Southern States have permitted the study of many of these living tribes, and they exhibit this conformation almost without exception. I have also scrutinized many Mexicans, besides Catawbas of South Carolina, and tribes on the Canada Lakes, and can bear witness that the living tribes everywhere confirm Morton's type."

In selecting a skull, which seemed to Dr. Morton in all respects to fulfil the theoretical requirements of his typical cranium, we are guided, under his directions, to that ancient people who, in centuries long prior to the advent of Europeans, originated some remarkable traits of a native civilisation in the valleys of the eastern tributaries of the Mississippi. It will, therefore, coincide with his choice of an example of the true American head, if, starting from that ancient race, we pursue our comparisons downward to the nations and tribes familiar to Europeans by direct intercourse and personal

observation.

The ingenious and learned author of Iconographic Researches on Human Races and their Art, deduces, as we have already seen, from one of the portrait pipesculptures of the ancient Mounds, or rather from the engraving of it furnished in the first volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, the comprehensive conclusions; that the Mound-Builders were American Indians in type, and were probably acquainted with no other men but themselves; to which he adds, "in every way confirming the views of the author of Crania Americana." Mr. Schoolcraft goes still further; and, ignoring not only the unquestionable proofs of the lapse of many centuries since the construction of the great earthworks in the Ohio Valley, but also all the evidences of geometrical skill, a definite means of determining angles, a fixed standard of measurement, and the capacity, as

1 Types of Mankind, p. 441.

well as the practice of repeating geometrically constructed earthworks of large and uniform dimensions; he thus sums up his account of the Alleghans, the oldest known. occupants of the Ohio Valley: "The tribes lived in fixed towns, cultivated extensive fields of the zea-maize, and also, as denoted by recent discoveries, of some species of beans, vines, and esculents. They were in truth the Mound-Builders."

991

Reference has been made in a previous chapter to the discovery of the "Scioto Mound cranium," the best au

thenticated and most characteristic of the crania of the Mound-Builders. It lay embedded in a compact mass of carbonaceous matter, intermingled with a few detached bones of the skeleton and some fresh-water shells. Over this had been heaped a mound of rough stones, on the top of which, incovered by the outer layer of clay, lay a large plate of mica, that favourite material of the ancient Mound-Builders. This is the skull which, according to the description of Dr. Morton, furnishes the best example of the true typical American head. It is produced as such by Dr. Nott, in the Types of Mankind,

1 History of Indian Tribes, vol. v. p. 135.

and as described in the words of Dr. Morton, in Dr. Meigs' "Catalogue of Human Crania in the Collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia," it supplies a definition of the features deemed essential to this assigned normal type. It is designated "an aboriginal American; a very remarkable head. This is, perhaps, the most admirably-formed head of the American race hitherto discovered. It possesses the national characteristics in perfection, as seen in the elevated vertex, flattened occiput, great interparietal diameter, ponderous bony structure, salient nose, large jaws and broad face.

It is the perfect type of Indian conformation, to which the skulls of all the tribes from Cape Horn to Canada more or less approximate."

Of this skull the measurements which involve the most essential typical elements, and so furnish precise materials for comparison, are:

So that, in fact, the cranium very closely corresponds in

its measurements, in length, breadth, and height. Still

further it may be noted, on examining the skull, as figured here from the full-sized view in the Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, that the singular longitudinal abbreviation of this skull is nearly all posteriorly. A line drawn through the meatus auditorius externus in profile, parallel to the elevated forehead, divides it into two unequal parts, of which the anterior and posterior parts are nearly in the ratio of three to two. If, however, we turn from the definition as recorded in relation to this particular skull, and reduce it to the general formulæ derived by its originator from the examination of numerous examples, it amounts to this: A small receding forehead, somewhat broad at the base, but with a greatly depressed frontal bone;' a flattened or nearly vertical occiput; viewed from behind, an occipital outline which curves moderately outwards, wide at the occipital protuberances, and full from these points to the opening of the ear; from the parietal protuberances a slightly curved slope to the vertex, producing a wedge-shaped outline; a great vertical diameter; and the predominant relative interparietal diameter of the brachycephalic cranium. If to these are added the large quadrangular orbits, the check-bones high and massive, the maxillary region salient and ponderous, and the nose prominent, we have, nearly in Dr. Morton's own words, the characteristic features of that American cranium which prevails among both the ancient and modern tribes of the brachycephalic type, and has been assumed by him as universal.

It is with great diffidence that I venture to challenge conclusions, adopted after mature consideration by the distinguished author of the Crania Americana. But in

1 "There is no race on the globe in which the frontal bone is so much pressed backwards, and in which the forehead is so small."—Humboldt. "All possess alike the low receding forehead."-Morton.

proceeding to apply the evidence of physical conformation as a means of comparison between the ancient and the modern races of the New World, a revision alike of the evidence and the deductions therefrom becomes indispensable. Tried by his own definitions and illustrations, the Scioto Valley skull essentially differs from the American typical cranium in some of its most characteristic features. Instead of the low, receding, unarched forehead, assigned independently by Humboldt and Morton, we have here a finely arched frontal bone, with corresponding breadth of forehead. The conical or wedge-shaped vertex is, in like manner, replaced by a well-rounded arch, curving equally throughout; and the cranium is altogether a well and uniformly proportioned example of an extreme brachycephalic skull. It has been selected, in the Types of Mankind,' for the purpose of instituting a comparison with the well-developed and characteristic head of a modern Indian, a Cherokee chief, who died, while a prisoner at Mobile, in 1837, and the two crania are there engraved side by side, with other examples: "to show through faithful copies, that the type attributed to the American races is found among tribes the most scattered; among the semi-civilized and the barbarous; among living as well as among extinct races; and that no foreign race has intruded itself into their midst, even in the smallest appreciable degree." 2 But, judging merely by the reduced profile drawings, placed in juxtaposition, without reference to precise. measurements, the points of agreement are very partial. The vertical occiput of the ancient skull rounds some

1 Types of Mankind, p. 442.

2 Dr. Nott's definition is as follows: "The most striking anatomical characters of the American crania are, small size; low, receding forehead; short antero-posterior diameter; great inter-parietal diameter; flattened occiput; prominent vertex; high check-bones; ponderous, and somewhat prominent jaws."-Types of Mankind, p. 441.