190 ETHNOLOGY AND ABCH^OLOGT. 



health of the children subjected to the deforming process, but it does not injure 

 their intellect, as is proved by their enslaving the surrounding tribes, who retain 

 the head in its normal shape. 



This barbarous practice, however, is neither of modern origin, nor peculiar to 

 the New World. Captain Jesse, in his " Notes of a Half-Pay Officer," describes in 

 his travels in Circassia and the Crimea, an ancient example of an artificially com- 

 pressed cranium, which he saw in the Museum at Kertch. This was said to have 

 been found in the neighborhood of the Don ; and he remarks in reference to it : 

 " According to the opinions of Hippocrates, Poraponius Mela, Pliny, and others, 

 the Macrocephali appear to have inhabited that part of the shores of the Euxine 

 between the Phasis and Trapesus —the modern Trebizoude. " 



This highly interesting specimen of the artificially elongated skull, from whence 

 this race is assumed to have derived its name, it can scarcely be doubted must 

 have since perished in the destruction of the Kertch Museum, when that town 

 fell into the hands of the victorious Allies. It is scarcely to be supposed that 

 such a prize as the ancient cranium would be found among the spoils carried off 

 by our soldiers from the Crimean city. 



AMERICA PEOPLED FROM ASIA. 



The following paragraph occurs ia the editorial correspondence of the Toronto 

 Leader, dated Rome, Xov. 5, 1855. 



"At the table d'hote of the hotel de la Minerve, last night, I met a priest from 

 Wisconsin. He state! some facts as conclusive proofs of the theory that America 

 was originally populated from Asia ; the principal one of which is that many of 

 the Indians are found to have the religion of Egypt, which they had received by 

 way of Asia Minor. On my remarking that the theory was not a novel one, but had 

 not been hitherto sustained by conclusive proofs, he said, • We have no doubt 

 whatever of its correctness.' He has been long among the Indians of the West, 

 and speaks their languages. He has taught them not only to renounce their 

 paganism, but also to read, to plough, and follow other industrial occupations of 

 civilized life. He has therefoi e, I take it, been an eminently useful missionary ; 

 and a self-denying one, too, it would seem, for he state3 that for four whole years 

 he lived almost exclusively upon fish, seldom tasting the luxury of bread." 



Such notices as this, preserving the deductions of intelligent observers, are de- 

 serving of record ; though, like most others leading to similar conclusions, it ia 

 extremely vague and unsatisfactory. If by " the religion of Egypt" is meant, as we 

 presume, the ancient ante-christian creed of the Nile Valley, — which even in the 

 days of Herodotus was obscure, and already being overlaid, like the political insti- 

 tutions oi Egypt, by foreign intrusions, — then something greatly more definite than 

 the mere recognition of such elements as are more or less common to all pagan 

 mythologies, must prove a connection which chronological evidence renders so 

 improbable. 



WORKING OF AFRICAN NATIVK IRON. 



At a recent meeting of the Natural History Society of Boston, Dr. A. A. Hayes 

 exhibited specimens of Native Iron from Liberia ; and gave the historical and 

 chemical evidence of its having been in use many years by the natives. By the 

 simple process of hammering, this iron has been converted into rude instruments. 

 It contains one and a half per cent, of crystals of quartz and magnetic oxide of 

 iron, and, consequently has Dever been heated or wroaght. There is no trace of 



