In another place, B orrow tells us that in the heart of Spain, he
came across two villages—Villa Sepa and Vargas — the respective
inhabitants of which entertained for each other a deeply-rooted hostility—
rarely speaking when they met, and never intermarrying.
The people of Vargas — according to tradition, “ Old Christians,”—
are light and fair; those of Villa Seca—of Moorish origin—are particularly
dark complexioned.101 Many examples similar to this can
be pointed out, where a mountain ridge, a valley, or a narrow stream
forms the only dividing line between races who differ from each other
in language, religion, customs, physical and mental qualities, &e.
This is particularly seen, according to H amilton S m ith , in the Neel-
gherries, the Crimea, the Carpathians, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the
Atlas, and even in the group of Northern South America.102
“ The Vincentine district,”, says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, “ is, as every one
knows, and has been for ages, an integral part of the Venetian dominions, professing the
same religion, and governed by the same laws, as the other continental provinces of Venice;
yet the English character is not more different from the French, than that of the Vincentine
from the Paduan; while the contrast between the Vincentine and his other neighbor, the
Veronese, is hardly less remarkable.” 103
In a letter, dated United States Steamer John Hancock, Puget
Sound, July 1st, 1856, and recently received from my friend and
former school-mate, Dr. T . J. T u r n e r , U . S. N . , I find the following
paragraph, which bears upon the subject under, consideration: “ On
each side of the Straits of Juan de Fuca live very different tribes,
and although the Straits are, on an average, about sixty miles wide,
yet they are crossed and re-crossed again and again by canoes, and
no admixtures of the varieties (races ?.) has taken place.”
Among other instances of the persistence of human cranial forms,
Dr. N ott figures, in Types of Mankind, two heads — an ancient
Asiatic (probably a mountaineer of the Taurus chain), and a modem
Kurd — which strongly resemble each other, though Separated perhaps
by centuries of time. A still better example of this permanence
of type, and one which involves several peculiar and novel
reflections as to the relation of the Scythse to the modern Suomi or
Finns, and through these latter to the Caucasian, or Indo-Germanie
forms in general, is found in the fact that the skull of a Tchude,
taken from one of the very ancient burial-places which are found
near the workings of old mines in the mountainous parts of Siberia,”
and figured by Blumenbach, is exactly represented in Morton’s collection
by several modem Finnic heads.
1 Op. cit., cbap. XLIII. 2 Op. cit., p. 174. 103 No. 84, p. 459.
“ Plerasque nationes peculiare quid in capitis forma sibi vindicare constat.”—
Vesalius, De Corpor. Human. Fab.
“ 0 f aU the peculiarities in the form of the bony fabric, those of the skull
are t]ie most striking and distinguishing. It is in the head that we find the
varieties most strongly characteristic of different races.”
Prichard, Researches, I. 276.
On e of the most difficult problems in the whole range of cranio-
scopy, is a systematic and accurate classification of cranial forms.
The fewer the groups attempted to be made, the greater the difficulty
; -since the gradation from one group to another is so insensible,
as already intimated, that it is exceedingly perplexing to draw sharp
and exact lines of demarcation between them. A moment’s reflection
will show that a comprehensive group must necessarily embrace many
skulls which, though possessing in common certain features by which
they ure distinguished from those of other groups, will differ from
each other, nevertheless, in as many minor but none the less peculiar
characters. The difficulty is increased by the utter impossibility
of pronouncing positively whether the varieties thus observed are
coeval in point of time, as the “ original diversity” doctrine maintains;
whether they are simply so many “ developments” the one
from the other, as the advocates of the Damarkian system aver; or,
finally, whether,;as the supporters of the “ unity” dogma contend,'
they are all simple modifications of one primary type or specific
form. Again, as each group or family of man consists of a number
of races, and these, in turn, are made up of varieties and sub-varieties,
m some instances almost innumerable, it will be evident that a true
classification can only result from the careful study of a collection of
crania so vast as to contain not only many individual representations
of these races, varieties, &c., but also specimens illustrative of both
the naturally divergent and hybrid forms. And here another obstacle
presents itself. As a type is the ideal embodiment of a series of allied
objects, and as the perfection of this type depends upon the number
of the objects upon which it is based, the very necessity of a large
number renders it no easy matter to determine what is typical and
what is not; or, in other words, what are the respective values of the
different characters presented by a skull.
It has not yet been determined how far the physical identity of the
individuals composing a nation is a proof of purity of race and the
homogeneity of the nation. Neither is the law demonstrated, in
obedience to which individual dissimilarities are produced by intei