built upon the ground of the observations made by the celebrated Dr. Morton, and it was not to be wondered at that that gentleman was taken as authority, for he possessed a scientific mind and was a very careful observer. But, without disparaging that great writer, he thought his deductions ought to be tested by farther researches. The Doctor's conclusion was that a universal type of cranium pervaded all the American family, which he divided into the two classes of Toltec and Barbarous, though he regarded the division as intellectual rather than physical. The form which he found to be general in the skulls of all these tribes was marked by much greater breadth from side to side than from the frontal to the occipital bone, differing in that respect from the European and African races; and in the American races he found that the forehead was not arched as in the others. All this had been reiterated by most subsequent American writers, and particularly by Agassiz. Here the learned Professor read several authorities to show the generally strong affirmation on the part of American writers, of the unity of race throughout the Continent, always with the same type. Now, in England he had paid a great deal of attention to the forms of heads found in the ancient tombs of the old country and in Northern Europe, and had noticed the shortness of the longitudinal section in those heads, which, when he came to this country, he wished to compare with the same characteristic which he had believed was to be found in the American crania. He had therefore procured a number of Indian heads, in the full expectation of finding this form; but was entirely disappointed in the result of his investigation. He found very few of the heads of the type described by Morton; yet so strong had been the impression on his mind that it was long before he became convinced that the variety was general. He had examined, however, in all twenty-eight heads, from the country south of the Ottawa and north of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and of these twenty-five essentially differed from the characteristics described by Morton. It was true that Morton had examined two hundred skulls, and he only twenty eight; but taking Dr. Morton's collection even as it now existed, with all the additions since made to it, there were in it only sixteen skulls of any one tribe. Therefore his twenty-eight all coming from a small section of country, afforded as good data to work from. However, Dr. Morton made an exception from his type of the Esquimaux, which he regarded as analogous to the Mongols, though he admitted that philologically

the Esquimaux did not differ from the other American tribes, so far as generalization could be made of so many different dialects. He here pointed out a drawing of the skull of a Scioto Indian, which he showed by quotations from the writers of Morton's school, was to be considered as the most perfect type of the American head. It differed from the heads of the modern European inhabitants of the country; but it seemed to him to differ as much from that of the northern Indians.-Besides, as the form of the northern Indian differed from the southern Indian, it approached that of the Esquimaux. The Seminole, again, as drawn by Morton, approximated to the Peruvian head, and differed from the accepted type. He then gave several measurements of heads, from Morton's book, to show that even these did not bear out the theory of Morton. He then mentioned a head found near Barrie, in which the peculiar characteristic noticed by Morton-the flat occiput was so remarkable, that the skull would stand better on that than on any other side; but this was so large a deviation from other heads that it was in all probability an example of formation by artificial means, which indeed he thought might probably be the cause of the peculiarities which had been looked upon as ethnological, but were really archaeological facts. He mentioned, moreover, that the pyramidal form, another great feature in the heads observed by Morton, was most strikingly developed in the Esquimaux head.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE HUMAN RACE.

A further caution to this school was administered by Prof. Anderson, who addressed the Section on this subject, with a view of showing the importance of some comprehensible classification of the varieties of the human race, in order to the correct observation of those facts upon which one school of ethnologists founded their opinion that mankind consisted of several species, or of one species planted in several centres of creation. "To illustrate the difficulties in the way of such classification, he mentioned that Viréy divided the race into two species-the white and the yellow; the black and the brown. But he found all sorts of difficulties in this classification. Take, for instance, the Arabians-the purest of the Semitic races--and he found the Arab in one place with light hair and blue eyes, while in the hot regions of the desert the Arab very nearly approached the Negro. The same changes occurred in the Hindoos and great Iranian races, as

they descended from the mountains to the hot deltas of the rivers and to the sea coast. This was also to be remarked in Africa; so that the distinction into white and yellow, black and brown, formed no really useful classification. Jacquenot spoke of three species of men; Dumoulin of eleven, of which the first was the Celto-Scyth-Arab, the meaning of which he could not divine. Colonel St. Vincent made eleven species; and Luke Bird, the editor of the Ethnologist, sixty-three; while Dr. Morton's posthumous works made twenty families, each of which the doctor plainly looked on as a distinct species. These could not all be right. Again, Agassiz considered that there were at least eight, and perhaps a thousand centres of creation, though there was but one species.; but there were many difficulties about that theory, as it would require a new miracle of creation for each supposed centre; and it was a good rule in physics not to allow new creations except where they were absolutely required. He concluded by saying that he thought the proper attitude for Ethnologists to assume was to hold all theories as provisional, keeping themselves ready to be convinced by any new facts whenever they appeared.

A lengthy exposition of the arrow-headed characters of Assyria was given by Rev. Dr. McIlvain; and a paper by Prof. Reid was read, advocating the use of English as a universal language. These papers we cannot do justice to in our remaining space, nor do they properly belong to our field.

ANCIENT MINING ON THE SHORES OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

"Professor Charles Whittlesey read a paper on the Ancient Mining Operations of Lake Superior. After describing the geography of the copper region of Lake Superior, he said that throughout the country indications appeared of mining operations carried on by an ancient people. The works of these people were mere open mines like quarries, never descending more than about thirty feet below the surface. These mines had a peculiarity which distinguished them from all others, that the metal was found in pure masses. These masses the ancient miners seemed unable to deal with, and they appeared merely to have sought for pieces of copper perhaps of 2 lbs. weight, which they hammered out cold. They seemed not to have known anything of the art of smelting, though that discovery seemed the simplest thing in the world, since they made use of fire to soften the stone, and so to separate

the ore.

When they got a large mass they used stone hammers to break off the projections. They had no means of raising the very large masses, nor had they any way of clearing out the water from the bottom. It seemed that the miners had been accustomed constantly to throw back the rubbish into the mine, so that there were now no traces on the surface. These works extended through one hundred or one hundred and fifty miles on the south side of Lake Superior. Sometimes there were cavities of thirty feet, as large as that room; in other cases they made excavations in the bluffs, which were now occupied by porcupines, bears, &c. The stone hammers employed were nothing but boulders of green stone or trap, having a groove round them, into which a wythe was twisted. Some had no such groove, and the mode of swinging them was unknown. Wooden shovels were also employed, and spear heads with a socket. There were, besides, tools like knives and chisels, all made of copper. Timber had also been found with hatchet marks on it. From these marks he judged that the people who worked these mines had a connection with the ancient Mexicans, known as Toltecs or Aztecs. It appeared from the works of Squier and Davis on the Mounds. of Ohio, that in those places there had been found tools which would have made marks like those noticed on the timber found in the Superior mining region. Again, the connection between these inhabitants of Ohio, and the miners of Lake Superior seemed to be established from this fact-that in the Lake Superior mines alone were to be found pure copper, having specks of pure silver in them. Now the tools found in Ohio were found to contain these specks of silver, and it was evident that these tools had been hammered out cold, because if they had been melted the silver specks would have disappeared. Then the Spaniards on their arrival found the Mexicans in occupation of fortifications, mounds and pyramids very much like those of Ohio. In this way it appeared to him that a connection was traced between the people of Mexico and the mirers of Lake Superior. He considered from a comparison of the trees found upon the tops of the trenches, and of the extent of the works, with the difficulties which the miners must have had in working them, that it must have been 1200 years since the mines were abandoned, and 500 more during which they were occupied. His impression was that the miners resided in a warm country, and came to work these mines in the summer time, taking their produce home in the winter."

INDIAN PAINTINGS AND ANTIQUITIES.

· Professor Wilson read some remarks on the collection of Mr. Paul Kane of Indian paintings and curiosities. He stated that Mr. Kane had had opportunities of seeing Indian customs to an extent possessed by very few, inasmuch as he had travelled for five years through the north-west territory as far as the Russian boundary. The paintings exhibited by Mr. Kane related to the half-breed tribes round the Red River; the Chippewas; the Assineboines; the Blackfeet; and the Crees. He had also portraits of the Wallah-Wallah Indians, and Flat-heads. Among these was the picture of a woman whose head was reduced alnost to a disc with the edge presented to the spectator, together with a child belonging to the same woman, going through the process of head flattening. There was also among the curiosities exhibited, a skull of a Flathead, illustrating a subject of very great importance, as bearing on the theories of Dr. Morton as to the type of the American head. There was another portrait of a distinguished Esquimaux, taken from that country where the Esquimaux and the Red Indians meet together, and seemed to blend, instead of showing that marked physical difference which Dr. Morton supposed he had discovered between the Americans and the Esquimaux. There was also a piece of carved ivory from the extreme North-Western region, which struck him as having a close conformity to Mexican sculptures. If there were really this conformity, it would have a great effect in establishing facts with respect to race and migration from north to south. Other objects consistel of pieces of slate cut into a double bas-relief, having that singular admixture of natural objects, with grotesque fancies, such as were seen in Gothic art of the fourteenth century. These objects were Babine pipes. In one of them the artist showed that the had observed the ships, &c., of the Europeans, and had reproduced these objects on his native pipe. This was interesting, as showing how slight were the grounds upon which some generalizations in archaeology were made. There were found in the Ohio mounds many pipes, deposited upon what were considered by Squier and Davis as altars, and the sculptures on these pipes were considered as establishing a certain degree of civilization among the people who built the mounds. Yet these Babine pipes proved that such objects might be produced by races still remaining in a state little removed from the lowest barbarism. He had been induced to make particular inquiries respecting