inverted cones, precisely like those now worn by the Negroes of Madagascar, as figured in Botteller's Voyage. "In the midst of the vanquished Africans, standing in his car and urging on the conflict, is Rameses himself; whose manly and beautiful countenance will not suffer by comparison with the finest Caucasian models. The annexed outline (for all the figures are represented in outline only), will enable the reader to form his own conclusions respecting this extraordinary group," which dates in the fourteenth century before the Christian era. 356 FIG. 196. The authors confidently trust, that the antiquity of Negro races, no less than the permanence of Negro types, during the (1853 +2348) 4201 years that have just elapsed since Usher's Flood, are questions now satisfactorily set at rest in the minds of lettered and scientific readers. A parable, thrown back among our notes,357 suffices to illustrate popular impressions in regard to the cuticular and osteological changes produced by climate, and in respect to the philological metamorphoses caused by transplantation, upon human races aboriginally distinct. It is not incumbent upon us to inquire, whether the delusions, generally current upon such very simple matters of fact, are to be ascribed to intellectual apathy among the taught, or to ignorance and mystifications among their teachers. At the close of Chapter VI. (supra, p. 210), in reference to the permanency of Asiatic and African types in their respective geographical gradations, we asked, "Within human record, has it not always been thus?" Every national tradition, all primitive monuments, and the whole context of ancient and modern history, answer affirmatively for each of those parts of the Old continents hitherto examined. Deviations from the historical point of view requiring no notice, at the present day, by any man of science, it would be sheer waste of time to discuss them. We lose none, therefore, in passing over at once to that continent which no students of Natural History now miscall "the New." CHAPTER IX. AMERICAN AND OTHER TYPES. -- - ABORIGINAL RACES OF AMERICA. THE Continent of America is often designated by the appellation of the New World; but the researches of modern geologists and archæologists have shown that the evidences in favour of a high antiquity, during our geological epoch, as well as for our Fauna and Flora, are, to say the least, quite as great on this as on the eastern hemisphere. Prof. Agassiz, whose authority will hardly be questioned in matters of this kind, tells us that geology finds the oldest landmarks here; and Sir Charles Lyell, from a mass of well-digested facts, and from the corroborating testimony of other good authorities, concludes that the Mississippi river has been running in its present bed for more than one hundred thousand years.358 The channel cut by the Niagara river, below the Falls, for twelve miles through solid rock, in the estimation of the same distinguished author, as well as of others, gives no less satisfactory proof of the antiquity of the present relative position of continents and oceans. 359 Dr. Bennet Dowler, of New Orleans, in an interesting essay, recently published, supplies some extraordinary facts in confirmation of the great age of the delta of the Mississippi, assumed by Lyell, Riddell, Carpenter, Forshey, and others. From an investigation of the successive growths of cypress forests around that city, the stumps of which are still found at different depths, directly overlying each other; from the great size and age of these trees, and from the remains of Indian bones and pottery found below the roots of some of these stumps, he arrives at the following conclusion: "From these data it appears that the human race existed in the delta more than 57,000 years ago; and that ten subterranean forests, and the one now growing, will show that an exuberant flora existed in Louisiana more than 100,000 years anterior to these evidences of man's existence." The delta of the Alabama river bears ample testimony to the same effect. Along the Mobile river and bay we find certain shell-fish, whose relative positions are determined at present, as they always have been, by certain physical conditions, viz.: the unio and paludina, the gnathodon, and the oyster. The first are always found above tide-water, where the water is perfectly fresh; the second flourishes in brackish water alone; and the oyster never but in water that is almost salt. As the delta of the river has extended, they have each greatly changed their habitats. The most northern habitat, at the present day, for example, of the gnathodon, stands about Choctaw Point, one mile below Mobile; whereas we have abundant evidence that it formerly existed fifty miles above. The unio, paludina, and oyster have changed positions in like manner. Immense beds of gnathodon shells are found, and in the greatest profusion, all along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, where they have doubtless been deposited by Indians in former times. Great numbers of these beds exist on the Mobile bay, and along the river, for fifty miles above the city, where only a scattering remnant of the living species is still found. The Indians had no means for, and no object in, transporting such an immense number fifty miles up the river; and we must, therefore, conclude that the Mobile bay once extended to the locality of these upper "shell banks;" and that the Indians had collected them for food, near where these banks are now beheld. One strong evidence of this conclusion is gathered from the fact, that the different artificial beds of the unio, the gnathodon, and the oyster, are never here formed of a mixture of two or more shells; which would be the case if their locations had been near each other. That these beds are of Indian origin is clear, from the fact that the shells have all been opened, and that we find in them the marks of fire, extending over considerable spaces- the shells converted into quick-lime, and mingled with charcoal, so that the successive accumulations of shells may be plainly traced.360 Fish-bones and other remains of Indian feasts are common: i. e. fragments of Indian pottery; and of human bones, which can be identified by their crania. Some of these beds are covered over by vegetable mould, from one to two feet thick, which must have been a very long time forming; and upon this are growing the largest forest trees, beneath whose roots these Indian remains are often discovered. It is more than probable, too, that these huge trees are the successors of former growths quite as large. We cannot, by any conjecture, approximate, within many centuries, perhaps thousands of years, the time consumed in thus extending the delta of the Alabama river, and in producing the changes we have hinted at; nor dare we attempt to fix the time at which the Red men fed upon the gnathodons that compose the first beds to which we have alluded. It is worthy also of special remark that the gnathodon, of which a few surviving specimens still endure along the Gulf coast of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, was once a living species in the Chesapeake bay; but has been so long extinct that it now exists there only in a fossil state. This would extend the living fauna very much farther back than the Chesapeake deposits: all our recent shells, or nearly all, being found in the pliocene, and many shells in still earlier formations. Such facts, with many others of similar import, which might be adduced, point to a chronology very far beyond any heretofore received: and who will doubt that, when the Mississippi, Alabama, and Niagara rivers first poured their waters into the ocean, a fauna and a flora already existed? and, if so, why did not man exist? They all belong to one geological period, and to one creation. These authorities, in support of the extreme age of the geological era to which man belongs, though startling to the unscientific, are not simply the opinions of a few; but such conclusions are substantially adopted by the leading geologists everywhere. And, although antiquity so extreme for man's existence on earth may shock some preconceived opinions, it is none the less certain that the rapid accumulation of new facts is fast familiarizing the minds of the scientific world to this conviction. The monuments of Egypt have already carried us far beyond all chronologies heretofore adopted; and when these barriers are once overleaped, it is in vain for us to attempt to approximate, even, the epoch of man's creation. This conclusion is not based merely on the researches of such archæologists as Lepsius, Bunsen, Birch, De Longpérier, Humboldt, &c., but on those, also, of strictly-orthodox writers, Kenrick, Hincks, Osburn; and, we may add, of all theologians who have really mastered the monuments of Egypt. Nor do these monuments reveal to us only a single race, at this early epoch in full tide of civilization, but they exhibit faithful portraits of the same African and Asiatic races, in all their diversity, which hold intercourse with Egypt at the present day. Now, the question naturally springs up, whether the aborigines of America were not contemporary with the earliest races, known to us, of the eastern continent? If, as is conceded, "Caucasian," Negro, Mongol, and other races, existed in the Old World, already distinct, what reason can be assigned to show that the aborigines of America did not also exist, with their present types, 5000 years ago? The naturalist must infer that the fauna and flora of the two continents were contemporary. All facts, and all analogy, war against the supposition that America should have been left by the Creator a dreary waste for thousands of years, while the other half of the world was teeming with organized beings. This view is also greatly strengthened by the acknowledged fact, that not a single animal, bird, reptile, fish, or plant, was common to the Old and New Worlds. No naturalist of our day doubts that the animal and vegetable kingdoms of America were created where they are found, and not in Asia. The races of men alone, of America, have been made an exception to this general law; but this exception cannot be maintained by any course of scientific reasoning. America, it will be remembered, was not only unknown to the early Romans and Greeks, but to the Egyptians; and when discovered, less than four centuries ago, it was found to be inhabited, from the Arctic to Cape Horn, and from ocean to ocean, by a population displaying peculiar physical traits, unlike any races in the Old World; speaking languages bearing no resemblance in structure to other languages; and living, everywhere, among animals and plants specifically distinct from those of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceanica. But, natural as this reasoning is, in favor of American origin for our Indians, we shall not leave the question on such debatable ground. There is abundant positive evidence of high antiquity for this population, which we proceed to develop. In reflecting on the aboriginal races of America, we are at once -met by the striking fact, that their physical characters are wholly independent of all climatic or known physical influences. Notwithstanding their immense geographical distribution, embracing every variety of climate, it is acknowledged by all travellers, that there is |