Excerpt from A Notice

We have seen this book of Types, which reviles the common ver sion of the scriptures which we read in our family devotions, in the posses sion of some of its subscribers, and heard several of them complain that through the cunning devices of Nott and Glitldon who led them to suppose that they were to receive a scientific work on the doctrine of the diver sity of the human races, supported by the matured views of Morton, Agassiz and others, they had been completely entrapped and deceived.

Now it appears that the contributions from Agassiz amounted to 17 pages, the substance of which he admits he had published nine years before, and which may be found in much fuller detail in one 'of his school books (principles of Zoology, pp. 154 nor did he add that in both these works, he insisted that man alone was a cosmopolite. His domain is the whole earth. For him and with a view to him it was created. Twenty-seven pages are inserted from Morton's inedited manu scripts for which, if they were subscribers to his former works, they have already paid. The article on geology and palaeontology, in connection with human origins - of the fossil man dug out of the delta of the Missis sippi, years old, and of Agassiz' man found in Florida at least years old, as well as Morton's prophecy, (p. That man will yet be found in the fossil state, and that he walked the earth With the Megalonyx and Paleotherium, might as well have been omitted for their own credit sake as well as that of Morton. A premium however, has now been offered for the discovery of ancient human bones they will no doubt soon be forthcoming. Fortunately we have a sure method ofde eetion. When a cunningly stufi'cd specimen of a pretended new bird, in which the types of several genera were presented, was sent to the Zoolo gical Society, oflonclon, the members were for a time perplexed. Swain son, however, applied his scalpel to the specimen, and the hoax was detec ted in the patch work of the artificially constructed bird. Now, our friend Agassiz knows full well that every species in these lower strata or eocene beds differs from those that at present inhabit the earth. He even goes much farther than we are disposed to follow him. Viz: that even the very shells in the lower formations differ from those of the present. He has, webelieve, described a fish from a scale, restored another from the vertebra: and several species of animals from a tooth, and arranged them under their proper genera and species. Let him now describe these new species ofman, Homo ?loridians, ilomo-mississippians, and each specimen will tell its own story. In the ease of the cranium dug out of the excava tion at New Orleans for the Gas Works, Dr. Usher candidly admits the type of the cranium was that of the Aboriginal American Indian, (p. Agassiz' specimen of jaws with perfect teeth, and portions ofa foot, was, as he informs us, dug out from a bluff on the shores of Lake Munroe, in'floricla, with a mass of shells mostly ampularias of the same species now found in the St. John's river, etc. These portions of a skeleton were examined in Charleston, and as we are informed. Count Portalis spoke etit as that of a modern Indian. The Indians in Florida must have always had burial grounds.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com