May 20, 1880] 



NATURE 



61 



important modification of these theories. The proof 

 of a very considerable antiquity rests upon the high and 

 independent state of civilisation, whicli had been attained 

 by the Mexicans and Peruvians at the time of the Spanish 

 conquest, and the evidence that that civilisation had been 

 preceded by several other J^stages of culture, following 

 in succession through a great stretclr of time, but the 

 antiquity of the quasi-historical period thus brought out, 

 is entirely thrown into the shade by the evidence now 

 accumulating from various parts of the United States, 

 Central America, and the Pampas, that man existed in 

 those countries, and existed under much the same condi- 

 tions of life, using precisely similar weapons and tools, 

 as in Europe, during the pleistocene or quaternary 

 geological period, and, perhaps, even further back in 

 time. As in Europe his worlds are found associated 

 with the remains of Eleplias pn'im'gc-nhts, and other 

 extinct mammals, so in America are tliey found in 

 contemporary deposits with tliose oi E/ephas cobtmbi. If 

 the inductions commonly made from these discoveries be 

 accepted, and the fact admitted that men lived both in 

 Europe and America before the surface of the earth had 

 assimied its present geographical conformation, tlie data 

 from which the problem of the peopling of America is to 

 be solved are altogether changed'. Recent palaeonto- 

 logical investigations, especially those carried on with 

 such great success in the neighbourhood of the Roclcy 

 Mountains, show that an immense number of forms of 

 terrestrial animals that were formerly supposed to be 

 peculiar to the Old World are abundant in the New ; 

 indeed many, such as the horses, rhinoceroses, camels, 

 &c., are more numerous in species and varieties in the 

 latter, and therefore the means of land communication 

 between the two must have been very different to what it 

 is now. Taking all circumstances into consideration, it 

 is quite as likely that Asiatic man may have been derived 

 from America, as the reverse, or both may have had their 

 source in a common centre, in some region of the earth 

 now covered with sea. 



However this may be, the population of America has 

 been for an immense period practically isolated from the 

 rest of the world, except at the extreme north. Such 

 visits as those of the early Norsemen to the coasts of 

 Greenland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia, or the possible 

 accidental stranding of a canoe containing survivors of a 

 voyage across the Pacific or the Atlantic, can have had 

 no appreciable effect upon the characteristics of the 

 people. 



The evidence derived from the study of the physical 

 characters of the Americans shows that there is, consi- 

 dering the vast extent of the country they inhabit, and the 

 great differences of climate and other surrounding condi- 

 tions, a remarkable similarity in essential characters, with, 

 at the same time much diversity in detail, and in other 

 characters which perhaps are not of such primary import- 

 ance as has often been thought. The construction of the 

 numerous American languages, of which as many as 

 1,200 have been distinguished, is said to point to unity 

 of origin, as, though widely different in many respects, 

 they are all, or nearly all, constructed on the same general 

 grammatical principle, that called polysynthesis, which 

 differs from that of the languages of any of the Old World 

 nations. In mental characteristics all the different Ameri- 

 can tribes have much that is in common, and the very dif- 

 ferent stages of culture to which they had attained at the 

 time of the conquest, as that of the'lncas and Aztecs, as 

 contrasted with that of the hunting and fishing tribes, 

 which has been quoted as evidence of diversity of race, 

 were not greater than those between different nations of 

 Europe, as Gauls and Germans, and Greeks and Romans 

 in the time of Julius C;esar ; yet all these were Aryans, 

 and in treating the Americans as one race, it is not 

 intended that they are more closely allied than the different 

 Aryan people of Europe and Asia. 



The physical or anatomical characters of the American 

 native people, taken as a whole (leaving out for the pre- 

 sent the Eskimo), may be thus described : — In stature 

 there is considerable variation. Among them are the 

 tallest known people on the earth, the Tehuelches or 

 Patagonians, who, though not the fabled giants of the 

 early voyagers, appear, by all trustworthy accounts, to 

 attain an average (for the men) of from 5 feet 10 inches 

 to 6 feet, which exceeds that of any other race. Some of 

 the North American Indians are also very tall, 381 

 Iroquois carefully measured during the late war giving a 

 mean height of 5 feet S'3 inches. On the other hand, the 

 Fuegians, and especially the Peruvians, are small, the 

 latter not averaging more than 5 feet 3 inches. There is, 

 however, no pigmy race on the American continent, like 

 the Bushmen, Negritos, and Lapps of the old v/orld. 



The hair, always a character of primary importance in 

 zoological anthropology, is remarkably uniform. Its 

 prevailing, if not universal, colour is black, or intensely 

 dark brown. The pale and auburn colour of the hair of 

 Peruvian mummies is probably due to accidental bleach- 

 ing, and the fair hair, said occasionally to be met with irs 

 existing tribes, may be the result of European admi.xture. 

 It is always straight and lank, though sometimes coarse and 

 sometimes silky in texture, a variation dependant upon the 

 thickness of the individual hairs. In transverse section it 

 approaches the circular form, perhaps more nearly than 

 in any other race, though in this and other characters it 

 resembles that of the Asiatic Mongolian people. On the 

 scalp the hair grows abundantly and often to a great 

 length ; in many North American Indians it has been 

 known to trail upon the ground when standing upright. 

 Not less characteristic is the rarity or absence of hair on 

 the face and other parts of the body. The skin is smooth 

 and soft, and of various shades of brown, though cinna- 

 mon (commonly called copper colour) is the most charac- 

 teristic. Some Californian Indians and the now extinct 

 Charruas of Uruguay were said to be nearly black ; and 

 some scattered tribes, both in North and South America, 

 are described as being nearly as fair as Southern Euro- 

 peans. The shade of the colour appears to have no 

 relation to the external conditions, such as heat, moisture, 

 &c. Though the features of various tribes, and of par- 

 ticular individuals in each tribe, show considerable diver- 

 sity, a characteristic typo prevails throughout the great 

 majority of the whole people from north to south. The 

 forehead is usually retreating ; the face wide in the malar 

 region, narrowing towards the chin ; the brows prominent, 

 overshadowing rather small, sleepy, half-closed eyes ; the 

 nose long from above downwards, and narrow ; the 

 dorsum, as seen in profile, usually arched, rather sunk at 

 the root, then projecting somewhat horizontally, and 

 making a tolerably sharp bend down to the tip, which is 

 not produced down below the septum ; though this form is 

 very frequently met with among all tribes, there is some 

 diversity, and the profile is sometimes simply arched and 

 sometimes straight, but a broad flat nose is very rarely 

 met with ; the mouth is wide and prominent, the lips 

 rather thin ; the chin well formed, narrow, but pro- 

 minent ; the whole face below the eyes long and large, 

 the malar bones projecting laterally, and the lower jaw 

 large. 



(To be continued^ 



T 



VARIATIONS FROM MARIOTTE'S LA W 

 HE universal application of the law enunciated by 

 Mariotte and Boyle, that the "volume of ' an 

 aeriform body is inversely as the pressure to which it is 

 exposed," was brought into question at an early date after 

 the publication of the famous experiments on which the 

 principle was based. Oersted and Schwendsen establislied 

 in 1S26 for easily liqucfiable gases that the elasticity does 

 not keep pace with the pressure. At about the same 



