The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studies

The great North-West, with its warlike Chippeways, Crees, Sioux, and Blackfeet; and beyond the Rocky Mountains its Tinné, Babeens, Clalams, Newatees, Chinooks, Cowlitz, and nume...

But a great deal more than Leif’s booths is involved. It is the discovery of the ancient city of Norumbega, of which also the inscribed tablet makes due record; including the st...

But there were also, no doubt, home-made weapons and implements, fashioned with patient industry out of the large rolled serpentine, chalcedony, jasper, and agate pebbles, gathe...

BY SIR DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.E. PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO AUTHOR OF ‘THE PREHISTORIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND’ ‘PREHISTORIC MAN: THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION,’ ETC. ETC.

Such is the episode in the narrative of ancient explorations of the North American shores by voyagers from Greenland, in which Mr. Phillips was gratified by the startling confor...

So far it becomes apparent that the evidence, derived alike from language and from other sources, points to the isolation of the American continent through unnumbered ages. The...

But a greater interest attaches to that other class of half-breeds already alluded to, which the new order of things has inevitably tended to efface, though not necessarily to e...

Nevertheless, the popular estimate embodied in such expressions as “a good head,” “a long-headed fellow,” and “a poor head,” like many other popular inductions, has truth for it...

Language is even now a very inadequate means of communicating to others specific ideas of form; and some of the most fluent lecturers in those departments of science, such as ge...

It is inevitable that America should look back to the Old World when in search of some elements of civilisation, and for the diversities of race and language traceable throughou...

But the Indian, in many cases, resorts to the pencil, or its equivalent, for the elucidation of subjects in which language fails him. He will take a burnt stick and draw a map i...

The civilisation of Central and Southern America is a wholly distinct thing; and, as I think, not without some suggestive traces of Asiatic origin; but the attempts to connect i...

But apart from the great compass of the Iroquois verb as illustrative of grammatical development in the languages of unlettered nations, another characteristic feature is the di...

That the ultimate result of this will involve the disappearance of the Indian as a distinct race is inevitable. He will be absorbed into the dominant race; not to be displaced o...

The flint of the cretaceous deposits does not occur in America. True chalk is all but unknown among the cretaceous strata of the continent, although it has been found in the for...

The diligent research of scholars familiar with the Old Norse, in which the Sagas are written, is now clearing this inquiry into reputed pre-Columbian discovery and colonisation...

THE term “Stone Period” or “Stone Age” was suggested in the early years of the present century by the antiquaries of Denmark as the fitting designation of that primitive era in...

Here, to all appearance, intelligent research had at length been rewarded by the discovery of undoubted traces of the American palæolithic man; and Dr. Abbott, not unnaturally,...

Among what may be accepted as typical Canadian skulls, those recovered from the old site of Hochelaga, and from the Huron ossuaries around Lake Simcoe, have a special value. The...

So far the picture is true to nature; but no dream of a millennial era for the Red Man, in which all were thenceforth to live together as brothers, can have fashioned itself in...

There is one notable inconsistency in the traditions of the Huron-Iroquois which is significant. The fathers of the common stock dwelt, according to their most cherished memorie...

The history of the ancient world is, for us, to a large extent, the history of civilisation among the nations around the Mediterranean Sea. Its name perpetuates the recognition...

It throws an interesting light on the industrial processes of the ancient flint-workers to learn that, even in a region where the useful chert abounded, they went far afield in...

[170] The use of different standards of weights and measures, and of diverse materials for determining the capacity of the skull in different countries, greatly complicates the...

[99] The Rev. Mark Pattison, according to one biographer, Mr. Althaus, had cultivated a habit of reticence, till it became one of his most marked characteristics. His usual resp...

Some of those assumed illustrations of American palæolithic art cannot be accepted. One implement, for example, from the Californian gravel-drift, is a polished stone plummet pe...

In this, as in other respects, the recovery of evidences of a well-developed æsthetic faculty among the men of Europe’s Mammoth and Reindeer period, furnishes materials for many...

THE department of American ethnology, notwithstanding its many indefatigable workers, is still to a large extent a virgin soil. The western hemisphere is rich in materials for e...

Professor Max Müller has drawn attention to the tendency of the languages of America towards an endless multiplication of distinct dialects. Those again have been grouped by the...

The tool-bearing drift-gravel of France and England presents its relics of primitive art intermingled with countless amorphous unwrought flints. Both have been subjected to the...

The primitive grave, thus discovered within sight of the Scottish capital, has a curious interest as a link connecting the present with a remote past. But the special point whic...

The condition of the Indian tribes in the North-West, in British Columbia, and in the territories of the United States, abundantly illustrates the effect of a multiplicity of la...

But it is of more importance for our present inquiry to note that, as exceptionally large and heavy brains occur among the most civilised races, in some cases—and in some only—a...

But, by whatever means we seek to account for the great diversity of speech among the communities of the New World, it is manifest that language furnishes no evidence of recent...

Such carvings had no other aim, we may presume, than the decoration of a favourite weapon, or the beguiling of a leisure hour. But they show the fruits of skill, and the observa...

The average brain-weight of the human adult, as determined by a numerous series of observations, ranges for man from 40 oz. to 52½ oz., and for woman from 35 oz. to 47½ oz. But...

The influence of race on the volume, weight, disposition, and relative proportions of the different subdivisions of the human brain, and so of brain on the character of races, h...

Until recently the tendency has been to assume an underlying unity of speech for the whole American languages, based on the polysynthetic or holophrastic characteristic ascribed...

On the general question of cranial development as an index of cerebral capacity, Professor Welcker assigns a standard, which was accepted by Dr. Thurnam, thus: “Skulls of more t...

are seen in the universality of one series of names throughout the whole ancient and modern Aryan languages of Asia and Europe. But the Basque numerals bear little or no resembl...

Important advances have been made in craniometry, as in other branches of anthropology, since Dr. Morton formed the collection which now, with many later additions, constitutes...

The later history of the Hurons and Iroquois is not without its special interest. One little band, the Hurons of Lorette, the representatives of the refugees from the massacre o...

Tadmor, 168 Tahiti, traditions of, 14 Talavera, Prior Fernando de, 73 Talligew, or Tallegewi, 103, 106, 107, 172 Taunton River, 61 Tawatins, 138, 204, 207, 208 Taylor, Dr. Isaac...