Page:Descriptive account of the panoramic view, &c. of King George's Sound, and the adjacent country.djvu/18

 18 "Saville Row, Sept. 11, 1834.



"The head of Yagan appears to me to exhibit a specimen of that variety of the human species, established by the learned Professor Blumenbach, of Gottingen, as the fifth, or Malay, in which the face is not so narrow as in the Negro, yet projecting downwards. This variety embraces a very extensive list of inhabitants, including all the natives of the Asiatic Islands, and of the Great Pacific Ocean. These vary from each other in a very considerable degree, so much so, that it had been found exceedingly difficult to include them within any one distinctly marked character. On the whole, however, they would appear to form an intermediate link between the European and the Negro.

"As an instance, not frequently to be obtained, or an individual, uninfluenced by education, presiding over, and directing a savage tribe in all its undertakings and enterprises, I conceived it to be a desirable opportunity of putting to the test the inferences offered by Phrenological inquiry, and having therefore submitted the head to the examination of some friends who are ardently attached to this interesting subject, I herewith offer to you the character of the individual; and it is necessary I should guard you against assuming it to be that of the national one, as it is purely the result of the examination of this particular head. The character will be found to agree with that which you have related to me as belonging to the chieftain Yagan, and I therefore think it highly deserving of attention.

"It is but just to state the several obstacles that have presented themselves to a more minute examination of the head: the length of the hair, the fracture of the skull (extending across the head,) from the musket-shot, and the absence of all data as to the relative size of the hea