Morioii's Crania Americana. 347 



lYient, inasmuch as they show, beyond all question, that the Cau- 

 casian and Negro races were as perfectly distinct in that country, 

 upwards of three thousand years ago, as they are now ; whence 

 it is evident, that if the Caucasian was derived from the Negro, 

 or the Negro from the Caucasian, by the action of external causes, 

 the change must have been effected in at most one thousand 

 years; a theory which the subsequent evidence of thirty centu- 

 ries proves to be a physical impossibility ; and we have already 

 ventured to insist that such a commutation could be effected by 

 nothing short of a miracle." p. 88. 



Dr. Morton describes the general characteristics of the Ameri- 

 can, under the head of the " Varieties of the Human Species,'' 

 and then enters on a special description of the "crania" of up- 

 wards of seventy nations or tribes belonging to that family, illus- 

 trating the text by admirable plates of the crania, drawn from 

 skulls, mostly in his own possession, and of the full size of na- 

 ture. 



He regards the American race as possessing certain physical 

 traits that serve to identify them in localities the most remote 

 from each other. There are, also, in their multitudinous lan- 

 guages, the traces of a common origin. He divides the race into 

 the " Toltecan family," which bears evidence of centuries of 

 demi-civilization, and into the " American family," which embra- 

 ces all the barbarous nations of the new world, excepting the Po- 

 lar tribes, or Mongol Americans. The Eskimaux, and especially 

 the Greenlanders, are regarded as a partially mixed race, among 

 whom the physical character of the Mongolian predominates, 

 while their language presents obvious analogies to that of the 

 Chippewyans, who border on them to the south. 



In the American family itself, there are several subordinate 

 groups. 1st. The Appalachian branch includes all the nations 

 of North America, excepting the Mexicans, together with the 

 tribes north of the river of Amazon and east of the Andes. 

 2d. The Brazilian branch is spread over a great part of South 

 America east of the Andes, viz. between the Rivers Amazon and 

 La Plata, and between the Andes and the Atlantic, thus inclu- 

 ding the whole of Brazil and Paraguay north of tlie 35th degree of 

 south latitude. In character, these nations are warlike, cruel, and 

 unforgivi)ig. They turn with aversion from the restraints of 

 civihzed life, and have made but trifling progress in mental cul- 



