n^ 



HE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 . MONTHLY. 



JULY, 1881. 

 THE EACES OF MANKIND.* 



Br E. B. TYLOE, F. E. S. 



ANTHROPOLOGY finds race-differences most clearly in stature 

 and proportions of limbs, conformation of the skull and the brain 

 within, characters of features, skin, eyes, and hair, peculiarities of con- 

 stitution, and mental and moral temperament. 



In comparing races as to their stature, we concern ourselves not 

 with the tallest or shortest men of each tribe, but with the ordinary or 

 average-sized men who may be taken as fair representatives of their 

 whole tribe. The difference of general stature is well shown where a 

 tall and a short people come together in one district. Thus, in Aus- 

 tralia the average English colonist of five feet eight inches looks clear 

 over the heads of the five feet four inch Chinese laborers. Still more 

 in Sweden does the Swede of five feet seven inches tower over the 

 stunted Lapps, whose average measure is not much over five feet. 

 Amono- the tallest of mankind are the Pataofonians, who seemed a race 

 of giants to the Europeans who first watched them striding along their 

 cliffs draped in their skin cloaks ; it was even declared that the heads 

 of Magalhaens's men hardly reached the waist of the first Patagonian 

 they met. Modern travelers find, on measuring them, that they really 

 often reach six feet four inches, their mean heio-ht beini]c about five feet 

 eleven inches three or four inches taller than average Englishmen. 

 The shortest of mankind are the Bushmen and related tribes in South 

 Africa, with an average height not far exceeding four feet six inches. 

 A fair contrast between the tallest and shortest races of mankind may 

 be seen in Fig. 1, where a Patagonian is drawn side by side with a 



* Abridged from Chapter III of " Anthropology : An Introduction to the Study of 

 Man and Civilization." By Edward B. Tylor, D. C. L., F. R. S. New York : D. Appleton 

 & Co. 1881. 



VOL. XIX. 19 



