ETHNOLOGY. 225 



Porifera or spoDges. The specimens examined by Dr. Gray bad been supposed to 

 be Cirrhopoda, allied to Balanus. Minute examination satisfied him that this was 

 a mistake, and at length led to the conviction that he had obtained a new form of 

 Protozoa, occupying the position indicated above. This ingenious conjecture being 

 sanctioned by Professor Busk and Dr. Carpenter, is now given to the world, and 

 the two genera which Dr. Gray feels authorized to establish are named Carpenteria 

 and Bujardinia, in honor of two of the most eminent observers of the allied forms, 

 Dr. W. B. Carpenter, and Professor Felix Dujardin, of Rennes. 



W. H. 



ETHNOLOGY. 



At the Montreal meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, Lewis H. Morgan, Esq., of Rochester, N.Y., communicated some of the 

 results of a curious investigation pursued by him, relative to the laws of con- 

 sanguinity and descent of the Loquois. Further investigation induces him to 

 believe that the system traced out -by him, in relation to one of the most im- 

 portant of the aboriginal nations of this continent, is by no means confined to 

 them ; but, on the contrary, it embraces such wide ramifications as to furnish a 

 means of no slight value for tracing the connection between the Indians of 

 America and any Asiatic or other tribes or nations of a common origin. 



Following ont the scheme of investigation thus indicated, Mr. Morgan sets forth 

 his views in a letter, of which the following abstract embraces the most signifi- 

 cant suggestions: — 



" It has occurred to me, after a careful examination of the system of consan- 

 guinity and descent of the Iroquois, that we may yet be able, by means of it, to 

 solve the question whether our Indian races are of Asiatic origin. Language 

 changes its vocabulary not only, but also modifies its grammatical structure in the 

 progress of ages; thus eluding the inquiries which philologists have pressed it 

 to answer; but a system of consanguinity once matured and brought into work- 

 ing operation, is, in the nature of things, more unchangeable than language ; — 

 not in the names employed as a vocabulary of relationship, but in the ideas which 

 underlie the system itself. The Indo-European nations have one system, identical 

 in its principal features, with an antiquity of thirty-five centuries, as a fact of 

 actual record. That of the Iroquois is original, clearly defined, and the reverse 

 of the former. It is, at least, to be presumed that it has an antiquity coeval with 

 the race. That of the Chippewa is the same as the Iroquois, with slight modifica- 

 tions ; thus establishing the fact of its existence in two of the principal generic 

 stocks. Besides this, there are traces of the same system among the Aztecs, 

 Mohaves, Creeks, Dahcotas, Delawares, Winnebagoee, and other races, all tending 

 to show that the system has been, and now is, universal upon this continent. 

 Should this last fact be established, the antiquity of the system, as coeval with 

 the Indian race upon the continent, will also become established. Upon the basis 

 of these two facts, and assuming that these races are of Asiatic origin, we may 

 predict the existence of the same system in Asia, at the present moment, among 

 the descendants of their common ancestors, if any remain. 



