A.
Our author has taken the facts of Dr. Morton at second hand, and, moreover, had not before him Dr. Morton's later tables and more matured deductions; I shall therefore give an abstract of his results as published by himself in 1849, with some comments of my own. The figures represent the internal capacity of the skull in cubic inches, and were obtained by filling the cavity with shot and afterwards pouring them into an accurately graduated measure.
It must be admitted that the collection of Morton is not sufficiently full in all its departments to enable us to arrive at the absolute capacity of crania in the different races; but it is sufficiently complete to establish beyond cavil, the fact that the crania of the white are much larger than those of the dark races. His table is very incomplete in Mongol, Malays, and some others; but in the white races of Europe, the black races, and the American, the results are substantially correct. I have myself had ample opportunities for examining the heads of living negroes and Indians of America, as well as a considerable number of crania, and can fully indorse Dr. Morton's results. It will be seen that his skulls of American aborigines amount to 338.
| RACES AND FAMILIES. | No. of skulls. | Largest internal capacity. | Smallest internal capacity. | Mean. | Mean. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MODERN CAUCASIAN GROUP. | ||||||||
| Teutonic Family— | Germans | 18 | 114 | 70 | 90 | } | 92 | |
| English | 5 | 105 | 91 | 96 | ||||
| Anglo-Americans | 7 | 97 | 82 | 90 | ||||
| Pelasgic Family— | Persians | } | 10 | 94 | 75 | 84 | ||
| Armenians | ||||||||
| Circassians | ||||||||
| Celtic Family— | Native Irish | 6 | 97 | 78 | 87 | |||
| Indostanic Family— | Bengalees, &c. | 32 | 91 | 67 | 80 | |||
| Shemitic Family— | Arabs | 3 | 98 | 84 | 89 | |||
| Nilotic Family— | Fellahs | 17 | 96 | 66 | 80 | |||
| ANCIENT CAUCASIAN GROUP. | ||||||||
| Pelasgic Family— | Greco-Egyptians (from Catacombs) | 18 | 97 | 74 | 88 | |||
| Nilotic Family— | Egyptians (from Catacombs) | 55 | 96 | 68 | 80 | |||
| MONGOLIAN GROUP. | ||||||||
| Chinese Family | 6 | 91 | 70 | 82 | ||||
| MALAY GROUP. | ||||||||
| Malayan Family | 20 | 97 | 68 | 86 | } | 85 | ||
| Polynesian Family | 8 | 84 | 82 | 83 | ||||
| AMERICAN GROUP. | ||||||||
| Toltecan Family— | Peruvians | 155 | 101 | 58 | 75 | } | 79 | |
| Mexicans | 22 | 92 | 67 | 79 | ||||
| Barbarous Tribes— | Iroquois | } | 161 | 104 | 70 | 84 | ||
| Lenapè | ||||||||
| Cherokee | ||||||||
| Shoshonè, &c. | ||||||||
| NEGRO GROUP. | ||||||||
| Native African Family | 62 | 99 | 65 | 83 | } | 83 | ||
| American-born Negroes | 12 | 89 | 73 | 82 | ||||
| Hottentot Family | 3 | 83 | 68 | 75 | ||||
| Alforean Family— | Australians | 8 | 83 | 63 | 75 | |||
Dr. Morton's mind, it will be seen by this table, had not yet freed itself from the incubus of artificial and unnatural classifications. Like Tiedemann and others, he has grouped together races which have not the slightest affinity in physical, moral, or linguistic characters. In the Caucasian group, for example, are placed the Teutonic, Indostanic, Shemitic, and Nilotic families, each of which, it can be shown, has existed utterly distinct for 5000 years, not to mention many subdivisions.
The table of Dr. Morton affords some curious results. His ancient Pelasgic heads and those of the modern white races, give the same size of brain, viz: 88 cubic inches; and his ancient Egyptians and their modern representatives, the Fellahs, yield the same mean, 80 cubic inches; the difference between the two groups being 8 cubic inches. These facts have a strong bearing on the question of permanence of types. The small-headed Hindoos present the same cranial capacity as the Egyptians, and though these races have each been the repository of early civilization, it is a question whether either was the originator of civilization. The Egyptian race, from the earliest monumental dawn, exhibits Shemitic adulteration; and Latham proves that the Sanscrit language was not indigenous to India, but was carried there from Northern Europe in early ages by conquerors.
Again, in the negro group, while it is absolutely shown that certain African races, whether born in Africa, or of the tenth descent in America, give a cranial capacity almost identical, 83 cubic inches; we see, on the contrary, the Hottentot and Australian yielding a mean of but 75 inches, thereby showing a like difference of eight cubic inches.
In the American group, also, the same parallel holds good. The Toltecan family, the most civilized race, exhibit a mean of but 77 inches, while the barbarous tribes give 84, that is, a difference of 7 inches in favor of the savage. While, however, the Toltecans have the smaller heads, they are, according to Combe, much more developed in the anterior or intellectual lobes, which may serve to explain this apparent paradox.