412 SUPPOSED PREVALENCE OF ONE CRANIAL TYPE 



tor of Dr. Morton's " Catalogue of Skulls," subsequent to the 

 transference of his greatly augmented collection to the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, remarks, in his Cranial Chracteris- 

 tics of the Races of Men : " Through Crania Americana, it has long 

 been known to the scientific world that a remarkable sameness of 

 osteological character pervades all the American tribes from Hud- 

 son's Bay to Terra del Fuego. It is equally well known that the re- 

 searches of Humboldt aud Granatin have demonstrated a conformity 

 not less remarkable in the language and artistic tendencies of these 

 numerous and widely scattered aborigines."'*' 



Such, then, is the opinion honestly arrived at by Dr. Morton, as 

 the result of extensive study and observation, accepted and con- 

 firmed by his successors, and now made the starting point from 

 whence to advance to still more comprehensive and far-reaching con- 

 clusions. It is not necessary, therefore, to prove the universal re- 

 cognition of this well known Ethnological postulate by further re- 

 ferences to recent authorities ; but there is one author, at once so 

 distinguished among American men of science, and so peculiar from 

 the point of view from whence he has regarded the entire question 

 of American Ethnology, as to merit special attention. Professor 

 Agassiz, in his Sketch of the Natural Provinces of the Animal World, 

 and their relation to the different Types of Man, re-affirms the ho- 

 mogeneous characteristics and ethnic insulation of the American In- 

 dian on entirely novel and independent grounds. After defining the 

 evidence on which the general opinion is based, that the boundaries 

 within which the different natural combinations of animals are cir- 

 cumscribed on the surface of the earth coincide with the natural range 

 of distinct types of man, he proceeds to show that America, inclu- 

 ding both its northern and southern continent, differs essentially 

 from Europe and Asia, or Africa, in being characterised throughout 

 by a much greater uniformity in all its natural productions, than 

 anything which comparison enables us to trace in the old world. He 

 then adds : " With these facts before us, we may expect that there 

 should be no great diversity among the tribes of man inhabiting this 

 continent ; and indeed the most extensive investigation of their pe- 

 culiarities, has led Dr. Morton to consider them as constituting but 

 a single race, from the confines of the Esquimaux down to the south- 

 ernmost extremity of the continent. But, at the same time, it 

 should be remembered that, in accordance with the zoological 

 character of the whole realm, this race is divided into an infinite 



Indigenous Races of Men, p, 332. 



