planks, arises from the idea that
beauty consists in this extraordinary compression of the bone by which
Nature has characterized the American race. It is no doubt from
following this standard of beauty that even the Aztec people, who never
disfigured the heads of their children, have represented their heroes
and principal divinities with heads much flatter than any of the Caribs
I saw on the Lower Orinoco."--Humboldt's _Researches on the Ancient
Inhabitants of America_.]

[Footnote 267: "L'anatomie comparee en offre une autre confirmation dans
la proportion constante du volume des lobes cerebrales avec le degre
d'intelligence des animaux."--Cuvier's _Report to the Institute on
Flouren's Experiments in 1822_.]

[Footnote 268: "Ces huiles leur sont absolument necessaires, et ils sont
manges de vermine quand elles leur manquent."--Lafitau, tom. i., p. 59.

It is supposed by Volney that the fatal effects of the small-pox among
the Indians are to be attributed to the obstacle that a skin thus
hardened opposes to the eruption.--P. 416. In the most detailed account
given of the ravages of this disease, Catlin particularly mentions that
no eruption was visible in any of the bodies of the dead. Forster, the
English translator of Professor Kalm's _Travels in America_, held the
same opinion as Volney.

"When the Kalmucks in the Russian dominions get the small-pox, it has
been observed that very few escape. Of this, I believe, no other reason
can be alleged than that the small-pox is always dangerous, either when
the open pores of the skin are too numerous, which is caused by opening
them in a warm-water bath, or when they are too much closed, which is
the case with all the nations that are dirty and greasy. All the
American Indians rub their body with oils; the Kalmucks rub their bodies
and their fur coats with grease; the Hottentots are also, I believe,
patterns of filthiness: this shuts up all the pores, hinders
perspiration entirely, and makes the small-pox always fatal among these
nations."--_Note_ by the translator of Kalm, p. 532.

"The ravages which the small-pox made this year (1750) among their
Mohawk friends was a source of deep concern to these revered
philanthropists. These people having been accustomed from early
childhood to anoint themselves with bear's grease, to repel the
innumerable tribes of noxious insects in summer, and to exclude the
extreme cold ill winter, their pores are so completely shut up that th