparison, those were taken 

 which approximated the nearest to the Eskimo in their several measurements. Such a selection was 

 legitimate for the purpose in view. The differences found in these several skulls appear to neutralize 

 each other, and to leave no result, except that of general conformity, instead of essential diverg- 

 ence. It suggests the question whether the specific measurements adopted are such as to reveal 

 the indicative characteristics of the human skull ; and whether comparisons which are founded upon 

 these measurements exclusively, are capable of establishing or overthrowing supposed typical forms. 

 The seventy-two plates, and the numerous diagrams of skulls in Dr. Morton's Crania Americana 

 show that he did not rely exclusively upon these test measurements, but connected with them, as 

 not less important, the position of the foramen, the zygoma, the jaws, the cheek bones, and the rela- 

 tive proportions of the anterior and posterior parts of the skull. With the actual specimens, and 

 with the skill and experience acquired by steady and extended comparisons, the means of knowledge 

 must be admitted to extend far beyond the facts expressed by these specific measurements. 



Dr. Daniel Wilson, who has devoted much attention to the investigation of the cranial charac- 

 teristics of the American aborigines, and who has furnished a Table of the comparative measurements 

 of thirty-nine Eskimo skulls, besides like Tables of a large number of American Indians, states his 

 final conclusion founded upon these extended comparisons, as follows : " They show that the form of 

 the human skull is just as little constant among different tribes or races of the New World, as of 

 the Old; and that so far from any simple subdivision into two or three groups sufficing for 

 American craniology, there are abundant traces of a tendency of development into the extremes of 

 the brachicephalic and dolichocephalic or kumbocephalic forms, and again of the intermediate grada- 

 tions by which the one passes into the other." This work, founded upon comprehensive and 

 thorough researches, is a most valuable contribution to American ethnology. Prehistoric Man, 2d 

 ed., p. 483. 



1 Cranz. Hist, of Greenland, London ed., 1820, I. 128. 



