48 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



To the writer, who has spent the major part of his Hfe in somato- 

 logical and medical studies among the American natives, who has 

 personally visited more than lOO tribes from Point Barrow in the 

 north to Patagonia in the south, who now has at his disposal in his 

 division in the U.S. National Museum over 10,000 American crania 

 and skeletons, all of which have passed through his hands, and who 

 was fortunate enough to examine a larger number of Australian skulls 

 than any other man (1928), the acceptance of the theory of the pres- 

 ence on the American continent of old contingents of either Mela- 

 nesians or Australians has not been possible. To him the whole his- 

 tory of the case appears to have transcended the realm of critical 

 science and passed into that of psychology. He has asked for proofs 

 (1926), but these were not furnished. He has scanned the assumed 

 evidence with open mind, and found it wanting. 



The objections are briefly as follows : 



The assumed basic foundations of the contentions are built on sand. 

 They are the statements of Ouatrefages and Ten Kate. Both these 

 observers made legitimate suggestions regarding some of the morpho- 

 logical features of certain American skulls. If both went somewhat 

 beyond this, the dearth of material in their time, the prevalent exag- 

 gerated values then attributed to various cranial features, deceptive 

 statements in publications of non-scientific writers, and the lures of 

 theory, were perhaps sufficient explanation. Yet neither has seen 

 anything really Melanesian or especially Australian in South America, 

 which is a point of especial weight with Ten Kate, who spent a con- 

 siderable length of time in Argentina and studied Indian material in 

 that country. Nothing could be clearer than the statement of Quatre- 

 fages concerning his reference to Papuan skulls in connection with 

 the skull from Lagoa Santa. 



There remain the skulls of Lower California. These skulls, like 

 those of southwestern Texas, do bear certain resemblances to some 

 of those of Melanesia. But this type is found also in not a few other 

 and widely separated regions of America, both among the Indians and 

 the Eskimo. It is contemporaneous with other types of these Ameri- 

 can people and connects with them. In the regions in which it is found 

 there were never reported any aberrant strains or any strains other 

 than the Indians or the Eskimo. 



The only conclusion that appears possible in view of all the facts 

 is that the hypotheses of either Melanesian or Australian, and even 

 that of recognizable Polynesian, presence on the American continent 

 is not demonstrable, nor even probable ; that the dolicho-steno-hypsi- 

 cephalic cranium is not extraneous but represents one of the several 



