January i, 1892.J 



SCIENCE. 



with some modificatioD, will apply to tbe whole nation. 

 " They were a peculiar people; good-natured as a rule, but 

 high-tempered; industrious, and yet as haughty as the 

 laziest Indians on the continent. They had more of that 

 commendable pride which makes men desire to be indepen- 

 dent and self-respecting than any of their neighbors. They 

 were inclined to be exclusive in their social relations, but 

 even among themselves there was little merrymaking. They 

 took a more serious view of life and its duties. Stubborn- 

 ness and strong will were tribal characteristics. In features 

 they were rugged and strong, the cheek-bones large and 

 prominent, the hair thick and coarse, the face heavy and not 

 much wrinkled in old age." Of their congeners, the "Up- 

 per Klamalhs,'' the same writer says, '"They were a finely 

 formed, energetic, and cleanly race." Mr. Gatschet confirms 

 in general these descriptions, but adds: "The Mongolian 

 features of prognathism and of high cheek-bones are not 

 very marked in this upland race, though more among the 

 Modocs than in the northern branch. If it were not for a 

 somewhat darker complexion and a strange expression of 

 the eye, it would be almost impossible to distinguish many 

 of the Eukshikni men frdm Americans." Their complexion 

 is s'o nearly white that "blushing is easily perceptible, 

 though the change in color is not great." The hair is straight 

 and dark; and he remarks, "I did not find it very coarse, 

 though with many Modoc women it is said to be so, and to 

 grow to an extreme length." 



It is worthy of note that the complexion and other physi- 

 cal characteristics of the Indians of western America vary in 

 marked connection with the "environment," that is, with 

 the climate, food, and mode of life. The natives of north- 

 ern British Columbia, the Thlingits (or Thlinkeets) and 

 Haidas, are as light of hue as Europeans. They often have 

 ruddy cheeks, brown or blue eyes, and red or brown and 

 wavy or curly hair. As we pass southward along the coast, 

 successively to the Nootkans, the Chinooks, and the other 

 tribes of southern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, 

 and northern California, we find the hue of the skin deepen- 

 ing, the eyeballs darkening, and the hair becoming coarser, 

 until at length, under the tropical heats of central and south- 

 em California we come to tribes with almost negroid traits. 

 These traits are described by the best authority, Mr. H. H. 

 Bancroft, as "a complexion much darker than that of the 

 tribes further north, often very nearly black;" "matted 

 bushy hair;" "a low, retreating forehead, black, deep-set 

 eyes, thick, bushy eyebrows, salient cheek-bones, a nose de- 

 pressed at the root and somewhat wide-spreading at the nos- 

 trils, a large mouth, with thick, prominent lips, teeth large 

 and while, but not always regular, and rather large ears." 

 But when we recede from the low, hot, and moist coast to 

 the cool and dry interior uplands, the people, as in the case 

 of the Klamaths, return to the European type. Mr. Gat- 

 schet describes particularly the small mouth of the Euk- 

 shikni, the good teeth, and the genuine Grecian profile, " the 

 nasal ridge not aquiline but strong, and forming an almost 

 continuous line with the forehead." 



The truth is that, as one of the acutest of Grerman anthro- 

 pologists, Oscar Peschel, in his able and comprehensive 

 treatise on the "Races of Man," has affirmed, all attempts to 

 distinguish the various so-called races by merely physical 

 characteristics, whether of color, hair, or the osseous frame- 

 work, have proved utterly futile. As regards the shape of the 

 head, on which so much stress has been laid, the view main- 

 tained by the late S. G. Morton, that the natives of this conti- 

 nent had a peculiar form of cranium, different from that of 



any other people, has been shown, first by Sir Daniel Wilson in 

 his "Prehistoric Man," and later by Dr. Virchow, in his recent 

 work, " Crania Ethnica Americana," to be wholly incorrect. 

 Dr. Virchow declares (in his summary read before the Con- 

 gress of Americanists, at Berlin, in 1888) that he finds doli- 

 chocephalic, mesocephalic, and brachycephalic tribes scattered 

 throughout the continent; and he pronounces in positive 

 terms his conviction that " the cephalic index, calculated on 

 measures of the length and breadth of the cranial vault, 

 should not be admitted as a determining proof of the single 

 or diverse origin of populations." 



We may confidently anticipate that the series of physical 

 measurements of all the American tribes, which, by a happy 

 thought. Professor Putnam has instituted for the Columbus 

 World's Fair, and on which many observers are now engaged, 

 under the experienced supervision of Dr. Franz Boas, will 

 result in confirming the views of Peschel, Wilson, and Vir- 

 chow, and establishing the truth that physical characteristics 

 afford no proper tests of racial affinity or diversity. We are 

 thus brought back to the older, and, as time has proved, the 

 infinitely stronger evidences of what may be styled the in- 

 tellectual characteristics, language and mythology. That 

 these tests sometimes fail, through mixture of stocks and 

 adoption of foreign beliefs, is unquestionable; and we are 

 then left in ethnology, as we are often left in other sciences 

 — astronomy, geology, and physiology, for example — to 

 rely on probabilities. But so far as certainty is attainable, 

 as it often is, it can Only be attained through the evidence 

 of these special tests. 



The language and mythology of the Elamath nation are 

 of a highly interesting character; but our study of these 

 subjects, with the ample materials and philosophic sugges- 

 tions furnished by Mr. Gatschet, must be left for other arti- 

 cles. Horatio Hale. 



Clint -n, Ontario, Canada. 



ANOTHER RIVER-PIRATE. 



In Science, vol. xiii., 1889, p. 108, under the title of " A 

 River- Pirate." Professor W. M. Davis described a recent case 

 of river capture in south-eastern Pennsylvania, brought 

 about by the backward gnawing of one stream into the 

 drainage area of another. In looking over with him the 

 Doylestown sheet of the Pennsylvania Topographic Survey 

 there were found numerous cases of similar capture, either 

 already accomplished or about to take place, and at his sug- 

 gestion the writer recently made a visit to the district in 

 question, in the hope of being able to add something more to 

 the history of the rivers of Pennsylvania. 



The region of these migrations. Buck County, is situated 

 in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania (see Fig. 1), and 

 extends for thirty-three miles (in a straight line) along the 

 Delaware River. It is a gently rolling, well-cultivated 

 country, composed of Mesozoic new red sandstones and shales, 

 dipping from 5° to 15° to the north-west, the hard and soft 

 layers of reddish sand and mud alternating. The evidence 

 goes to show that the surface of the country has been re- 

 duced by erosion at least 1,000 feet since the time when the 

 beds were laid down, for the upper deposits must have once 

 overspread the gneiss ridge at the northern county line. 

 They still rise nearly to its top, and there is no evidence of 

 a fault, the absence of any trace of it being capable of ex- 

 planation only on the supposition that extensive erosion has 

 taken place." 



' ad Geol. Survey of Penn. 1685. 



