THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 419 



PL XI.) Dr. Morton remarks : " A strikingly characteristic Peru- 

 vian head. As is common in this series of skulls, the parietal and 

 longitudinal diameters are nearly the same," viz., longitudinal diam- 

 eter 6-1, parietal diameter 6. So far, therefore, as such evidence 

 goes it appears to justify the conclusion arrived at by Dr. Morton, 

 that the people represented by the Mound skulls in his possession, 

 " were one and the same with the American race, and probably of 

 the Toltecan branch."* 



The conformity affirmed to exist between the ancient Mexican and 

 Peruvian skulls, and those of the modern barbarous tribes, may also 

 be so far asserted as a partial approximation in relation to some of 

 them, and appears to receive a fuller confirmation when carefully 

 selected examples are referred to ; as a sufficient number occur to 

 indicate the occasional reappearance of some of the most striking 

 typical peculiarities. Such reappearance of the extremest typical 

 forms is not, however, peculiar to this continent. I possess 

 measurements of a singular modern (female) skull in the collection of 

 Dr. Struthers of Edinburgh, which reproduces in all its strongest 

 features the ancient British brachy-cephalic head ; and I have in view 

 more than one living illustration of the same sort : — one, for exam- 

 ple — a gentleman of education and intelligence — with such an eleva- 

 tion of the vertex, flattened occiput, and short longitudinal diameter, 

 as, judging by the eye, would more nearly approach the measurement 

 of the Scioto Mound Cranium, than that of any living Indian I have 

 seen. 



Of a similar nature is the correspondence pointed out by Dr. 

 Nottf between the Scioto mound skull and that of a Cherokee Chief 

 who died a prisoner near Mobile in 1 837. In this example, in so far 

 as can be judged from the comparison of both by drawings in profile 

 without precise measurements, the points of agreement are indisput- 

 able, though even here amounting to no more than an approximation. 

 The vertical occiput of the ancient skull — more markedly vertical in 

 the original drawing than in the small copy, — is only partially repre- 

 sented in the other ; the square form of the ancient profile in the 

 coronal region, becomes conoid in the modern one ; and the inter- 

 secting line drawn perpendicularly through the meatus shows a 

 very partial reproduction in the modern example, of the remarkable 

 preponderance of posterior cerebral development, which — if not pro- 

 duced by artificial means — is the most singular characteristic of the 

 ancient head. 



* Crania Americana, p. 229. 

 t Types of Mankind, p. 442. 



