P h i l a d e l p h i a , Feb. 10th, 1857.
D r . N ott a n d M r . G-l id do n ,
Dear Sirs:—You have frequently expressed the, desire that I should
give to you a-Chapter on some ethnographic subject, which I would
gladly have done had I made Ethnography an especial study. After
the death of D r . M o r t o n , it was proposed to me to take , up the investigation
of the cranial characteristics of the human races, where, he
had left it, which-1 omitted, not from a want of interest in ethnographic
science, hut because other studies occupied my time. Having,
as curator of the Academy of Natural Sciences the charge of Dr. Morton’s
extensive cabinet of human crania, I confided the undertaking
to D r . M e ig s , who has shown his capability for investigating the,intricate
subject :of Ethnography in the excellent Chapter he presents
as a contribution to your work, To the paper of Dr. Meigs.it wa,s
proposed that I should add notes; hut after a diligent perusal it
appeared to me so complete; that I think I could not add anything
to enhance its value. ,
While engaged in palaeontological researches,, I sought for earlier
records of the aboriginal races of man than have reached us through
vague traditions or through later authentic history, hut without being
able to discover any positive evidences of the exact geological period
of the advent of man in the fauna of the earth.
The numerous facts which have been brought to our notice touching
the discovery of human hones, and rude implements of art, in
association with the remains of animals of the earlier pliocene
deposits, are, not conclusive evidence of their contemporaneous
existence, — ; , ■
It is not from the land of their birth, and upon which they moved
and died, that we learn the history of lost races of terrestrial animals ;
it is in the beds of lakes and inland seas, and in the deltas of rivers.,
at the boundaries of their habitation. In reflecting upon the present
condition of the habitable earth, with its teeming population and the
rapid succession of births and deaths, we might be led to suppose
the surface of the earth had become thickly strewn with the remains
of animals. It is, however, no less true than astonishing, that, with
comparatively trifling exceptions, the remains of each generation of
animals are completely obliterated. Penetrate the forests, traverse
the prairies, and explore the mountain chains and valleys of America,
and seek for the bones of the generations of red-men, of the herds of
bison, and of other animals, which have lived and died in past ages:
Neither upon nor beneath the surface of the earth are they to be
found; for devouring successors, and the combined influence of air
and moisture, have completely extinguished their traces. An occasional
swollen carcase, borne by a river current, and escaping the
jaws of crocodiles and fishes, leaves its remains in the bed of a lake,
or in a delta, to represent in future time the era of its existence.
Since the Glacial Period, or rather since the subsequent emergence
of the northern zones of America and Europe from the Great Arctic
Ocean, the general configuration of the continents has remained
nearly unchanged down to the present time. In consequence of
this circumstance the deposits or geological formations in which we
could most advantageously study the earliest traces of primitive
man, are, in the greatest degree, inaccessible to our investigations.
These deposits are the beds of modern lakes and inland seas, and
fluviatile accumulations or deltas. Marshes, in many instances,
have served as the depository of the larger quadrupeds, which have
perished in the mire; but these are places in which the remains of
man would he rarely found, because they are naturally avoided.
Coeval, perhaps, with the Glacial Period of the northern hemisphere,
which at the present time exhibits its similitude in the
Great Antarctic Ocean, primitive raees of man may have already
inhabited the intertropical regions; and in the gradual emergence
of the northern zones of the earth he may have followed the receding
watersg— traditions of which, in after ages, when conjoined with the
view of the accumulations of drift material, may have given rise to
the idea of a universal deluge, which appears to have prevailed
among the aborigines of the western as well as of the eastern world.
No satisfactory evidence has been adduced in favor of this early
appearance of man ; but I am strongly inclined to suspect that such
evidence will yet he discovered.
Many animals, which we may infer to have existed in association
with the Mastodon and Megalonyx, have so thoroughly disappeared
from the face of nature that no trace o f them is to be discovered.
Near Natchez, Mississippi, there have been found' together in the
same deposit, the remains of the Elephant, Mastodon, Mylodon,
Megalonyx, Ereptodon, Bison, Cervus, Equus, Hrsus, Canis, the
lower jaw of a lion, and the hip bone of a man. All the hones are
infiltrated with peroxide of iron, and present the same appearance.
The lower jaw of the lion, the type of the Felis atrox, is the only
relic of the species yet discovered, though the animal most probably
at one period ranged America as freely and for as long a time as its
present congener of Africa and Asia. The human hip-bone alluded
to, has been supposed by Sir Charles Lyell to have been subsequently