APPLETONS' 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



MARCH, 1897. 



THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE. 

 A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY. 



{Lowell Institute Lectures^ 1896.) 

 By WILLIAM Z. EIPLEY, Ph. D., 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ; LECTURER IN 

 ANTHROPO-GEOGEAPHY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 



II. THE SHAPE OF THE HEAD AS A RACIAL TRAIT. 



THE shape of the human head by which we mean the general 

 proportions of length, breadth, and height, irrespective of 

 the "bumps" of the phrenologist is one of the best available 

 tests of race known. Its value is, at the same time, but imperfectly 

 appreciated beyond the inner circle of professional anthropology. 

 Yet it is so simple a phenomenon, both in principle and in prac- 

 tical application, that it may readily be of use to the traveler and 

 the not too superficial observer of men. To be sure, widespread 

 and constant peculiarities of head form are less noticeable in 

 America, because of the extreme variability of our population, 

 compounded as it is of all the races of Europe ; but in the Old 

 World the observant traveler may with a little attention often 

 detect the racial affinity of a people by this means. 



The form of the head is for all racial purposes best measured 

 by what is technically known as the cephalic index. This is sim- 

 ply the breadth of the head above the ears expressed in percent- 

 age of its length from forehead to back. Assuming that this 

 length is 100, the width is expressed as a fraction of it. As the 

 head becomes pro*portionately broader that is, more fully round- 

 ed, viewed from the top down this cephalic index increases. 

 When it rises above 80, the head is called brachycephalic ; when 

 it falls below 75, the term dolichocephalic is applied to it. In- 



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