Ethnic Significance of the Human Skull. 277 
of such evidence as that adduced by Dr Tschudi from the Opas 
Indianmummy ; forassuredly no conceivable amount of change 
in the progress from infancy to maturity could convert the 
elongated head figured in Rivero and Tschudi’s Atlas into 
the brachycephalic cranium frequently pertaining to the 
ancient Peruvian adult. But while evidence derived from 
various sources tends to confirm the opinion that at least two, 
if not three, essentially distinct forms of head prevailed among 
the ancient Peruvians, the evidence produced by Dr Tschudi 
fails to prove that the examples referred to by him ought to 
be accepted as illustrations of a normal cranial type. 
In this as in so many other departments of Hthnology, the 
naturalist cannot be too frequently reminded that the most 
primitive condition of man’s savage life is an artificial one 
when compared with that of any of the lower animals. With 
man alone the osteologist finds his investigations complicated 
by altered forms produced by artificial means; and under this 
head must be included the accidental and undesigned, as well 
as the purposely superinduced changes effected on the human 
frame, and especially on the skull; while to causes thus oper- 
ating to modify or counteract the normal vital functions, have 
to be added others, illustrated by the examples produced above, 
and clearly traceable to a posthumous origin. 
_ The intra-uterine position of the Huichay Cave foetus fur- 
nishes indisputable proof that its peculiar cranial development 
is not due to art—if by this is understood the application of 
méchanical pressure with an express view to the production 
of such configuration; but this by no means exhausts the pos- 
sible sources of abnormal modification. It may be the unde- 
signed result of mechanical pressure inevitable in the process 
of desiccation, accompanied as it invariably was, in the case of 
Peruvian mummies, with the forcing of the body into a crouch- 
ing position, in which the legs were compressed upon the ab- 
domen, and the arms folded across the chest. The naturalist 
who aims at applying the deductions of physical ethnology 
to the determination of ethnic classification, cannot content 
himself with accepting such osteological evidence as presents 
itself to him, in the unquestioning spirit which may be per- 
missible in other branches of natural history. The most an- 
NEW SERIES,—VOL. XIV. NO. 11.—ocT. 1861. 2N 
