THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 409 



his favourite science, Dr. Morton's matured views on the cranial type 

 of the American continent — based on the additional evidence accumu- 

 lated by him, in the interval of twelve years which elapsed between 

 the publication of the Crania Americana and the death of its author, — 

 are thus defined : " the Indian skull is of a decidedly rounded form. 

 The occipital portion is flattened in the upward direction, and the 

 transverse diameter, as measured between the parietal bones, is re- 

 markably wide, and often exceeds the longitudinal line.* The fore- 

 head is low and receding, and rarely arched as in the other races ; a 

 feature that is regarded by Humboldt, Lund, and other naturalists, 

 as a characteristic of the American race, and serving to distinguish 

 it from the Mongolian. The cheek-bones are high, but not much 

 expanded ; the maxillary region is salient and ponderous, with teeth 

 of a corresponding size, and singularly free from decay. The orbits 

 are large and squared, the nasal orifice wide, and the bones that pro- 

 tect it arched and expanded. The lower jaw is massive and wide be- 

 tween the condyles ; but, notwithstanding the prominent position of 

 the face, the teeth are for the most part vertical. "t The views thus 

 set forth by him who has been justly designated : " the founder of the 

 American School of Ethnology," J have been maintained and strength- 

 ened by his successors ; and scarcely any point in relation to Ethno- 

 graphic types is more generally accepted as a recognised postulate 

 than the approximative homogeneous cranial characteristics of the 

 whole American race. A distinction, indeed is made by Morton, 

 and to some extent recognised by his successors, between the barbar- 

 ous, or American, and the civilized, or Toltecan tribes of the continent ; 

 but the distinction, according to their own view, is arbitrary, and 

 appears alike indefinite and unsatisfactory ; unless an essential differ- 

 ence of race, corresponding to that which is held to separate the 

 Esquimaux from the true Autocthones of America, is acknowledged 

 to exist, whereas this is expressly denied. One of the three proposi- 

 tions with which Dr. Morton sums up the results borne out by the 

 evidence advanced in his Crania Americana is : " That the American 

 nations, excepting the polar tribes, are of one race and one species, 

 but of two great families, which resemble each other in physical, but 



* In this statement Dr. Morton would seem to have had in view his theoretical type, rather 

 than the results of his own careful observations, unless he accepted as evidence the artifi- 

 cially abreviated and flattened skulls, and even of these his Crania Americana furnishes only 

 one exceptional example, from a mound on the Alabama River, (pi. LIV.) " It is flattened 

 on the occiput and os frontis in such manner as to give the whole head a sugar-loaf or coui. 

 cal form, whence also its great lateral diameter, and its narrowness from back to front'' 



t Physical type of the American Indians. Schoolcraft's His., &c, II. p. 316. 



% Types of Mankind, p. 87. 



YOL. II. — C* 



