MortorCs Crania Americana. 375 



ther be my aim to extend and revise both the anatomical and 

 phrenological tables, and to give basal views of at least a part of 

 the crania delineated." We sincerely trust that the favorable re- 

 ception of this volume will induce him to execute these inten- 

 tions. Valuable as the materials are in the present work, they lie 

 very much apart. He wrote without systematic relation to phre- 

 nology ; yet phrenological facts and inferences are presented 

 passim throughout the work. Mr. Phillips's phrenological lables 

 are extensive, minute and interesting, but tjiey are not cotmected 

 directly with the text ; while Mr. Combe's essay was composed 

 and printed without his having seen either the text of Dr. Mor- 

 ton, or the final results of Mr. Phillips's measurements. There 

 is strong evidence, in this course of proceeding, of a very direct 

 love of truth, and a reliance on all its parts harmonizing with each 

 other ; but much of the effect and instruction are lost to the 

 reader, in consequence of the facts and principles not being 

 brought into juxtaposition by the respective contributors. We 

 shall expect this defect to be supplied in the next edition, which 

 we do not doubt will be called for. The work is remarkably 

 cheap, keeping in view the quantity and quality of the materiel 

 of which it is composed.* 



* Postscript. — On page 363, we remarked that " tliere is a discrepancy between 

 the description of the ancient Peruvian skulls, and the civilization ascribed to their 

 possessors, which is unique in Dr. Morton's work." When the present sheet was 

 in the press, we received a letter from Dr. Morton, in which he says, " Since that 

 part of my work which relates to the ancient Peruvians was written, I have seen 

 several aditional casts of skulls belonging to the same series, and although I am 

 satisfied that Plate IV, (Fig. 4, p. 361 ,) represents an unaltered cranium, yet, as it 

 is the only unaltered one I have met with, among the remains of that ancient peo- 

 ple, I wish to correct the statement, too hastily drawn, that it is the cranial type of 

 their nation. My matured opinion is, that the ancient Peruvians were a branch of 

 the great Toltecan family, and that the cranium had the same general characteris- 

 tics in both. I am at a loss to conjecture how they narrowed the face in such due 

 proportion to the head ; but the fact seems indisputable. I shall use every exertion 

 to obtain additional materials for the farther illustration of this subject." 



Signed, Samuel George Morton. 



Philadelphia, March 3, 1840. 



Dr. Morton requests us also to subjoin the following note : " The author has 

 published five hundred copies of his work, which he nominally divides into two 

 editions, the American and the Foreign. They diff'er in nothing but the dedica- 

 tion ; the American copies being dedicated to Dr. Ruschenberger and Mr. J. S. 

 Phillips — the Foreign copies to Dr. Prichard and James Morton, Esq., the author's 

 uncle. In the Foreign copies, the letter to Mr. Phillips is inserted at the end of 

 the volume." 



