434 CRANIAL TYPE THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 



measurements in Table II. — keeping in remembrance the difference 

 in the values of the fractions, — will bear out the analogies already 

 indicated, and add new proof that the supposed uniformity traceable 

 throughout this continent, is no more than might fairly be looked 

 for among nations placed to so great an extent under the operation 

 of similar conditions of social life, and affected by so many corres- 

 ponding extraneous influences. 



If external circumstances or the progress of civilization, exer- 

 cise any influence on physical form, a greater diversity of conforma- 

 tion is to be looked for in Europe than among the Indians of America, 

 where — as in Africa — nearly the same habits and modes of life have 

 characterised the whole " Barbarous Eace," throughout the centuries 

 during which Europe has had any knowledge of them. But, making 

 full allowance for such external influences, it seems to me — after thus 

 reviewing the evidence on which the assumed unity of the Ameri- 

 can race is founded, — little less extravagant to affirm of Europe than 

 of America, that the crania every where and at all periods have 

 conformed, or even approximated, to one type. 



As an hypothesis, based on evidence accumulated in the Crania 

 Americana, the supposed homogeneity of the whole American abori- 

 gines was perhaps a justifiable one. But the evidence was totally 

 insufficient for any such absolute and dogmatic induction as it has 

 been made the basis of. "With the exception of the Ancient Peru- 

 vians, the comprehensive generalizations relative to the Southern 

 American continent strangely contrast with the narrow basis of the 

 premises. "With a greater amount of evidence in reference to the 

 Northern continent, the conclusions still go far beyond anything 

 established by absolute proof ; and the subsequent labors of Morton 

 himself, and still more, of some of his successors, seem to have been 

 conducted on the principle of applying practically, and in all possible 

 bearings, an established and indisputable scientific truth, instead of 

 testing by farther evidence a novel and ingenious hypothesis. 



Dr. Latham, after commenting on the manifest distinctions which 

 separate the Esquimaux of the Atlantic from the tribes of the Ameri- 

 can aborigines lying to the south and west of them, as elements of 

 contrast which have not failed to receive full justice, adds : " It is not 

 so with the Eskimos of Russian America, and the parts that look 

 upon the Pacific. These are so far from being separated by any broad 

 and trenchant line of demarcation from the proper Indians or the 

 so-called Bed Pace, that they pass gradually into it ; and that in re- 

 spect to their habits, manner, and appearance, equally. So far is this 



