60 Professor D. Wilson’s Illustrations of the Significance 
Memoir of Dr Morton. During a visit of Mr Gliddon to 
Paris in 1856, he presented a copy of the “ Crania Algyp- 
tiaca” to the celebrated oriental scholar M. Fresnel, and 
excited his interest in the labours of its author. Upwards 
of a year after he received at Philadelphia a box containing 
a skull, forwarded from Naples, but without any information 
relative to it. ‘It was handed over to Morton,” says Dr 
Paterson, ‘who at once perceived its dissimilarity to any 
in his possession. It was evidently very old, the animal 
matter having almost entirely disappeared. Day after day 
would Morton be found absorbed in its contemplation. At 
last he announced his conclusion. He had never seen a 
Pheenician skull, and he had no idea where this one came 
from, but it was what he conceived a Phoenician skull 
should be, and it could be no other.”* Six months after- 
wards, Mr Gliddon received, along with other letters and 
papers forwarded to him from Naples, a slip of paper, in 
the handwriting of M. Fresnel, containing the history of 
the skull, which had been discovered by him during his 
exploration of an ancient rock-tomb at Malta. Dr Meigs 
refers to this in his catalogue of the collection, No. 1352, 
as an illustration of ‘the wonderful power of discrimina- 
tion, the tactus visus acquired by Dr Morton in his long and 
critical study of craniology.” Such was my own impression 
on first reading it; but I confess the longer I reflect on it, 
the more am I puzzled to guess by what classical or other 
data, or process short of absolute intuition, the ideal type 
of the Phoenician head could be determined. TI suspect, 
therefore, if we had the statement in Dr Morton’s own 
words, it would fall short of such an absolute craniological 
induction. The following is the sole entry made by him in 
his catalogue: ‘Ancient Phoenician? I received this highly 
interesting relic from M. F. Fresnel, the distinguished 
French archeologist and traveller, with the following me- 
morandum, A.D. 1847:—Crane provenant des caves sépul- 
chrales de Ben-Djemma, dans Vile de Malte. Ce crane 
parait avoir appartenu 4 un individu de la race qui, dans les 
temps les plus anciens, occupait la cété septentrionale de 
l’Afrique, et les iles adjacentes.” The skull is not im- 
* Memoir of Dr 8. G. Morton ; Types of Mankind, pl. xl. 
