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descendants of the European emigrants have perceptibly increased in stature in the United States within a short period. It is the more conceivable that this effect is caused by the change of locality, as the aboriginal inhabitants are likewise remarkable for their size, and in them also the arrest of growth takes place only in the thirtieth year; at least five hundred of the Iroquois who were measured, were on an average a trifle taller than the Americans of the United States in the same recruiting districts." That good and abundant food promotes bodily size is shown by the universally more portly figures of the Polynesian chiefs in the South Sea Islands. Similarly among the Kaffirs, six men of a chieftain's family yielded an average of 1830 mm. or 110 mm. more than is otherwise found among the Bantu negroes of Southern Africa. The strikingly low stature of the Bushmen on the southern edge of the Kalahari may likewise be attributed to bad nourishment, for Chapman found their stature greater in the north, where game is more plentiful; the Koi-Koin, or Hottentots, their kindred by consanguinity, perhaps surpass them in height merely because they are shepherds and not hunters like the Bushmen. Yet food and the nature of the abode can by no means account for all differences, otherwise the Kaffirs could not in their turn outstrip the Hottentots, though both gain their livelihood in like manner and in the same region. Gustav Fritsch determined the following averages:

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Difference of stature is therefore to a certain extent attributable to parentage, and so far bodily dimensions may be used as a distinctive mark in the description of nations. Yet we have no averages derived from a great number of statistics; while measurements even of the same race are extremely various. With regard

Gould, Investigations, pp. 151, 152.
7 Darwin, Descent of Man, vol. i. p. 115.
• Eingeborne Sudafrika's, pp. 17, 277, 397.

Stature of Different Races.

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to the Maori of New Zealand, for instance, we find the following

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Of these, Thomson's averages obtained from 147 measurements are probably most trustworthy. 10 The average dimensions may also increase or diminish within the same race, owing to separation during thousands of years, migrations to great distances, and altered habits of life; for, notwithstanding the fluctuations of the figures, it is impossible to doubt that the Asiatic Malays belong to the small nations, while the Polynesian Malays are preeminent for their stature."

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In every family of mankind popular report speaks of certain persons of unusual size as giants. Statements respecting such

9 Weisbach, Anthropol. Theil der Novara-Reise, p. 217.

10 Gould, Investigations, p. 146.

11 Weisbach.

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extreme cases are however of no ethnological value.12 noteworthy that almost every circumnavigator of the world has contradicted the old anthropological fictions spread by Pigafetta the companion of Magalhães, as to the superhuman size of the Patagonians. It is true these South American families belong to the nations of high stature, as is shown by the following measure

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yet the Polynesians are in no way inferior to them in stature. The lofty volcanic islands of the South Sea and the two continents of America are in truth the regions in which the human race has locally attained the highest stature.13

The lowest stature in man may fall to surprisingly low figures in single cases, for dwarfs of 920 mm. (3 ft. 0'2211268 in.) and even 750 mm. (2 ft. 6·5280925 in.) are described as perfectly well formed. 14

But here again ethnology can make use only of averages derived from large numbers. The Bushmen of South Africa have hitherto been considered the smallest of men; their height having been stated by Barrow as 1300 mm., although Knox estimated them at 1372 mm., and the accurate Fritsch at 1444 mm. 15 Du Chaillu found the same dwarfish proportions in the Obongos in Equatorial Africa, who resemble the Bushmen in other characters.16

12 According to Gould (Investigations), in every million of men measured for military service there are :—

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13 According to Gould (Investigations, p. 152), of 500 Iroquois, 159 men of 31 years and upwards reached a height of 686 inches.

14 Gould, p. 153.

15 Weisbach, p. 216. Fritsch, Eingeborne Südafrika's, p. 397.

16 Ashango Land, p. 319. The average stature of six women was 4ft. 81 or 1420 mm.

Sexual Differences of Stature.

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Again, the Acka, seen by the traveller Schweinfurth in the region of the Gazelle Nile, are somewhat similar, although they attain the height of 1500 mm.17 It is a significant fact that the polar nations of both the Old and the New World must be added to this list of tropical families. The statements made by Pauw, giving 1300 mm. (4 ft. 3·182027 in.) as the average stature of the Eskimo, are, it is true, totally discredited by other measurements now before us, i.e.

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1380 mm. (4 ft. 618094862 in.) is also certainly less than the average of the Laplanders; 18 still both these nations are universally reckoned by travellers among the diminutive races of mankind. At all events we may confidently assert that human families remarkable for their small size exist in every latitude.

Hitherto we have taken the size of the men only into consideration, but we have now to note that a lower stature is one of the secondary characters of the female sex. Among women the average size fluctuates within much narrower limits, namely, from 1395 mm. (4 ft. 6·77151047 in.) to 1662 mm. (5 ft. 5:32625298 in.) 19 The measurements which have already been made also show that the difference of size in the two sexes almost disappears among the diminutive nations. 20 Thus Fritsch found 1448 mm. (4 ft. 8.57690392 in.) to be the average of five Bushwomen, or 4 mm. more than in the case of men, and this is corroborated by the statements of Weisbach. Accordingly, it is the male sex which is

17 Petermann's Geograph. Mittheilungen, pp. 139–150. 1871.

18 According to Tenon as cited by Gould (Investigations), p. 144, and Weisbach, p. 216.

19 Weisbach.

20 Fritsch, Eingeborne Südafrika's, p. 398.

specially contemplated in speaking of tall or short nations.

The average stature of the male sex we shall take to be from 1600 mm. (5 ft. 2993264 in.) to 1700 mm. (5 ft. 6'930343 in.), the medium height of the female sex at. 1525 mm. (5 ft. 004045475 in.) to 1575 mm. (5 ft. 196899425 in.), and according to this standard we shall separate mankind into the short, medium, and tall families.

Venturing to express some conjectures concerning the causes of variations in stature, we would point out that this mass of measurements of recruits made during the American war, show that large bodily dimensions are dependent on a prolonged period of growth. This we conceive to be shortened in the case of women by the earlier maturity of their sex. It is also probable that the full development of the body is impeded by precocious marriages, which, as we shall see, occur among the polar nations and the Bushmen.

Numerous measurements are alone capable of enlightening us as to what proportions the individual parts and members of the human frame attain in different districts. Quetelet thought that the human type in Belgium. harmonized with the estimates derived from the works of Grecian sculptors. 22 But it appears that the ancient artists did not blindly follow an invariable rule, just as in later times great masters, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Dürer, did not agree in their notions of so-called symmetry. A Belgian painter, moreover, is wont to study drawing so constantly from the great masterpieces of antiquity that their proportions become at last impressed upon him as strictly imperative. He will often hire or reject a female model for his studies from nature according as to whether she approaches or departs from the desired ideal. Hence, if in ten of the female models employed by the sculptors or painters of Brussels, the average proportions of individual parts of the body approximated very closely to the like

21 Beechey as cited by Weisbach gives the following measurements of Eskimo :

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