360 Blorton's Crania Americana. 



It is impossible to commend too highly the zeal and persever- 

 ance manifested by both of these gentlemen in their endeavors to 

 do justice to their subject; and we anticipate that their example, 

 and the results to which their labors have led, will give a powerful 

 impulse to others to prosecute this interesting branch of science. 



We shall now present a brief view of the manner in which Dr. 

 Morton applies his own principles, and of some of the conclusions 

 at which he has arrived. 



He divides the native American nations into two great families, 

 the Toltecan and American. "It is in the intellectual faculties, 

 says he, that we discover the greatest difference between them. In 

 the arts and sciences of the former we see the evidences of an ad- 

 vanced civilization. From the Rio Gila in California, to the south- 

 ern extremity of Peru, their architectural remains are every where 

 encountered to surprise the traveller and confound the antiquary; 

 among these are pyramids, temples, grottoes, bas-reliefs and ara- 

 besques ; while their roads, aqueducts, and fortifications, and the 

 sites of their mining operations, sufficiently attest their attainments 

 in the practical arts of life." p. 84, The desert of Atacama di- 

 vides the kingdom of Peru from that of Chile, and is nearly a 

 hundred miles in length. A river, abounding in salt, runs through 

 it. This desert was the favorite sepulchre of the Peruvian na- 

 tions for successive ages. The climate, salt and sand, dry up the 

 bodies, and the remains of whole generations of the former inhab- 

 itants of Peru may now be examined, after the lapse perhaps of 

 thousands of years. Dr. Morton has been enabled to examine 

 nearly one hundred Peruvian crania, and concludes that that coun- 

 try has been, at different times, peopled by two nations of differ- 

 ently formed crania, one of which is perhaps extinct, or at least 

 exists only as blended by adventitious cuT-umstances, in very re- 

 mote and scattered tribes of the present Indian race. " Of these 

 two families, that which was antecedent to the appearance of the 

 Incas is designated as the ancient Peruvian, of which the remains 

 have been found only in Peru, and especially in that division of it 

 now called Bolivia. Their tombs, according to Mr. Pentland, 

 abound on the shores and islands of the great Lake Titicaca, in 

 the inter-alpine valley of the Desaquadera, and in the elevated val- 

 leys of the Peruvian Andes, between the latitudes of 14° and 

 19° 30' South." Our knowledge of their physical appearance is 



