

THE CANADIAN JOURNAL. 



NEW SERIES. 



No. LXXIV. — AUGUST, 1871. 



THE HURON RACE AND ITS HEAD-FORM. 



BY DANIEL WILSON, LL.D. 



PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO. 



Bead before the Canadian InstitiUe, StJi April, 1871. 



In Europe we not only discern certain well-defined groups, of distinct 

 ethnical character, within the great Aryan family of nations ; but also 

 Moorish or Arabian, Hungarian, Turkish, and other intrusive elements 

 of comparatively modern origin ; ancient Basques, Fins, and Lapps, 

 of essentially diverse classification; and far beyond all, in point of time, 

 Allophylians of diverse types : the barrow and cairn-builders of pre- 

 historic times. The varying elements of race thus indicated, are ac- 

 companied by corresponding diversities in their stages of progress and 

 phases of civilization. There is no risk that any crude generalizations 

 should there shape themselves into a theory of ethnical homogeneity. 



On the American continent it is wholly different ; and by its very 

 contrast to Europe in all that pertains to ethnographic classification, 

 the actusil extent of its diversities is apt to be ignored. The interval 

 between the mof;t advanced arts of Mexico or Peru, and the barbarism 

 of Patagonia or Greenland becomes so slight, by comparisor^ as to be 

 undervalued ; and the ethnologist is left to search out the traces of 

 distinctive diversity, in part by comparative study of the languages of 

 the New World ; and in part by determination of the physical charac- 

 teristics of its races. As yet the materials for any comprehensive 

 system of generalization are wanting. The following monograph on 



