CHAPTER VII. 



PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FEE-HISTORIC MEN. 



THE part of our subject on which we now enter may 

 well be compared to the prospect presented to the 

 prophet Ezekiel when he was introduced to a valley 

 filled with bones, and observed that they were " very 

 dry." Yet if the reader will bear with a little disqui- 

 sition on the dry bones of pre-historic humanity, we 

 may promise him that in the end we shall find that 

 these bones will come together and be clothed with 

 flesh, and that their owners will fall into the ranks 

 of the great army of mankind as known to us in our 

 more modern times. 



The attempts which have been made to draw such 

 lines of distinction as would serve for race characters 

 between the different varieties of man have necessarily 

 been only partially successful, since these race cha- 

 racters shade into each other, and this in several 

 directions, depending on the particular lines of 

 comparison followed. More particularly, when we 

 have merely bones to rely on, classification becomes 

 less satisfactory; and though it is easy to divide 

 any number of skulls into dolichocephalous, or long- 

 headed, and brachycephalous, or short-headed, and 

 these again into those that are orthognathous or 



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