POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



133 



race upon the mountain-spurs and the upper 

 valleys. Herr Eckert reported to the Con- 

 gress concerning the progress he had made 

 in determining the differences in the skulls 

 of the sexes. The feminine skull appears 

 to be marked by a smaller volume, greater 

 delicacy in the contours of the orbits and 

 the structure of the jaws, the absence or 

 inferior importance of the frontal sinus, a 

 more gradual passage from the forehead to 

 the root of the nose, and a flattening of the 

 parietal bone. A discussion took place re- 

 specting some Arabic silver ornaments and 

 filigrees of the tenth and eleventh centuries 

 which have been found in Northern and 

 Eastern Europe. Virchow has concluded, 

 from the occurrence of these articles, that 

 an extensive trade existed in the ninth and 

 tenth centuries between the regions of the 

 Volga, the Baltic ports, and the northern 

 countries, and the coasts of the Black Sea 

 and the East. These Arabic ornaments are 

 very abundant in the province of Posen, 

 in some parts of Russia, and in Gothland, 

 and Arabic coins are found in Xorway and 

 Iceland. A paper was presented by Pro- 

 fessor Ranke, based on the statistics of 

 recruits for the year, which appeared to 

 show that a relation exists between the 

 character of the country and the size of the 

 men who inhabit it. The higher mountain- 

 regions appear generally to produce the 

 larger men. M. Kollmann, of Switzerland, 

 read a paper showing that prognathism, 

 which is believed to be an exclusive mark 

 of inferior races, is of frequent occurrence 

 among civilized people. The prognathous 

 jaws which have hitherto been found in 

 Europe have been considered as abnormal 

 cases, or as examples of alveolar progna- 

 thism ; but it is impossible exactly to sepa- 

 rate alveolar from real prognathism. Some 

 skulls from the heart of Germany, by what- 

 ever rules or lines they are measured, show 

 a greater degree of prognathism than those 

 of the negroes of Australia ; and the con- 

 clusion can not be avoided that this feat- 

 ure is shared to a considerable extent by 

 civilized people. An interesting communi- 

 cation was made concerning the skull of 

 Emmanuel Kant, whose remains had been 

 exhumed in order to place them in the 

 tomb built for them by the city of Konigs- 

 berg. Two skeletons were found together, 



but the remains of Kant were identified by 

 comparing the skull with the cast which was 

 preserved in the archives of Konigsberg, 

 with which it was found to correspond ex- 

 actly. The bones of the nose were turned 

 toward the right, and the superciliary arch 

 had a greater development on the same side. 

 The greatest cranial length was 182 milli- 

 metres, the height 132 millimetres, and the 

 breadth 161 millimetres, while the mean 

 breadth of Prussian skulls is only 144'6 

 millimetres. The forehead had none of the 

 majesty attributed to a thinker ; it was not 

 broad, and was a little retreating. The tem- 

 ples had a fullness that compensated for 

 this lack, and the left temple showed a pro- 

 tuberance in the region of the third frontal 

 circumvolution, the region in which the fac- 

 ulty of controlling articulate speech is sup- 

 posed to reside. The only extraordinary 

 feature of the face was the height of the 

 orbits. 



Life and IVature in the Campos. Dr. D. 



Christison's narrative of his journey to cen- 

 tral Uruguay, given before the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society last fall, is full of curious 

 illustrations of the primitive character of 

 the life in a country which, although it has 

 great capacities for development, is as yet 

 hardly known abroad. The region to which 

 the description applies is the estancia of San 

 Jorge, on the south bank of the Rio Negro, 

 almost in the center of the republic, which 

 embraces an area of three hundred and 

 sixty-four square miles. The journey from 

 Montevideo was made in a diligencia, an open 

 omnibus in three compartments, holding 

 twelve passengers, and drawn by six half- 

 broken or unbroken horses, which are driven 

 in a manner peculiar to the Campos. In or- 

 der to prevent accidents from unperceived 

 faults in the roads, a cuartiador rides about 

 twenty yards ahead of the team and conducts 

 it by means of a rope which at one end is 

 fastened to the wagon-pole and loosely con- 

 nected with the bridles of the leaders, and 

 at the other end is attached to the saddle of 

 his own horse. The stages are short, but 

 the stops are very long, for the horses have 

 to be driven in from the plain, and much 

 talking has to be done before those which 

 are needed are lassoed and harnessed to the 

 wagon. " Sometimes an animal is selected, 



