SYSTEM. 139 



It remains for us to study and determine the intrinsic value 

 of each of these heads. The authentic production of a skull 

 is not always easy to be established when it comes from the 

 other side of the world, obtained by travellers who have not 

 made a special study of anthropology ; it is even less so when 

 a skull is dug up in a burial ground, where there may be a 

 certain promiscuousness very apt to hinder our inquiries. 

 Errors of this kind steal into science only too often, and we 

 have for a long time in particular objected to the name of 

 Gallic mummy, which has been given to a body in a collection 

 at Paris, the history of which does not at all justify this deno- 

 mination, since we simply believe that when it was first dug up 

 it was only referred back to the thirteenth century !* 



Craniology was anthropology itself, whilst this science was 

 being cultivated merely by learned men in their studies. If 

 a skull does not always bear about it the stamp of the race 

 to which it belongs, we must nevertheless own that it is the 

 best representative of the dead individual. Craniology obtains 

 all its weight and powers from the study of ancient races and 

 extinct peoples. There it ought to intervene with an un- 

 equalled importance, for want of better points of reference. 

 By its means anthropology can search in the past, clearing up 

 those questions which history is incapable of explaining. In 

 this manner Morton has been able to prove better than by any 

 historical document that Ancient Egypt was inhabited by 

 very mixed races, and composed of the most different elements, 

 exactly as in our own days. But there remained a problem 

 even more interesting : that of knowing if the different races 

 who then inhabited the banks of the Nile were as much divided 

 into various occupations as at the present day,: the Albanians 

 are all soldiers, the Copts all scribes and officials, the Fellahs 

 all labourers, etc. Doubtless it would be possible, if not easy, 

 to arrive at the solution of this new problem by collecting 

 skulls arid mummies with more care than has hitherto been 



* See Strope, Description d'une Momie tres-ancienne (Recueil Period. d'Observ. 

 de Medecine, vol. iv, p. 290, Jan. 1756). One may see in reading the account of 

 a very able and judicious narrator now much, ancient scientific observations 

 alter with the times, when no care is taken to refer to the original sources. 



