Rocky Mountains. 283 



European standard ; tall men are numerous. The active oc- 

 cupations of war and hunting, together perhaps with the oc- 

 casional privations, to which they are subjected, prevents 

 that unsightly obesity, so often a concomitant of civilization, 

 indolence, and serenity of mental temperament. 



From this representation ol the physical man, it is obvious 

 that our observations do not correspond with those of Hum- 

 boldt, regarding the natives of Canada, Florida, and New 

 Spain, in as far as he represents them with the " squat body." 



The forehead retires remarkably backward, and the pos- 

 terior part of the head, (occiput) has a flatness of appear- 

 ance, attributable, perhaps, to the circumstance of its having 

 rested so constantly during infancy, on the surface of a 

 board, or on the scarcely less yielding interposed pad or pil- 

 low. Yet that organ, to which in the phrenological system, 

 the seat of amativeness is referred, although not usually very 

 prominent, is still marked and distinct. 



The fascial angle of the cranium has been represented by 

 Blumenbach at 73 degrees, an obliquity which induced him 

 to place the American Indian in his series of the varieties 

 of the human race, as the fourth in number. 



But his observations were made upon the cranium of a 

 Carib, than which people, as Humboldt justly remarks, 

 " there is no race on the globe in which the frontal bone is 

 more depressed backwards, or which has a less projecting fore- 

 head." This observation will not rigidly apply to the west- 

 ern Indian, who certainly possesses a greater verticality of 

 profile. Agreeably to the mensurations of Doctor Harlan, 

 a cranium, which we obtained on the plains of the Platte, ex- 

 hibits an angle of 78 degrees — A Wabash male 78°, female 

 80", and a Cherokee only 75o. 



The hair is coarse, black, glossy, and dense upon the head, 

 sparse and slender upon the chin, independently of the cus- 

 tom of extirpating it, but although the hair is certainly oval 



