The desired books did not exist in any library in the United States,
and Morton had already gone as far as prudence permitted. In a
letter now before me, Gliddon writes him from New York in despair,
stating that, for his part, he could not move a step further without
access to Rosellini, (Monumenti, &c.,) of which there was not a copy
in the country. This serious difficulty was finally removed by the
munificent liberality of Richard K Haight,, Esq., of Hew York, who,
actuated solely by a generous desire to promote the interests of
science, imported and placed at the disposal of our students the
superb volumes in question.
Morton’s study now was more than ever 1 a place of skulls.” His
correspondence, having been widely extended, was at last bearing its
fruit. Contributions came dropping in from various quarters, not
always accompanied with reliable information, and requiring careful
deliberation before being assigned a place in his cabinet. Nothing short
of positive certainty, however, would induce him to place a name upon
a cranium. The ordeal of examination each had to undergo was rigid
in the extreme. Accurate and repeated measurements of every part
were carefully made. Where a case admitted of doubt, I have known
him to keep the skull in his office for weeks, and, taking it down at
every leisure moment, sit before it, and contemplate it fixedly in
every position, noting every prominence and depression, estimating
the extent and depth of every muscular or ligamentous attachment,
until he could, as it were, build up the soft parts upon their bony
substratum, and see the individual as in life. His quick artistic perception
of minute resemblances or discrepancies of form and color
gave him great facilities in these pursuits. A single glance of his rapid
eye was often enough to determine what, with others, would have
been the subject of tedious examination. The drawings for the Crania
JEgyptiaca were made by Messrs. Richard H. and Edward M. Kern,*
* Even -while I write (Dee. 1st, 1853) the news has reached us of the hrutal murder by
Utah Indians of Richard H. Kern, with Lieut. Gunnison, and others of the party engaged
in the survey of the proposed middle route for a Pacific Railroad, go young, and so full
of hope and promise! to he cut off thus, too, just as his matured intellect began to command
him position, and to realize the bright anticipations of his many friends! The relations
of Mr Gliddon and myself to this new victim of savage ferocity were so intimate
that we may be excused if we pause here to give to his memory a sigh one in which the
stibject of our memoir, were he still with us, would join in deepest sympathy. But the
sorrow we feel is one that cannot be free from bitterness, while the bones of Dick Kern
bleach unavenged upon the arid plains of Deseret. We have had too much of sentimentalism
about the Red-man. It is time that cant was stopped now. Not all the cinnamon-
colored vermin west of the Mississippi are worth one drop of that noble heart’s-blood. The
busy brain, the artist’s eye, the fine taste, the hand so ready with either pen or pencil,__
could these be restored to us again, thby would be cheaply purchased back if it cost the
extermination of every miserable Pah-Utah under heaven! He is the second member of
who were then also engaged in preparing the magnificent illustrations
of Mr. Gliddon’s hierological lectures; and these gentlemen have
informed me that not the slightest departure from literal accuracy
could escape the eye of Morton. This was true, not only of human
figures but equally of the minutest hieroglyphic details. Dr. Meigs, in
his Memoir, relates an instance of his acumen, in which, while inspecting
the segis in the hand of a female divinity, he noticed the resemblance,
to the.face of a certain queen, and at once referred it to that reign;
which, on examining the text, proved correct. The two following
anecdotes, for which I am indebted to Mr. Gliddon, resemble the well-
known instances of scientific acuteness and perspicacity that are related
of Cuvier.
In the summer of 1842, Mr. G. met in Hew York with Mr. John
L. Stephens, then recently returned from his second visit to Yucatan.
The conversation turning upon crania, Mr. S. regretted the destruction
of all he had collected, in consequence of their extreme brittleness.
One skeleton he had hoped to save, but on unpacking it, that
morning, it was found so dilapidated that he had ordered it thrown
away. Mr. G. begged to see it, and secured ll® comminuted as it
was. Its condition may be inferred from the fact that the entire
skeleton was tied up in a small India handkerchief, and carried to
Philadelphia in a hat-box. It was given to Morton, who at first deplored
it as a hopeless wreck. The next day, however, Mr. G. found
him, with a glue-pot beside him, engaged in an effort to reconstruct
the skull. A small piece of the occiput served as a basis, upon which
he put together all the posterior portion of the cranium, showing it by
characteristic marks to be that of an adult Indian female. From the
condition of another portion of the skeleton, he derived evidence of
a pathological fact of considerable moment, in view of the antiquity
of these remains. How much interest he was able to extract from
this handful of apparent rubbish will appear from the following
passages:—
% Tho purport of Ms opinion is as follows:—In the first place, the needle did not deceive
the Indian who picked it up in the grave. The bones are those of a female. Her height
did not exceed five feet, three or four inches. The teeth are perfect and not appreciably
worn, while the epiphyses, those infallible indications of the growing state, have just become
consolidated, and mark the completion of adult age. The bones of the hands and feet are
remarkably small and delicately proportioned, which observation applies also to the entire
Ms family that has met this melancholy fate. His brother, Hr. Benjamin J. Kern—a pupil
of Morton, and surgeon to the ill-fated expedition of Colonel Fremont in the winter of
1848-49 — was cruelly massacred by TJtahs in the spring of 1849, in the mountains near
Taos. So long as our government allows cases of tMs kind to remain without severe retribution,
so long, in savage logic, will impunity in crime be considered a free license to
murder at will.
I