AUGUST 25, 1899. ] 
not yet come to wash away old prejudices 
and clear the air for the calm discussion of 
theories and facts now permitted to all 
earnest investigators. Well do I remember 
when, during those stormy years, a most 
worthy Bishop made a fervent appeal to his 
people to refrain from attending a meeting 
of the Association, then being held in his 
city, on account of what he claimed to be 
the atheistic teachings of science. Yet ten 
years later this same venerable Bishop 
stood before us, in that very city, and in- 
voked God’s blessing upon the noble work 
of the searchers for truth. 
At the meeting of 1857 one of our early 
Presidents, the honored Dana, read _ his 
paper entitled ‘Thoughts on Species,’ in 
which he described a species as ‘a specific 
amount or condition of concentrated force 
defined in the act or law of creation,’ and, 
applying this principle, determined the 
unity of man in the following words: 
“We have, therefore, reason to believe, 
from man’s fertile intermixture, that he is 
one in species, and that all organic species 
are divine appointments which cannot be 
obliterated unless by annihilating the in- 
‘dividuals representing the species.”’ 
Another paper was by Daniel Wilson, 
recently from Scotland, where six years be- 
fore he had coined that most useful word, 
‘ prehistoric,’ using the term in the title of 
his volume, ‘ Prehistoric Annals of Scot- 
land.’ In his paper Professor (afterward 
Sir Daniel) Wilson controverted the state- 
ment of Morton that there was a single 
form of skull for all American peoples, 
north and south, always excepting the 
Hskimo. After referring to the views of 
Agassiz as set forth in the volumes of Nott 
and Gliddon, he said: ‘Since the idea of 
the homogeneous physical characteristics of 
the whole aboriginal population of America, 
extending from Terra del Fuego to the 
Arctic circle, was first propounded by Dr. 
Morton it has been accepted without ques- 
SCIENCE. 
227 
tion, and has more recently been made the 
basis of many widely comprehensive deduc- 
tions. Philology and archeology have 
also been called in to sustain this doctrine 
of a special unity of the American race, 
and to prove that, notwithstanding some 
partial deviations from the prevailing stand- 
ard, the American Indian is essentially 
separate and peculiar—a race distinct from 
all others. 'The stronghold, however, of the 
argument for the essential oneness of the 
whole tribes and nations of the American 
continents is the supposed uniformity of 
physiological and especially of physiog- 
nomical and cranial characteristics—an eth- 
nical postulate which has not yet been 
called in question.”’ 
After a detailed discussion of a number of 
Indian crania from Canada and a compari- 
son with those from other parts of America, 
as described by Morton, Wilson makes the 
following statements: ‘‘ But making full 
allowance for such external influences, it 
seems to me, after thus reviewing the evi- 
dence on which the assumed unity of the 
American race is formed, a little less ex- 
travagant to affirm of Europe than of Amer- 
ica that the crania everywhere and at all 
periods have conformed, or even approxi- 
mated, to one type. 
“As an hypothesis, based on evidence 
accumulated in the Crania Americana, the 
supposed homogeneity of the whole Amer- 
ican aborigines was perhaps a justifiable 
one. But the evidence was totally insuffi- 
cient for any such absolute and dogmatic 
induction as it has been made the basis of. 
With the exception of the ancient Peruvians, 
the comprehensive generalizations relative 
to the southern American continent strange- 
ly contrast with the narrow basis of the 
premises. With a greater amount of evi- 
dence in reference to the northern con- 
tinent, the conclusions still go far beyond 
anything established by absolute proof; 
and the subsequent labors of Morton him- 
