OCCIDENTAL STOCK. 315 



in his comments on the ancient Americans, confirms the accounts of other 

 observers, as to a striking analogy between the American and Mongole 

 races ; and states, that this analogy is especially evident in the colour 

 of the skin and hair, in the defective beard, high cheek-bones, and in 

 the direction of the eyes. It cannot be denied, he adds, that the human 

 species does not contain races more resembling one another, than the 

 Americans, Mongoles, Mantchous, and Malays. Another characteristic 

 of the American nations is said to consist in " a facial angle more in- 

 clined, though straighter, than that of the Negro," an inclination resulting 

 from the depression of the forehead, there being no race of men upon 

 the globe " in which the frontal bone is more depressed backward," or 

 which has this part of the skull less projecting. 



It may here be remarked that, though the cheek-bones are high and 

 bold, they have not the angular form, with an outwardly-turned lower 

 edge, which is so characteristic of the Mongole ; and that the zygoma is 

 not so arched and prominent : besides which, the peculiar flatness of 

 the forehead, in despite of any vertical elevation, which there is reason 

 to believe is far from universal, also constitutes a marked and general 

 distinction (though the Author has remarked it, very decidedly, in the 

 skull of a Patagonian, and though Dr. Prichard figures the skull of a 

 Chepewyan with a pyramidal vertex).* Another hypothesis is, that 

 many, if not all, of the American indigenes, and especially those of 

 Mexico and Peru, are of Malay descent. (See Dr. Lang, On the 

 Origin and Migration of the Polynesian Nation.) With regard to the 

 Oceanic branch of the Malays reaching the coasts of Mexico and 

 Peru, as they have extended themselves to the Sandwich Islands, there 

 can be no question of its possibility. 



Dr. Graves (Dublin Journal of Med. and Chem. Science, No. 15) enter- 

 tains a very similar theory ; viz., that the Peruvians are of Asiatic extrac- 

 tion. " The present inhabitants of the interior of Peru," he says, " belong 

 to the same race which peopled the remainder of the continent of South 

 America, and which is distinguished by a copper colour of the skin, 

 a thinly-scattered beard, straight, strong, black hair, and a prominent nose. 

 I am of opinion, that the present inhabitants of Peru are derived from an 

 Asiatic stock, the last colony of whom migrated, probably, about the twelfth 

 century. From these latter settlers sprang the dynasty of the Incas, or 

 Ingas; which dynasty was overthrown by the Spaniards, after it had lasted 

 about twelve generations. The Asiatic emigrants had gradually spread 

 themselves over the western coast of South America, conquering, as they 

 spread, the natives of the country ; and it is to the latter, in all probability, 

 that the skulls in question (the elongated depressed skulls found at 



* The large size of the orbits in some skulls of Americans, and especially in one of a Patagonian, 

 has been observed by the Author. 



