Types of mankind or, Ethnological researches : based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history, illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz; W. Usher; and H. S. Patterson / by J. C. Nott, and Geo. R. Gliddon.

  • Nott, Josiah C. (Josiah Clark), 1804-1873.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Types of mankind or, Ethnological researches : based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history, illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz; W. Usher; and H. S. Patterson / by J. C. Nott, and Geo. R. Gliddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    demy, until it closed with the fourteenth paper in 1846. In 1834, the results then obtained were collected and published in a volume illustrated with nineteen admirable plates.* This book at once gave its author a reputation and status in the scientific world, and called forth the warm commendations of Mr. Mantell and other eminent Palaeontologists. It traces the formation in question along the borders of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico from New Jersey to Louisiana, following it by the identification of its organic remains. The great body of the work is original, scarcely any of the species enumerated having ever been noticed before. Sub- sequent researches enabled him to add considerably to this collection, and, among others, to describe a species of fossil crocodile (0. clavi- rostris) entirely new and differing considerably in structure from its congeners hitherto known. In regard to the fossils of the cretaceous series, he is still the principal authority. Nor was he neglectful of the other branches of Natural Science, although too well aware of the value of concentrated effort to peril his own success, by a too wide diffusion of his labors. Still he main- tained a constant interest in the operation of every department of the Academy, and watched its onward progress with solicitude and satisfaction. To the Geological and Mineralogical, and especially to the Palseontological collection, he was a liberal contributor. Among the papers read by him before the Academy was one in 1831 on some Parasitic Worms, another in 1841, on an Albino Racoon, and a third in 1844, on a supposed new species of Hippopotamus. This animal, which has been called H. minor vel Liberiensis, was en- tirely unknown to Zoology until described by Morton, who received its skull from Dr. Goheen, of Liberia, and at once recognized its diversity from the known species.f Notwithstanding the published opinion of Cuvier, that the field of research was exhausted in regard to the Mammalia, our gifted townsman was enabled to add an im- portant pachyderm to the catalogue of Mammalogy, and that too from the other hemisphere. Let it not be supposed that, amid these absorbing topics of research, he relaxed for a moment his attention to his professional pursuits. On the contrary, he was constantly and largely engaged in practice, and, at his decease, was one of the leading practitioners of our city. Neither did he allow himself to fall behind his professional colleagues in the literature of medicine. He was among the first to intro- duce on this side the Atlantic the physical means of diagnosis in * Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States, hy Samuel George Morton. Philadelphia: Key and Biddle. 1834. t The Academy has recently (January 1852) received a specimen of it. 4