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Show 'I I 248 TIIE CRANIAL CHARACTERISTICS In another place, BoRROW tells us that in the heart of pain, be came across two villages -Villa Scca and Vargas -the respcptive inhabitants of which entertained for ca h other a dccply-rootcJ. hostility- rarely speaking when they met, and never intcrmarl'ying. The people of Vargas-according to tradition," Old hristians,"arc light and fair; those of Villa Scca-of Moorish origin-arc particularly dark compl xioncd.101 Many examples similar to this can be point d out, where a mountain ridge, a valley, or a narrow str am forms the only dividing line between races who difl' r fl'om ea •h other in language, religion, customs, physical and mental qualiLi s, &c. This is particularly seen, according to HAMILTON MITII, in th N clgh n·ics, the Crimea, the Carpathians, the Pyrone s, the Alps, the Atlas, and even in the group of Northern South America.102 "'l'hc Vincontino district," ~o.ys 11. writer in tho Edinburgh Review, "is, as every one knows, n.nrl hns been fot· n.ges, n.n intogrn.l pnrt of tho Vonotio.n domillions, profcsRing tho snmo religion, and governed by tho sn.mo laws, o.s tho othor continontnl pt·ovinooH of Venice; yot tho English chn.mctor is not more different from tho .Fronoh, than tho.t of the Vincenti no from tho P11dt1nn; whilo tbc contrast botweon the Vincentino and his other noigbbot·, the Voronose, is hardly less romt\rkablo."I08 In a letter, dated United States Steamer John llancock, Puget Sound, July 1st, 1856, and recently received fl'om my fri nd and former school-mate, Dr. T. J. TuRNER, U.S.N., I find tho followin<>" paragraph, which bean; upon tho subject under consideration: "0~ each side of the traits of Juan de Fuca live very different tribes and althouo·h the Straits arc, on an average, about sixty miles wide: yet they are crossed and re-crossed again and again by canoes auJ no admixtures of the varieties (races ?) has taken place." ' Am.ong other in~tanccs of tho persistence of human cranial forms Dr. N O'.r'r figures, in Types of Manlcind, two heads- an ancien~ Asiatic (pr~bahly a mountaineer of tho Taurus chain), and a modern Kurd-wlnch _strongl~ resemble ~ach other, though separated perhaps by ccntuncs of time .. A _still better example of this pormancn c of type, and one wh1ch mvolves several peculiar and novel reflections as to tho relation of tho Scythro to the modern Suomi or Finns, and through these latter to the Caucasian, or Indo-Germanic forms in geuoral, is found in tho fact that the skull of a Tchud, "taken from one of tho very ancient burial-pia es which arc found nca1· the workings of old mines in the mountainous parts of iberia " and figured by Blumcnbach, is exactly represented in Morton's c;llcction by several modern Finnic heads. 101 Op. cit., chap. XLIII. 103 Op. cit., p. 174. 108 No. 84, p. 450. OF TilE RACES OF MEN. 240 "Plornsquo nationos poculio.ro quid in oo.pitis formo. sibi vindico.re consto. t."- Vt:sums, De Corpor. IIuman. Fab. "Of o.ll the pcculirtrilics in tho fot·m of tho bony fo.brio, those of tho skull arc tho most iltrikiug ond distinguishing. It is in Lho head that wo find tho varieties most strongly ciHtrnctcristio of different races." PltiOJJARO, Researclle&, I. 275. ONE of the moF!t di:ffi.cnlt problems in the whole range of cranioscopy, is a sy. tcmatic and accurate classification of cranial formF~. The few r the groups attempted to be mad , tho greater the difliculty; since tho gradation j't·om one group to another is so inscnsihle, as already intimat d, tl1at it is exec dingly porplcxinO' to draw sharp and exact Jines of demarcation between them. A moment's roflcetion will sl10w that a compr ·Lcnsivc group must necessarily embrace many sl ~ ulls whicl1, though poss s8in0' in common certain features by whiclr they arc ~istirwnisbcd fr m tboso of other groups, will diftcr from each other, nevertheless, in as many minor but none the less peculiar characte rs. The difficulty is incrca cd by tho utter impossibility of I ronouncing positively wh thor tho vari tics thus observed aro · coeval in point of time, as the "original diversity" doctrine maintains; whctlr r they arc simply so many "developments" tho one from the other, as th advocates of tho J.Jamarkian system aver; or, finally, whether, as tho supporters of tho "unity" dogma contend, they arc all simple modifications of one primary type or sp ci:fic form. Again, as each group or family of man consists of a number of races, and those, in turn, arc made up of varieties and su b-vari tioF~, in some instances almost innumerable, it wlll be evident that a trnc classification can only result from tho careful study of a co1Jection of crania so va t as to coutai n not only many individual representations of these races, varieties, &c., but also specimens illustrative of boih tho naturally divergent and hybrid forms. And here another obstacle presents it elf: As a type is the ideal embodiment of a series of alli(•<l objects, and as tho perfection of Ll1is type depends upon the numbN' of the objects upon which it is based, the very necessity of a largo number renders it no easy matter to determine what is typical and what is not; or, in oth r words, wl1at arc tho respective values of tho different characters pr scnted by a skull. It has not yet boon determined how far the physical identity of the individuals comp sing a nation is a proof of purity of race and tho homoO'Cn ity of tho nation. Neither is the Jaw demonstrated, in obedience to which individual dissimilarities arc produced by intc1·- |