VIII RELATIVE RACIAL BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE (continued 2)

In the case of the ancient British Barrow-Builders we seem to have large heads and remarkable development of brain, without any indications of an equivalent in intellectual power; and although the estimated brain-weight derived from gauging the capacity of the empty chamber of the skull proceeds on the assumption of mass and weight agreeing, sufficient data exist to justify the adoption of this for approximate results. The average weight of brain of twelve male Negroes of undetermined tribes, deduced from gauging their skulls, has been ascertained to amount to 1255 grammes, or 44.3 oz. The actual weight of brain of the Negro of Guinea, described by Professor Calori, was 1260 grammes; and other examples vary considerably from the average. Mascagni gives 1458 grammes as the weight of one Negro brain weighed by him; equivalent to an actual brain-weight of 51.5 oz., which is greater than that of Dupuytren, Whewell, Hermann, Tiedemann, or Grote. Nevertheless, although the extremes are great, and are confirmed by a like diversity in measurements of the horizontal circumference and of internal capacity, the average result given above appears to be a fair and reliable one.

Thus far the inquiry into data illustrative of comparative size and weight of brain has dealt chiefly with the races of the eastern hemisphere. The compass is great in point of time in so far as it embraces savage and civilised peoples, including the barbarians of Europe’s Palæolithic era, along with modern tribes of Asia, Africa, and Australia, and some of the most notable among the prehistoric races of the British Isles. The compass is equally great in the range of intellectual development, when to those are added data illustrative of the average brain-weight of some of the leading nations of modern Europe, and a series of examples derived from noted instances of the highest exceptional types of intellectual power and activity in recent times. Some general conclusions of a comprehensive kind seem to follow legitimately from this evidence. Notwithstanding the prominence given to the assumed evidence of a low type of skull, depressed forehead, and poor frontal development, in the assumed primitive European Canstadt race, when we keep in view the enormous interval of time assumed to separate “those savages who peopled Europe in the Palæolithic age” from our own era, the amount of difference in size and apparent brain-weight is not remarkable. Compared with those of contemporary savage races it suggests no more than the accompanying development of the brain in a ratio with the intellectual activities of progressive civilisation, and even then the relative brain-mass of the lowest type is suggestive of latent powers only needing development. But the old and later races of the New World stand in a different relation to each other; and the process thus far employed when applied to determine the comparative cranial capacities of the native American races, discloses results of a different character, and widely at variance with those above described relating to the ancient races of Britain. On the continent of America the native ethnical scale embraces a comparatively narrow range, and any intrusive elements are sufficiently recent to be easily eliminated. The Patagonian and the Fuegian rank alongside of the Bushman, the Andaman Islander, or the Australian, as among the lowest types of humanity; while the Aztecs, Mayas, Quichuas, and Aymaras, attained to the highest scale which has been reached independently by any native American race. We owe to the zealous and indefatigable labours of Dr. Morton, alike in the formation of his great collection of human crania, and in the published results embodied in the Crania Americana, a large amount of knowledge derived from this class of evidence in reference to the races of the New World. In one respect, at least, those results stand out in striking contrast to the large-headed barbarian Barrow-Builders of ancient Britain. Dr. Morton subdivides the American races into the Toltecan race, embracing the semi-civilised communities of Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, and the barbarous tribes scattered over the continent from the Arctic circle to Tierra del Fuego. His latest views are embodied in a contribution to Schoolcraft’s History of the Indian Tribes of the United States, entitled “The Physical Type of the American Indians.” In treating of the volume of brain, he draws special attention to the Peruvian skulls, 201 in number, obtained for him from the cemeteries of Pisco, Pachacamac, and Arica. “Herera informs us that Pachacamac was sacred to priests, nobles, and other persons of distinction; and there is ample evidence that Arica and Pisco, though free to all classes, were among the most favoured cemeteries of Peru.” Dr. Morton accordingly adds: “It is of some importance to the present inquiry, that nearly one-half of this series of Peruvian crania was obtained at Pachacamac; whence the inference that they belonged to the most intellectual and cultivated portion of the Peruvian nation; for in Peru learning of every kind was an exclusive privilege of the ruling caste.” In reality, however, later additions to our knowledge of the physical characteristics of the ancient Peruvians tend to confirm the idea of the existence of two distinct races: a patrician order occupying a position analogous to the Franks of Gaul or the Normans of England, though more aptly to be compared to the Brahmins of India; and a more numerous class, constituting the labouring and industrial orders of the community, abundantly represented in the Pacific coast tribes of Peru, the cemeteries of which have furnished the larger number of crania to European and American collections.

To such a patrician order or caste the intellectual superiority and privileges of the governing race pertained. But whatever may have been the exclusive prerogatives of the patrician and sacerdotal orders, there is no doubt that the Peruvians as a people had carried metallurgy to as high a development as has been attained by any race ignorant of working in iron. They had acquired great skill in the arts of the goldsmith, the engraver, chaser, and modeller. Pottery was fashioned into many artistic and fanciful forms, showing ingenuity and great versatility of fancy. They excelled as engineers, architects, sculptors, weavers, and agriculturists. Their public works display great skill, combined with comprehensive aims of practical utility; and alone, among all the nations of the New World, they had domesticated animals, and trained them as beasts of burden. It is not, therefore, without reason that Dr. Morton adds: “When we consider the institutions of the old Peruvians, their comparatively advanced civilisation, their tombs and temples, mountain roads and monolithic gateways, together with their knowledge of certain ornamental arts, it is surprising to find that they possessed a brain no larger than the Hottentot and New Hollander, and far below that of the barbarous hordes of their own race. For, on measuring 155 crania, nearly all derived from the sepulchres just mentioned, they give but 75 cubic inches (equivalent, after due deduction for membranes and fluids, to a brain of 40.1 oz. av. in weight,) for the average bulk of the brain. Of the whole number, only one attains the capacity of 101 cubic inches, and the minimum sinks to 58, the smallest in the whole series of 641 measured crania. It is important further to remark that the sexes are nearly equally represented, namely, eighty men and seventy-five women.”

Other collections subsequently formed have largely added to our means of testing the curious question thus raised of the apparent inverse ratio of volume of brain to intellectual power and progressive civilisation among the native races of the American continent. In 1866, Mr. E. G. Squier presented to the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology at Harvard, a collection of seventy-five Peruvian skulls, obtained by himself from various localities both on the coast and in the interior. “The skulls from the interior represent the Aymara on Lake Titicaca, as well as the Quichua, Cuzco, or Inca families; and the skulls of every coast family from Tumbes to Atacama, or from Ecuador to Chili.”^[177] Subsequently the curator, the late Professor Jeffreys Wyman, made this collection, along with two others, of skulls from the mounds of Kentucky and Florida, the subject of careful comparative measurements. The following are the results: The crania from Florida were chiefly obtained from a burial place near an ancient Indian shell mound of gigantic proportions, a few miles distant from Cedar Keys. They are eighteen in number, and have a mean capacity of 1375.7 cubic centimetres, or nearly 84 cubic inches. The skulls from the Kentucky mounds, twenty-four in number, show a mean capacity of 1313 cubic centimetres, 80.21 cubic inches, with a difference of 125 cubic centimetres, or 7.61 cubic inches in favour of the males. Yet, small as the Kentucky skulls are, they exceed the Peruvian ones. Keeping in view the varied sources of the latter, Professor Wyman remarks: “Although the crania from the several localities show some differences as regards capacity, yet in most other respects they are alike.” And the numbers, when viewed separately, are too few to attach much importance to variations within so narrow a range. Nevertheless it is noteworthy that the highest mean is that of the Aymaras of Lake Titicaca; and this difference is considerably increased by measurements derived from subsequent additions to the Harvard collection, received since the death of Professor Wyman from the high valley of Lake Titicaca. In other respects besides their marked superiority in size, the latter crania differ from those of the Coast tribes, and confirm the earlier deduction of an ethnical distinction between the more numerous race so abundantly represented in the Coast cemeteries, and that which is chiefly represented by crania brought from the interior. The numbers from the several localities selected by Professor Wyman as fair average specimens of the whole stand thus: six from burial towers, or chulpas, near Lake Titicaca, 1292; five from Cajamaquilla, 1268.75; fourteen from Casma, 1254; four from Truxillo, 1236; four from Pachicamac, 1195; sixteen from Amacavilca, 1176.2; and seven from Grand Chimu, 1094.28.

In 1872, the collection of Peruvian crania in the Peabody Museum was augmented by a large addition from 330 skulls obtained by Professor Agassiz, through the intervention of Mr. T. J. Hutchinson, British Consul at Callao, in Peru. From those contributed to the Harvard Museum, Dr. Wyman selected eleven as apparently the only ones unaffected by any artificial compression or distortion, and therefore valuable as illustrations of the normal shape of the Peruvian head. They are quite symmetrical. The occiput, instead of being flattened or vertical, as in the distorted crania, has the ordinary curves, and in some of them is prominent. Two of them are marked by a low, retreating forehead; but in all the others the forehead is moderately developed. As, moreover, the larger half appear to be the skulls of females, this accounts for the mean capacity falling below the Peruvian average. But they are all small. The largest of them is only 1260 cubic centimetres, or less than 74 cubic inches; and the average capacity of ten of them is 1129 cubic centimetres, or 69 cubic inches.

The collection, as a whole, differs from that of Mr. Squier, in having been derived from the huacas, or ancient graves of one locality, that of Ancon, near Callao. Professor Wyman stated as the result of his careful study of them: “The average capacity obtained from the whole collection, including those having the distorted as well as the natural shape, varies but little from that of previous measurements,” including those of Morton and Meigs, and his own results from the Squier collection.

Another collection of 150 ancient skulls, obtained by Mr. Hutchinson during his residence in Peru, and presented to the Anthropological Institute of London, has the additional value, like that of Squier, of having been carefully selected from different localities, including Santos, Ica, Ancon, Passamayo, and Cerro del Oro; and the same may be said of those enumerated in the Thesaurus Craniorum of Dr. Davis. We have thus unusually ample materials for determining the cranial characteristics of this remarkable people, and the results in every case are the same. After a careful examination of the Peruvian skulls, in the London anthropological collection, Professor Busk states his conclusions thus: “The mean capacity of the larger skulls, which may be regarded as males, appears, as far as I have gone, to be about 80 cubic inches, equivalent to a brain of about 45 ounces, roughly estimated. This capacity, and the measurements above cited, show that the crania generally are of small size”; and he adds: “this is in accord with the statements of all observers.”^[178]

Dr. Davis has added to the valuable data included in his Thesaurus Craniorum, a series of measurements of skeletons. Unfortunately that of a male Quichua, procured by him in the form of a “Peruvian mummy,” proved to be affected with carious disease about the last dorsal and upper lumbar vertebræ; and consequently the length of the vertebral column essential for comparison with the skeletons of other races, is wanting; but the other measurements indicate in this example a stature below the average, while the skull exceeds it. The average internal capacity of eighteen Quichua male skulls, as given by Dr. Davis, is seventy-three, whereas this is 78.5. That the ancient Peruvian skulls are, with rare exceptions, of small size, is undoubted; and in view of this it becomes a matter of some importance to determine whether this was in any degree due to a correspondingly small stature. Obscure references are found in the legendary history of Peru to a pigmy race. Pedro de Cieza de Leon, whose travels have been translated by Mr. Markham, refers to the first emigration of the Indians of Chincha to that valley, “where they found many inhabitants, but all of such small stature, that the tallest was barely two cubits high” (p. 260). Garcilasso de la Vega repeats another tradition heard by himself in Peru, of a race of giants who came by sea to the country, and were so tall that the natives reached no higher than their knees. They lived by rapine, and wasted the whole country till they were destroyed by fire from heaven. Traditions of this class may possibly point to the existence of an aboriginal race of small stature. The aborigines of Guatemala, Salvador, and Nicaragua, are described as below the middle size (Bancroft, vol. i. p. 688); and Von Tchudi divides the wild Indians of Peru into the Iscuchanos, the natives of the highlands, a tall, slim, vigorous race, with the head proportionally large and the forehead low; and those of the hot lowlands, a smaller race, lank, but broad shouldered, with a broad face and small round chin. There appear, therefore, to be traces of one or more aboriginal races of small stature. But Dr. Morton says expressly of the Peruvians: “Our knowledge of their physical appearance is derived solely from their tombs. In stature they appear not to have been in any respect remarkable, nor to have differed from the cognate nations except in the conformation of the head, which is small, greatly elongated, narrow its whole length, with a very retreating forehead, and possessing more symmetry than is usual in skulls of the American race.” Some of the characteristics here referred to are, in part at least, the result of artificial modifications; but the small head appears to be an indisputable characteristic of the most numerous ancient people of Peru.

It may not unreasonably excite surprise that Dr. Morton should have adduced results apparently pointing to the conclusion that civilisation had progressed among the native races of the American continent in an inverse ratio to the volume of brain; and yet passed it over with such slight comment. The only hint at a recognition of the difficulty is where, as he draws his work to a close, he indicates his observation of a greater anterior and coronal development in the smaller Peruvian brain. “It is curious,” he says, “to observe that the barbarous nations possess a larger brain by 5½ cubic inches than the Toltecans; while, on the other hand, the Toltecans possess a greater relative capacity of the anterior chamber of the skull in the proportion of 42.3 to 41.8. Again, the coronal region, though absolutely greater in the barbarous tribes, is rather larger in proportion in the demi-civilised tribes.”^[179] But Dr. Morton also noted that the heads of nine Peruvian children in his possession “appear to be nearly if not quite as large as those of children of other nations at the same age”;^[180] so that he seemed to recognise something equivalent to an arrested cerebral development accompanying the intellectual activity of this remarkable people at some later stage, yet without apparently affecting their mental power. But it was characteristic of this minute and painstaking observer to accumulate and set forth his results, unaffected by any apparent difficulties or inconsistencies which they might seem to involve.

Important advances have been made in craniometry, as in other branches of anthropology, since Dr. Morton formed the collection which now, with many later additions, constitutes an important department in the collections of the Academy of Science of Philadelphia. Zealous and well-trained labourers are following in his steps; but the value of his services to science are more fully appreciated with every addition to the work he inaugurated. Researches have been prosecuted for some years by a committee of the British Association with a view to securing reliable data relative to the tribes of the Canadian North-West and British Columbia. In following out their instructions, Dr. Franz Boas has prepared valuable tables of measurements, both of living examples of the Haidah, Tsimshian, Kwakintl, and Nootka tribes, and of crania of those and other natives of the Pacific coast; but unfortunately he has omitted the cerebral capacity. But a large collection of crania of tribes lying to the south of British Columbia, now in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, has furnished to Mr. Lucien Carr opportunities for a series of careful measurements showing some very distinctive diversities among tribes of the coast and the islands of Southern California. From those the following table is derived. The capacity is given in cubic centimetres; and shows not only a marked diversity in cerebral capacity distinguishing different island tribes, but also notes the relative difference of the male and female head. Among the Indians of the Pacific coast are the Haidahs and others noted for exceptional ingenuity and skill in their carvings, pottery, and other handiwork. But besides the fair-skinned Haidahs and Tsimshians of the north, there are essentially diverse tribes of Southern California, noticeable for swarthy and almost black colour; and not only inferior, but essentially differing in the style of their arts.

TABLE VIII

CRANIA OF PACIFIC COAST TRIBES

Santa Catalina Island, California.

No. of Crania.Sex.CapacityCapacityCapacity

Average.Maximum.Minimum.

26Male147017191282

12Female127914511098

San Clementé Island, California.

No. of Crania.Sex.CapacityCapacityCapacity

Average.Maximum.Minimum.

9Male145217471300

6Female131513521268

Santa Cruz Island, California.

No. of Crania.Sex.CapacityCapacityCapacity

Average.Maximum.Minimum.

45Male136516251144

35Female121915281040

Santa Barbara Islands and Mainland.

No. of Crania.Sex.CapacityCapacityCapacity

Average.Maximum.Minimum.

9Male132414411167

5Female124713161175

Among exceptional features claimed as more or less a racial characteristic of American crania, the os Incæ, or epactal bone in the occiput, has been noted as present in various stages of manifestation in 3.81 per cent; and among ancient Peruvian crania in 6.08 per cent; while it does not apparently exceed 2.65 per cent in the Negro; and only reaches 1.19 per cent in Europeans.^[181] In so far as this may be regarded as a sign of arrested development, it is noteworthy as thus occurring in excess in the small-headed, yet highly ingenious and civilised Peruvian race. Dr. Morton noted as a remarkable fact that the skull of the Peruvian child appeared to equal in size that of other races; so that in a much ampler sense than in the perpetuation of a suture of the occiput beyond the stage of fœtal development, the small-sized skull and brain of the adult Peruvian is abnormal. But he followed out his observation of the phenomena no farther than to state, in summing up his investigations “On the internal capacity of the cranium in the different races of men:”^[182] “Respecting the American race, I have nothing to add, excepting the striking fact that of all the American nations, the Peruvians had the smallest heads, while those of the Mexicans were something larger, and those of the barbarous tribes the largest of all,” namely:—

{ Peruvians, collectively75cubicinches.

Toltecan Nations{

{ Mexicans, „79„„

Barbarous Tribes82„„

The enlarged tables given in the catalogue of Dr J. Aitken Meigs, increase this inverse ratio of cerebral capacity, thus:—

Peruvians75.3

Mexicans81.7

Barbarous Tribes84.0

“The great American group,” he says, “is, in several respects, well represented in the collection. It includes 490 crania and 13 casts, making a total of 503 from nearly 70 different nations and tribes. Of this large number 256 belong to the Toltecan race (embracing the semi-civilised communities of Mexico, Bogota, and Peru), and 247 to the barbarous tribes scattered over the continent. Of 164 measurements of crania of the barbarous tribes, the largest is 104 cubic inches; the smallest 69; and the mean of all 84. One hundred and fifty-two Peruvian skulls give 101 cubic inches for the largest internal capacity, 58 for the smallest, and 75.3 for the average of all.”^[183]

The results which Professor Jeffreys Wyman arrived at from a careful comparative measurement of the Squier collection, were confirmed by his subsequent study of that of Professor Agassiz, and may be quoted as applying to both; for he sums up his later investigations with the remark: “These results agree with all previous conclusions with regard to the diminutive size of the ancient Peruvian brain.”^[184] Of the Squier collection he says: “The average capacity of the fifty-six crania measured agrees very closely with that indicated by Morton and Meigs, namely, 1230 centimetres, or 75 cubic inches, which is considerably less than that of the barbarous tribes of America, and almost exactly that of the Australians and Hottentots as given by Morton and Meigs, and smaller than that derived from a larger number of measurements by Davis. Thus we have, in this particular, a race which has established a complex civil and religious polity, and made great progress in the useful and fine arts,—as its pottery, textile fabrics, wrought metals, highways and aqueducts, colossal architectural structures and court of almost imperial splendour prove,—on the same level, as regards the quantity of brain, with a race whose social and religious conditions are among the most degraded exhibited by the human race. All this goes to show, and cannot be too much insisted upon, that the relative capacity of the skull is to be considered merely as an anatomical and not as a physiological characteristic; and unless the quality of the brain can be represented at the same time as the quantity, brain measurement cannot be assumed as an indication of the intellectual position of races any more than of individuals.”^[185]

The only definite attempt of Dr. Morton to solve the difficulty thus presented to us, curiously evades its true point. “Something,” he says, “may be attributed to a primitive difference of stock; but more, perhaps, to the contrasted activity of the two races.” Here, however, it is not a case of intellectual activity accompanied by, and seemingly begetting an increased volume of brain; but only the assumption of greater activity in the small-brained race to account for its triumph over larger-brained barbarous tribes in the attainment of numerous elements of a native-born civilisation. The question is, how to account for this intellectual activity, with all its marvellous results, attained by a race with an average brain of no greater volume than that of the Bushman, the Australian, or other lowest types of humanity.

The Nilotic Egyptian race, of composite ethnical character, presents striking elements of comparison, in the ingenious arts and constructive skill of the ancient dwellers in the Nile valley; but whether we take the Egyptian of the Catacombs, the Copt, or the Fellah, we seek in vain for like microcephalous characteristics. Among modern races the Chinese exhibit many analogies in arts and social life to the ancient Peruvians; but their cerebral capacity presents no correspondence to that of the American race. Dr. Morton gives a mean capacity for the Chinese skull of 85, as compared with the Peruvian 75.3, while Dr. Davis derives from nineteen skulls a mean internal capacity of 76.7 oz. av., or 93 cubic inches.

But another Asiatic race, that of the Hindoos—also associated with a remarkable ancient civilisation, and a social and religious organisation not without suggestive analogies both to ancient Egypt and Peru,—is noticeable for like microcephalous characteristics. In completing the anatomical measurements with which Dr. Morton closes his great work, he places the Ethiopian lowest in the scale of internal capacity of cranium; but, while including the Hindoo in his Caucasian group, he adds: “It is proper to mention that but three Hindoos are admitted in the whole number, because the skulls of these people are probably smaller than those of any other existing nation. For example, seventeen Hindoo heads give a mean of but 75 cubic inches.”^[186] The Vedahs of Ceylon, the Mincopies, the Negritos, and the Bushmen, appear to vie with the Hindoos in smallness of skull; but all of them are races of diminutive stature. This element, therefore, which has been referred to as important in individual comparisons, is no less necessary to be borne in view in determining such comparative results as those which distinguish the Peruvians from other American races. Certain races are unquestionably distinguished from others by difference of stature. Barrow determined the mean height of the Bushman, from measurements of a whole tribe, to be 4 ft. 3½ in. D’Orbigny, from nearly similar evidence, states that of the Patagonians to be 5 ft. 8 in. The internal capacity of the Peruvian skull, as derived from eighteen male and six female Quichua skulls in Dr. Davis’s collection, is 70, while he states that of the Patagonian skull as 67 and of the Bushman as 65; but it is manifest that the latter figures, if taken without reference to relative stature, furnish a very partial index of the comparative volume of brain.

Professor Goodsir, as already noted, held that symmetry of brain has more to do with the higher faculties than mere bulk. In the case of the Peruvians the systematic distortion of the skull precludes the application of this test. But in the small Hindoo skull the fine proportions have been repeatedly noted. Dr. Davis, in describing one of a Hindoo of unmixed blood, born in Sumatra, says: “His pretty, diminutive skull is singularly contrasted with those of the races by whom, alive, he was surrounded”;^[187] and he adds: “The great agreement of the elegant skulls of Hindoos in their types and proportions, although not in dimensions, with those of European races, has afforded some support to that widespread and learned illusion, ‘the Indo-European hypothesis.’ The Hindoo skulls are generally beautiful models of form in miniature.”

Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, in his Malay Archipelago, discusses the value of cranial measurements for ethnological purposes; and, employing those furnished by Dr. J. B. Davis in his Thesaurus Craniorum as a “means of determining whether the forms and dimensions of the crania of the eastern races would in any way support or refute his classification of them,” he finally selected as the best tests for his purpose—1. The capacity of the cranium; 2. The proportion of the width to the length taken as 100; 3. The proportion of the height to the length taken as 100. But here again, unfortunately, the systematic distortion of the Peruvian skull limits us to the first of those tests. There are, indeed, the eleven normal Peruvian crania selected as such from the numerous Ancon skulls brought by Professor Agassiz from Peru. But those are stated by Professor Wyman to be on an average less by six inches than the ordinary skull. Some partial results embodied in the following table admit of comparison with those based on the more ample data of Table X. Dr. Lucae, in his Zur Organischen Formenlehre, gives the cranial capacity of single skulls of different races, selected as examples of each. In these, as in others already referred to, the capacity was determined with peas; and the results—assumed to be given in Prussian ounces,—are dealt with here, as in the skulls of Heinse and Bünger. The experiments carried on for the purpose of testing the process fully confirmed the results stated by Professor Wyman as to the differences in apparent cubical capacity according to the material employed. Taking a sound Huron Indian skull, a mean internal capacity of 1490 grms. was obtained by repeatedly gauging it with peas, and of 1439.5 with rice. The position of the Negro, heading the list, serves to show the exceptional nature of the evidence; though this is rather due to the inferiority of other examples, such as the Chinese and Greenlander, than to its capacity greatly exceeding the Negro mean. In the first column the unzen, as Prussian ounces, are rendered in grammes. The second column gives the nearer approximation to the true specific gravity, according to the standard referred to, based on a series of experiments carried out under my direction in the laboratory of the University of Toronto, and assuming 82.5 grms. of peas to occupy the space of 100 grms. of water. The third and fourth columns represent the estimated brain-weight, after the requisite deductions, on the basis of s.g. of brain as 1.0408.

TABLE IX

LUCAE

InternalInternal Cap.Brain-Weight.Brain-

Capacity.Corrected.Grms.weight.

Grms.Grms.Oz. Av.

Negro1169.281424.121281.7145.2

Chinese1081.581364.481228.0443.4

Nubian1041.241313.541182.1941.7

Floris1033.931304.381173.9441.4

Papuan1030.421299.951169.9641.3

Greenlander1023.121290.741161.6741.0

Javanese 995.061254.541129.9139.8

In the following table the examples are derived from Dr. J. B. Davis’s tables, with the exception of the Peruvians. For these I have availed myself of Dr. Jeffreys Wyman’s careful observations on the large collection in the Peabody Museum, the results of which confirm Dr. Morton’s earlier data. One further fact, however, may be noted as a result of my own study of Peruvian crania, amply confirmed by the published observations of others, namely, that while the Peruvian head unquestionably ranks among those of the microcephalous races, the range of variation among the Peruvian coast tribes appears to be less than that even of the Australian. Of this there is good evidence, based on the comparison of several hundred crania. But exceptional examples of unusually large skulls may be looked for in all races; and a few of such abnormal Peruvian or other skulls would modify the mean capacities and weights in the following table. Nevertheless the average results, as a whole, are probably a close approximation to the truth:—

TABLE X

COMPARATIVE CEREBRAL CAPACITY OF RACES

Capacity.Brain-Weight.

Race.Number.Cubic Inches.Oz. Av.

European29992.347.12

English 2193.147.50

Asiatic12487.144.44

Chinese 2592.147.00

Hindoos 3582.542.11

Negroes 1686.444.08

Negro Tribes 6985.243.47

American Indians 5287.544.64

Mexicans 2581.741.74

Peruvians 5675.038.25

Eskimos 1391.246.56

Oceanic21089.445.63

Javans 3087.544.64

Australians 2481.141.38

Looking for some definite results from the various data here produced, the deductions which they seem to suggest may be thus stated. While Professor Wyman justly remarks that the relative capacity of the skull, and consequently of the encephalon, is to be considered as an anatomical and not as a physiological characteristic, relative largeness of the brain is nevertheless one of the most distinguishing attributes of man. Ample cerebral development is the general accompaniment of intellectual capacity, alike in individuals and races; and microcephaly, when it passes below well-defined limits, is no longer compatible with rational intelligence; though it amply suffices for the requirements of the highest anthropomorpha. Wagner thus definitely refers the special characteristics which separate man from the irrational creation to one member of the encephalon: “The relation of the lobes of the cerebrum to intelligence may, perhaps, be expressed thus: there is a certain development of the mass of the cerebrum, especially of the convolutions, requisite in order to such a development of intelligence as divides man from other animals.”

The important data accumulated by Morton, Meigs, Davis, Tiedemann, Pruner-Bey, Broca, and others, by the process of gauging the skulls of different races, proceeds on the assumption of brain of a uniform density. But it seems by no means improbable that certain marked distinctions in races may be traceable to the very fact of a prevailing difference in the specific gravity of the brain, or of certain of its constituent portions; to the greater or less complexity of its convolutions; and to the relative characteristics of the two hemispheres. Moreover, it may be that some of those sources of difference in races may not lie wholly out of our reach, or even beyond our control. The diversity of food, for example, of the Peruvians and of the American Indian hunter tribes was little less than that which distinguishes the Eskimo from the Hindoo, or the nomad Tartar from the Chinese. The remarkable cerebral capacity characteristic of the Oceanic races is the accompaniment of well-defined peculiarities in food, climate, and other physical conditions; and Australia is even more distinct in its physical specialties than in its variety of race.

Looking then to the unwonted persistency of the Peruvian cranium within such narrow limits, so far at least as the physical characteristics of the predominant population of Peru are illustrated by means of the great Coast cemeteries; and to the striking discrepancy between the volume of brain and the intellectual activity of the race; I am led to the conclusion that, in the remarkable exceptional characteristics thus established by the study of this class of Peruvian crania, we have as marked an indication of a distinctive race-character as anything hitherto noted in anthropology.