ON THE OEIGIN AND MiaRATIONS OE THE POLYNESIAN NATION. 51 



such theories the principle established by the great philosopher 

 and traveller, Humboldt, and confirmed and strengthened by 

 other two very eminent authorities on this subject — Dr. Morton, 

 of Philadelphia, and Dr. Yon Martins, of Bavaria. 



"What then is the testimony of that eminent philosopher and 

 keen observer, Baron Humboldt, on the subject of the aborigines 

 of America? Why, it is as follows : — " The nations of America, 

 except those which border on the Polar circle, form a single race, 

 characterised by the form of the skull, the colour of the skin, the 

 extreme thinness of the beard, and straight, glossy hair."* 



And again, " I think I discover, in the mythology of the 

 Americans, in the style of their paintings, in their languages, 

 and especially in their external conformation, the descendants of 

 a race of men, which, early separated from the rest of mankind, 

 has followed for a lengthened series of ages a peculiar road in 

 the unfolding of its intellectual faculties, and in its tendency 

 towards civilization. "f 



Dr. Morton, of Philadelphia, with whom I spent an evening in 

 his own house in that city, in the year 1840, was the author of a 

 scientific work of the highest character,! entitled '' Crania Ameri- 

 cana," containing accurate drawings of the crania of lall the 

 aboriginal races of that continent, from the Esquimaux region 

 in the far north to Cape Horn. Having heard very shortly 

 before of a Professor in the German University of Freiburg 

 maintaining very dogmatically that the Azteck conquerors 

 and the comparatively civilized builders of the pyramids and the 

 other wonderful ruins in America were a totally diff'erent race 

 from the wild Indians of the forest of the present day, Dr. Mor- 

 ton assured me that there was no difference in the skulls of the 

 aborigines, that they were all one people, the descendants of one 

 common stock, one nation, and on asking him to what section of 

 the human family the Indo-Americans bore the greatest resem- 

 blance in their craniological development, he replied at once — the 

 Polynesian. 



I shall be reminded, however, that the Indo- American nations 

 of Peru and Mexico were in a comparatively high state of civiliza- 

 tion at the period of the Spanish conquest. When America was 

 first discovered and colonized by Europeans, the western equa- 

 torial regions of that continent were the seat of extensive, flour- 

 ishing, and powerful empires, the inhabitants of which were 

 well acquainted with the science of government, and had made 

 no inconsiderable progress in the arts of civilization. At the 

 time when the institution of posts was unknown in Europe it 



^' Humboldt's Researches, vol. i, p. 15. 

 ■\ lUd., p. 200. 



X Dr. Morton had quoted in his great work a work of mine published in 

 London in 1834, on the subject of this paper. 



