3 
man, either existing or extinct." {Narrative of a Voyage to 3Iadeira^ Teneriffe^ 
and along the shores of the Mediterranean. By R. W. Wilde, Dublin, 1840, vol. 2.) 
Craniography is in truth destined to constitute one, perhaps the most import- 
ant of the corner stones upon which the great edifice of the Natural History of 
Man is to be hereafter erected. To become a sure and solid foundation it must 
be composed of numerous and well-established facts upon which the student 
may unhesitatingly build up, until he can overlook and successfully grapple 
with the higher problems of the science. Like its elder sisters Astronomy, Ge- 
ology and Palaeontology in former times. Ethnology is at present passing through 
what Comte calls the metaphysical or speculative phase of its career. Obscure 
writers and lecturers, impatient of that careful and laborious research which 
leads to correct results, and unacquainted even with what has already been 
done by Blumenbach, Retzius, Morton, Buschke, Davis, Virchow and others, 
are daily bringing disrepute upon the whole study, by unwisely discussing 
questions for the solution of which the data have not yet been developed. That 
these controversialists of an hour may be silenced, and the science positively 
advanced, every effort should be made to multiply and classify facts. But the 
multiplication and classification of facts must in great measure keep pace with 
and be dependent upon the establishment of cranial collections, which consti- 
tute, so to speak, the store-houses of the raw material ready to be elaborated 
into a science. 
These collections and the important studies which they facilitate, are daily 
attracting more and more the attention of scientific men both in Europe and 
America ; and the conviction is constantly gathering strength, that the zealous 
cultivation of Craniography is capable of yielding facts of the highest importance, 
not only in a purely scientific, but also in a political point of view. 
In the " summer of 1830, Dr. S. G. Morton delivered a lecture, introductory 
to a course of anatomy, on the 'different forms of the skull, as exhibited in the 
five races of men.' Strange to say, he could neither buy nor borrow a cranium 
of each of these races ; and he finished his discourse without showing either the 
Mongolian or Malay. Forcibly impressed with this great deficiency in a most 
important branch of science, he at once resolved to make a collection for him- 
self; and after a lapse of sixteen years, deposited in the Academy of Natural 
Sciences of Philadelphia a series embracing upwards of TOO human crania, and 
an equal number of inferior animals." This collection, now in the possession 
of the Academy, contains at the present time about 1100 crania, representing 
more than 170 different races and tribes of the human family. 
The establishment of this large and varied collection, and the important in- 
vestigations to which it has given rise, have served to stimulate sensibly the 
advance of Craniography in Europe. Some years ago, " the Emperor of Russia 
was induced to found at St. Petersburgh a national museum, exclusively dedi- 
cated to craniolgy, to contain the skulls of all the ancient and modern races of 
his vast dominions," (See Squiers' American Ethnology^ p. 3). All over Europe, 
Craniography is now being cultivated with considerable activity, and with 
highly valuable results, by such men as Retzius, Nilsson and Eschricht of Scan- 
dinavia, Gosse of Geneva, Dumoutier, Blanchard and Serres of France ; Engel, 
Zeune, Carus, Virchow, Buschke, Lucae, Fitzinger and others of Germany ; and 
by Davis, Thurnam, Williamson, Minchin and others in Great Britain. 
Many cranial collections are to be found in Europe and America, differing in 
the number and ethnic variety of their specimens. Precise information, how- 
ever, as to their location, extent, variety and proprietorship is not easily obtain- 
ed. From the writings of the craniographers above mentioned, and from my 
correspondents — especially Dr. J. Barnard Davis, of Shelton, England— I have 
become acquainted with a few of these collections. The largest and most di- 
versified, as far as I know, is that contained in the Museum of the Army Medi- 
cal Department, at Fort Pitt, Chatham, England. Of the existence of this col- 
lection I was not aware, until a descriptive catalogue of it appeared in the 
Dublin Quarte/rly Journal of Medical Science^ for May and August, 1857. Through 
