Part 2, Chapter 5 Agassiz, Section 2 Summary

Louis Agassiz met Samuel George Morton when he arrived in the United States. Morton had done research on the human skull and created a racial hierarchy of sorts. His information was unreliable because he could not go to the site of excavation himself. Morton relied on others to get skulls and information about the skull. He never considered the size of the body or the gender of the person, and he skewed any findings with his own assumptions. However, his works were considered the authority on the subject.

Two origin theories stood out beyond the rest in the 19^th Century. One was monogenism, which was based on the assumption that all people originate from the same source. Racial attributes are due to the degeneration of the species. Such an attribute could be climate, which can increase degeneration...