336 THE LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION 



kind, and their intellectual inferiority. The collections 

 of Dr. J. B. Davis and Dr. Morton give the following 

 as the average internal capacity of the cranium in the 

 chief races : Teutonic family, 94 cubic inches ; Esqui- 

 maux, 91 cubic inches ; Negroes, 85 cubic inches ; 

 Australians and Tasmanians, 82 cubic inches; Bush- 

 men, 77 cubic inches. These last numbers, however, 

 are deduced from comparatively few specimens, and 

 may be below the average, just as a small number of 

 Finns and Cossacks give 98 cubic inches, or con- 

 siderably more than that of the German races. It is 

 evident, therefore, that the absolute bulk of the brain 

 is not necessarily much less in savage than in civilised 

 man, for Esquimaux skulls are known with a capacity 

 of 113 inches, or hardly less than the largest among 

 Europeans. But what is still more extraordinary, the 

 few remains yet known of pre-historic man do not 

 indicate any material diminution in the size of the 

 brain case. A Swiss skull of the stone age, found 

 in the lake dwelling of Meilen, corresponded exactly 

 to that of a Swiss youth of the present day. The 

 celebrated Neanderthal skull had a larger circumfer- 

 ence than the average, and its capacity, indicating 

 actual mass of brain, is estimated to have been not less 

 than 75 cubic inches, or nearly the average of exist- 

 ing Australian crania. The Engis skull, perhaps the 

 oldest known, and which, according to Sir John 

 Lubbock, a there seems no doubt was really contem- 

 porary with the mammoth and the cave bear," is yet, 

 according to Professor Huxley, "a fair average skull, 



