192 NATURAL HIST0B1 



ridge, and the bones of the face harder and more solid than 

 those which were produced for corapari on. Dr. Lund like- 

 wise observed the incisor or molar teeth of adult - to be worn to 



flat crowns — a character which occurs also in som<' an 

 Egyptian jaws, and in heads of Guanche mumrj 



Here, again, we have characters so marked and decisive, that 

 if the case were applied to a lower animal, Bystematists would 

 not hesitate to place it as a Beparate Bpeciea ; and the comment - ol 

 physiologists who refuse their assent, not being in harmony with 

 the admitted definitions, are more specious than convincing. I 

 appears that the nation to which this form of head was peculiar, 

 although with all the signs of very low intellectual faculties, 

 ha.! nevertheless made advances in civilization, which m 

 of the Asiatic abnormal tribes have never even attempted to 

 acquire. They built houses of large stones, in a pyramidal 

 form, having aii upper floor; and, judging from certain remains 

 of their implements, ami the contents of their graves, they were 

 able beings, most likely under the control of superiors not 

 of the same stock, even from periods anterior to the formation of 

 the Inca system of civilization. Mr. Pentland, we believe, first 

 brought this singular race into notice, from skulls dug up near 

 the shores of Lake Titicaca. Dr. Lund found others, even in a 

 fossilized state, in the interior of Brazil. They were discovered 

 in limestone crevices, in company with bones of different 

 species of extinct animals ; proving both the remote age when 

 this form of man already existed in America, and the extent of 

 surface it is now known to have occupied. As the Budha, and 

 several other idols of India, constantly represent Man with pro- 

 files taken from a very low type ; so, in America, the Flathead 

 form appears to have had a commanding influence in the ideal 

 divine of the human head ; for the depression of forehead and 

 occiput is found artificially reproduced by many tribes in both 

 the southern and northern continents ; and specimens of these 

 are observed among human remains, buried in the high sea 

 sands of Peru itself; but these last mentioned have, in general, 



