the skulls was regarded as an artistic improvement on nature and was practised with a maternal solicitude, if we judge from the customs of the modern Chinooks, deserving of a higher aim. More centrally and toward the Atlantic border the custom was not so carefully and generally practised, unless we may except the case of the Natchez, who carried it to almost the extreme reached at present by the Columbia River tribes. The object of this strange transformation is believed to have been twofold, “to give,” as Torquemada supposes, in referring to the Peruvians, “a fierce appearance in war,” and to obtain the mark of a royal and dominant race, a fashion which seems to have been transmitted without a variation, from its Mongol source. The Chinooks consider it the mark of superiority, and will not permit the tribes subject to them to practise it. Mr. Paul Cane, has illustrated this subject with drawings made during his visit to the Columbia and Vancouver’s Island, while Dr. Pickering, Mr. Hale and others, have described the hideous and beastly aspect of the singular people practising the deformation. Skull flattening among the American tribes may be classified as intentional and unintentional. To the class of intentionally flattened skulls we may assign those of the twenty or more tribes of the North-west coast, the Natchez, the ancient Mayas, the Peruvians, and some of the more central and eastern South American tribes. The North-western flatheads subject the head of a child during the first eight or ten months of its life to pressure produced by means of a cradle or cradle-board, provided with a board which rests upon the forehead and tied down upon it by means of cords extending to the foot of the cradle, while the other end is connected to the head of the cradle with a hingelike attachment. [Illustration: Chinooks (Flat-heads), After Catlin.]