I have already insisted that facts of this nature are irreconcilable with those theories which attribute a more or less pithecoid ancestor to man.

In discussing the cranial cavity, our special object is to supply the deficiency of information upon the volume and weight of the brain. Now, from this point of view, we may easily fall into error. The bony cabinet and its contents are developed, to a certain extent at least, independently. This is very clearly demonstrated by a fact which was observed by Gratiolet, and is too frequently forgotten. The subject is an infant in whom the cranium presented the normal conformation. The brain was, nevertheless, almost entirely wanting. In well-formed men the sinuses and coverings of the brain may very easily be more or less developed according to the individual or race, and influence the relative dimensions of the brain.

Moreover, the exact measurement of the capacity of the cranium is attended by difficulties which have not yet been entirely surmounted. In spite of the improvements introduced by M. Broca in his method of measuring with shot, consecutive measurements of the same cranium by the same observer will vary considerably in the result.

Again, there are peculiarities to be taken into consideration, the importance of which has long been neglected. We have known for several years that the stature has an influence upon the weight of the brain. It cannot be without influence upon the cavity by which the latter is enclosed. M. Broca has shown that sex is of itself a cause of variation. In the woman the mean cranial capacity is always less

than in the man, and the difference varies between different

races.

Nevertheless, in examining a sufficient number of skulls, the causes of error may counterbalance each other, and the means may be accepted as giving results sufficiently near the truth. The results obtained by the same observer are especially favourable for comparison, and from them certain results may be obtained. There is no reason, therefore, why the cranial capacity should not be considered as a character well worthy of study. But its importance must not be exaggerated.

M. Broca arrived at the following result, in considering the distinction of extreme races. The cranial capacity of the Australian being represented by 100, that of the African Negro is 111.60, and that of fair European races 124.8.

I borrow from my eminent colleague the following table, published by M. Topinard in his Anthropologie. This table

gives the mean cranial capacity, in cubic centimetres, for a certain number of races in both sexes. I have merely substituted the serial order in the men for the almost

geographical division of the author, and calculated the difference between the sexes.

We here observe facts of intercrossing similar to those which I have so often pointed out. The Merovingians, a white race of the first order, are placed between the yellow Chinese and the New Caledonians, Melanesian Negroes.

But the chief value of this table is to show into what serious errors an estimation of the intellectual development of a race from its cranial capacity would lead us. By such an estimation, the troglodytes of the cavern of L'HommeMort would be superior to all races enumerated in the table, including contemporary Parisians, and the Chinese would come after the Esquimaux. The French populations occupy, it is true, the upper portion of the table, and the several Negro races are at the bottom. But here, again, when we find the Nubians following closely upon the Australians, we must confess that there can be no real relation between the dimensions of the cranial capacity and social development. We meet, moreover, with similar questions when we turn our attention to the brain.

The following table, which I borrow from Morton, is as instructive as the preceding. It includes a greater number of races. Moreover, the American savant has not only given the means, but also the maxima and minima as established by his researches. His measurements are given in cubic inches. As they are only required for comparison with those of other observers, I have not reduced them to cubic centimetres. I have again confined myself to arranging the means in a descending series, and to calculating the differences between the maxima and minima.

This table, borrowed from one of the most eminent supporters of polygenism, should, I think, excite reflections in all who pay any attention to facts.

We find the Chinese placed, by their mean cranial capacity, below the Polynesians, the African Negroes, and the savage tribes of North America. Is this really the position which their civilization assigns to them?

In Morton's table the Creole Negroes of America fall below the African Negroes by the lesser development of the same cavity. Meigs has confirmed this curious fact in several ways, and has even made the difference still wider; 808 for the former and 83.7 for the latter. And yet it is universally acknowledged that Negroes born in America are intellectually superior to their African brothers. Even Nott allows that it is so. With them, therefore, the intelligence increases, while the cranial capacity diminishes.

This fact is the more singular since the observations of M. Broca upon Parisian skulls of the thirteenth to the nineteenth century show that the cranial capacity increases with general intellectual progress. The measurements taken by the same observer upon individuals belonging to the edu cated and illiterate classes lead to the same conclusion.

Still, however, we cannot disregard the calculations of Morton and Meigs; and this experience, bearing upon numerous populations of the same race, seems to establish beyond a doubt the fact, which already clearly results from the comparison of different races, namely, that the development of the intellectual faculties of man is, to a great extent, independent of the capacity of the cranium and the volume of the brain.

I must here confine myself to the statement that the diminution of the cranium is, in North America, one of the characters of the Creole Negro race, derived from the African Negro race.

The intercrossing of races is again demonstrated in this table by the means. The Hindoos and ancient Egyptians are separated from the other White races of the Negroes, Chinese, Polynesians, and Red-Skins.

But the maxima and minima show still more clearly how far this confusion would be carried, if individuals were compared. Hottentots and Australians, by their maxima of 83, would stand before Germans and Anglo-Americans, whose minimum is not so high. With much greater reason would they be placed in the midst of all the other races, which, by their means, are placed above them. This is not all. Between the highest and the lowest mean, between the English and Hottentots, or Australians, the difference in cranial capacity is only twenty-one cubic inches. The difference between the maximum and minimum of the Chinese is exactly the same. And it is much greater in nine other races, being more than double in the Germans and Peruvians.

Do we meet with facts like those resulting from the measurements of Morton in the species of a single genera of