cheer; and what he failed to waste in the former, he consumed in the gratification of his gluttony, rich meats and the early delicacies of the season he must needs have. He spent from eight to ten francs on his breakfast or dinner. He was a passionate lover of coffee, of which he took five or six cups a day. Forgery and robbery purveyed for his appetites, his fancies, and his passion for play. At times he would return to labour; but towards the close of his criminal career, he had devoted himself, body and soul, to theft and murder. Before he had wholly broken with society, that is, while he was still an occasional worker in the offices of the public writers, he was in request for the neatness of his hand-writing and his rapidity. Sometimes, tempted by large pay, he would undertake the copying of a considerable piece of writing, and not quit it for four-and-twenty, or even eight-and-forty hours, excepting for his meals; and then, having finished his job, he would throw away at play, or devour in a breakfast, the fruit of his tedious labour. Lacenaire was not a clerk in the proper sense of the word; to regular occupation he had a repugnance. He assumed the pen only at intervals, and in moments of distress, necessarily frequent with men of his character."

III. NOTICES OF BOOKS.

to

1. Crania Americana; or a Comparative View of the Skulls of Various Aboriginal Nations of North and South America: which is prefixed an Essay on the Varieties of the Human Species. Illustrated by Seventy-eight Plates and a coloured Map. By SAMUEL MORTON, M.D. Professor of Anatomy in Pennsylvania College, Philadelphia, &c. &c. - Philadelphia: Dobson. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.

THE beautiful lithographic drawings by which this publication is so copiously illustrated, render it worthy of a place by the side of the large works of Gall and of Vimont; although it is to be regarded rather in the light of an anatomical, than in that of a phrenological work. An Appendix on Phrenology, contributed by Mr. Combe, and "phrenological measurements" of a large number of crania, taken by Mr. Phillips, are, however, introduced into the volume; though Dr. Morton scarcely alludes to phrenology in his own descriptions of the crania, any more than in his " Essay on the Varieties of the Human Species," and gives only a qualified assent to "the

details of cranioscopy as taught by Dr. Gall, and supported and extended by subsequent observers." The Appendix by Mr. Combe bears little or no direct relation to the contents of Dr. Morton's work; being in truth merely a slight introductory sketch of phrenology that might have been published by itself, or have been introduced into any other volume on the forms of skulls. Indeed, Dr. Morton informs his readers, in the preface, that Mr. Combe "provided this memoir without having seen a word of my manuscript, or even knowing what I had written." It has consequently very little more relation to the contents of Dr. Morton's volume, than have the Outlines of Phrenology by the same author. Many of the phrenological bearings of the volume have been already mentioned in the third article of our present No., but the subject is far from being exhausted in those incidental notices, and we shall here introduce a few additional remarks.

The nature of the work is explained in its title-page, as copied above. It commences with an able historical and geographical sketch of the human races, extending to nearly a hundred pages, and describable as a large accumulation of highly interesting and valuable facts, brought together from a great variety of sources, well arranged, and all bearing on the physical and mental qualities of the different varieties or races of mankind: a sketch, in short, exceedingly creditable to the author's intelligence and research. A hundred and sixty pages more are occupied with descriptions of individual skulls of many of the native tribes or nations of America, interspersed with historical notices; and these descriptions are accompanied by figures in outline, drawn to a scale of one-fourth of the natural size, in their diameters, and also by tables of measurement, showing the internal capacity, diameter, and circumference of each skull. The tabular series of phrenological measurements, by Mr. Phillips, and the phrenological appendix, by Mr. Combe, complete the letter-press, the rest of the volume being occupied by the excellent lithographic plates, in which, with very few exceptions, the crania are drawn the full natural size.

A large number of these crania are figured and described solely as illustrations of the forms and dimensions of the native American head, little or nothing being known concerning the characters of the individuals whilst living; and since the plates alone, unassisted by estimates of phrenological development, will convey only imperfect ideas of the relative proportions of organs, we are not to look in this volume for much information specially applicable to phrenological science in its details, that is, respecting the connexion betwixt particular portions of

brain and special powers of mind. The general conclusions to be drawn from the facts exhibited by Dr. Morton, however, are quite clear, namely, that the native American head is considerably inferior to the European head, in the proportions of its parts; and also that, speaking in general terms, these proportions are such as a phrenologist would expect to find in tribes or nations endowed with the mental characteristics attributed to those of America. In this, the volume is certainly a valuable addition to the evidence already accumulated by phrenologists, in order to prove the close connexion betwixt form of head and character of mind; and it is an addition made, let it be well noted, by one who expressly says, that he has been "slow to acknowledge the details of cranioscopy as taught by Dr. Gall."

Amongst other skulls figured, are some of those strangelyshaped crania found in the sepulchres of the ancient Peruvians, remarkable for their voluminous dimensions behind the opening of the ear, comparatively with their contracted size in front. Some allusion was made to the skulls of this extinct race, in our ninth volume, page 123., and it must be allowed that they present considerable difficulty to phrenologists, being just such heads as we should not have expected to find in a race believed to have made considerable progress in civilisation. Of these people Dr. Morton writes, "Our knowledge of their physical appearance is derived solely from their tombs. In stature they appear not to have been in any respect remarkable, nor to have differed from the cognate nations except in the conformation of the head, which is small, greatly elongated, narrow its whole length, with a very retreating forehead, and possessing more symmetry than is usual in skulls of the American race. The face projects, the upper jaw is thrust forward, and the teeth are inclined outward. The orbits of the eyes are large and rounded, the nasal bones salient, the zygomatic arches expanded; and there is a remarkable simplicity in the sutures that connect the bones of the cranium." (Page 97.)

The author then gives various reasons for believing that some of these small-fronted, large-backed, low and narrow skulls retained their natural form, not having been altered by artificial methods; though in other examples, he allows that pressure has been applied in exaggerating a natural peculiarity. "I am free to admit," he writes, "that the naturally

*

* By a letter from Dr. Morton, printed in the American Journal of Science and Arts, for April last, p. 37., it appears that he has subsequently been led to believe these skulls much more changed by pressure than is allowed in the text above quoted.

elongated heads of these people were often rendered more so by the intervention of art; but such examples are for the most part readily detected. It is a feature both of civilised and savage communities to admire their own national characteristics above all others, and hence where nature has denied an imaginary grace, art is called in to supply the deficiency; and even where there has been no such deficiency, human vanity prompts to extravagance. Thus I have seen some skulls of this race which must have been naturally very low and long; yet in order to exaggerate a feature that was considered beautiful, compression has been applied until the whole head has assumed more the character of the monkey than the man. An example of this kind will be seen in the fifth plate, wherein the evidence of artificial flattening of the forehead is undeniable but the congenital lowness of this region and great length of the head, have made very little compression necessary to effect the desired object; whence there has resulted but a trifling expansion of the posterior and lateral parts of the skull. On the other hand, had this cranium been of the rounded form common to the American Indians, and especially to the existing Peruvians, it is difficult to imagine by what complex contrivances the present shape could have been produced." (Page 98.)

Dr. Morton next observes, "It would be natural to suppose, that a people with heads so small and badly formed would occupy the lowest place in the scale of human intelligence. Such, however, was not the case; and it remains to show, that civilisation existed in Peru anterior to the advent of the Incas, and that those anciently civilised people constituted the identical nation whose extraordinary skulls are the subject of our present enquiry." (Page 99.)

The evidences of civilisation are found in architectural remains more ancient than the times of the Incas; containing wrought blocks of enormous size, apparently transported from distant quarries; and the researches of Mr Pentland go far to connect these architectural remains with the people bearing such remarkable heads. Dr. Morton quotes from the Report of the Fourth Meeting of the British Association, and we repeat his quotation, though the substance of it was given in our ninth volume, before referred to. Mr. Pentland states that in the vicinity of Titicaca, in Upper Peru, he "discovered innumerable tombs, hundreds of which he entered and examined. These monuments are of a grand species of design and architecture, resembling Cyclopean remains, and not unworthy of the arts of ancient Greece or Rome. They therefore betokened a high condition of civilisation; but the most extraordinary

fact belonging to them is their invariably containing the mortal remains of a race of men, of all ages, from the earliest infancy to maturity and old age, the formation of whose crania seems to prove that they are an extinct race of natives who inhabited Upper Peru above a thousand years ago, and differing from any mortals now inhabiting our globe. The site is between the fourteenth and nineteenth degrees of south latitude, and the skulls found (of which specimens are both in London and Paris) are remarkable for their extreme extent behind the occipital foramen; for two-thirds of the weight of the cerebral mass must have been deposited in this wonderfully elongated posterior chamber: and as the bones of the face were also much elongated, the general appearance must have been rather that of some of the ape family than of human beings. In the tombs, as in those of Egypt, parcels of grain were left beside the dead; and it was another singular circumstance that the maize, or Indian corn, so left, was different from any that now existed in the country." (Page 101.)

"The preceding facts," adds Dr. Morton, "appear to establish two important propositions; first, that the primitive Peruvians had attained to a considerable degree of civilisation and refinement, so far at least as architecture and sculpture may be adduced in evidence, long before the Incas appeared in their country; and secondly, that these primitive Peruvians were the same people whose elongated and seemingly brutalised crania now arrest our attention; and it remains to inquire, whether these are the same people whom the Incas found in possession of Peru, or whether their nation and power were already extinct at that epoch ?" (Page 102.)

The presumption appears so strongly in favour of the view which identifies the people that left the architectural remains in question, with the race to which these skulls belonged, that we can scarcely entertain a doubt of the fact; though it may be just possible that the race with the mis-shapen skulls were the successors of the architects, because it is alleged that the Incas destroyed the inhabitants found in that part of Peru on their invasion, to such a degree that they had to re-colonise the depopulated tracts by people brought from other provinces. Another view may also be suggested as a conjecture, namely, did the fashion for deformed heads come into vogue amongst the ancient Peruvians after these buildings had been erected, and, by inducing them to injure their own brains, thus become instrumental in bringing on the extinction of the race?

Were we to infer the mental character of the nation exhibiting crania of this unusual form, by rules founded on the configuration of crania in the existing civilised and savage tribes,