276 - Professor Daniel Wilson on the 
of Don Mariano Edward de Rivero, in the National Museum 
at Lima. The heads exhibit a flattened, receding forehead, 
and a remarkable posterior elongation; and these character- 
istics are no less markedly noticeable in another example, 
from the same Lima collection, figured by Dr Tschudi in his 
** Antiguedades Peruanas,”’ of a mummied child of the Opas 
Indians. Its form, as shown both in profile and vertical view, 
is only comparable to the most depressed skulls of the Chinouk 
Indians; while in the vertical or front view, it is seen to be 
exceedingly unsymmetrical. The right side is considerably 
in excess of the left, as is frequently the case in the elongated 
skulls of the Flatheads of Oregon and British Columbia; and 
to those familiar with the irregular development of artificially 
compressed heads, the idea of mechanical pressure is at once 
suggested as the cause of some of the peculiar cranial charac- 
teristics of this Lima mummy. 
There is conclusive evidence, I conceive, to prove that there 
were essentially distinct dolichocephalic and brachycephalic 
tribes amongthe ancient Peruvians; and that a markedly elon- 
gated head was common, apart from any artificial anterior de- 
pression and abnormal elongation to which it was frequently 
subjected. This question has been discussed, with varying re- 
sults, in more than one of Dr Morton’s papers, though latterly 
he appears to have rejected the idea of two or more distinct 
cranial types, in favour of his theoretical unity of the Ameri- 
can race. J have been confirmed in the belief in the exist- 
ence of such essentially diverse South American cranial types 
after examining numerous Peruvian crania, including those 
of the Morton Collection, along with later additions, in the 
cabinet of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia ; 
and especially from recent careful study of a collection of. 
Peruvian mummies and skulls, including both normal and 
compressed dolichocephalic crania, brought from ancient ceme- 
teries of South America, by Mr John H. Blake, and now pre- 
served in his collection at Boston, along with other interesting 
illustrations of the ancient arts and customs of the Peruvians. 
This primary distinction in the forms of Peruvian crania, 
apart from the changes wrought on them by artificial means, — 
must be borne in remembrance while estimating the bearings 
