298 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



Broca says (in a paper read before the Congress of Pre-historic 

 Archeology, in 1868) : " The great capacity of the brain, the 

 development of the frontal region, the fine elliptical form of the 

 anterior part of the profile of the skull, are incontestable charac- 

 teristics of superiority, such as we are accustomed to meet with in 

 civilized races." We cannot fail to be struck with the apparent 

 anomaly that many of the lowest savages should have as much 

 brains as average Europeans. The idea is suggested of a sur- 

 plusage of power ; of an instrument beyond the need of its pos- 

 sessor. In order to discover if there is any foundation for this 

 notion, let us compare the brain of man with that of animals. 

 The adult male orang-outang is quite as bulky as a small-sized 

 man, while the gorilla is considerably above the average size of 

 man as estimated by bulk and weight; yet the former has a brain 

 of only 28 cubic inches, the latter one of 30, or, in the largest 

 specimen yet known, of 34 cubic inches. "We see, then, that 

 whether we compare the savage with the higher developments of 

 man, or with the brutes around him, we are alike driven to the 

 conclusion that in his large and well-developed brain he possesses 

 an organ quite disproportionate to his actual requirements, 

 an organ that seems prepared in advance, only to be fully utilized 

 as he progresses in civilization. A brain slightly larger than that 

 of the gorilla would, according to the evidence before us, fully 

 have sufficed for the limited mental development of the savage ; 

 and we must therefore admit, that the large brain he actually pos- 

 sesses could never have been solely developed by any of those 

 laws of evolution, whose essence is, that they lead to a degree of 

 organization exactly proportionate to the wants of each species, 

 never beyond those wants ; that no preparation can be made for 

 the future development of the race ; that one part of the body can 

 never increase in size or complexity, except in strict co-ordina- 

 tion to the pressing wants of the whole. The brain of pre-his- 

 toric and of savage man seems to me to prove the existence of 

 some power distinct from that which has guided the develop- 

 ment of the lower animals through their ever-varying forms of 

 being. Amer. Jour, of Science and Arts. 



SOME ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES IN ANIMAL MECHANICS. 



The following is an abstract of a paper " On the Difference be- 

 tween a Hand and a Foot, as shown by their Flexor Tendons." 

 By the Rev. Samuel Haughton, M.D., Dublin, D.C.L., Oxon, 

 Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. The fore feet of vertebrate 

 animals are often used merely as organs of locomotion, like the 

 hind feet; and in the higher mammals they are more or less 

 " cephalized," or appropriated as hands to the use of the brain. 

 The proper use of the hand when thus specialized in its action is 

 to grasp objects ; while the proper use of a foot is to propel the 

 animal forward by the intervention of the ground. In the case of 

 the hand, the flexor muscles of the fore-arm act upon the finger- 

 tendons, in a direction from the muscles towards the tendons, 



