3 i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



them. The portrait of Borulawsky is after a contemporary engraving, 

 that of Winckelmeier from a recent photograph. Beside them are 

 placed a new-born infant of twenty inches, an infantry soldier of mini- 

 mum stature (five feet one inch), a man of average size (five feet five 

 inches), and a cuirassier of six feet. The illustration comprises all the 

 important variations in human stature. 



The conditions that affect the stature of populations and races of 

 men may all be described under one general head that of nutrition. 

 The size of a population, a race, or a group of individuals living for sev- 

 eral generations in the same conditions of environment and resources, 

 is proportionate to its nutrition. Coming to particulars, we find that 

 this nutrition depends, first, on the aptitude for assimilation, which is 

 a question of climate ; and, second, upon the facility with which the 

 people can obtain a quantity of food in proportion to their power of 

 assimilation. 



It was long believed that climate alone had a great influence on 

 stature ; and, in fact, if we regard the white or light-colored races, we 

 remark that the stature is less in climates of extreme temperatures than 

 in temperate latitudes. In the extremely cold Arctic regions, the Lapps, 

 Esquimaux, and Greenlanders are very small ; but coming down into 

 more temperate regions and more fertile countries, we find much larger 

 races, like the Norsemen, Russians, Anglo-Saxons, and North-Germans 

 in Europe, and the Canadians and Indians in America. Farther south, 

 and as the temperature becomes hotter, the stature diminishes ; a fact 

 which may be verified among the Italians and Spaniards, and which is 

 observed in most of the great regions of the globe. 



These variations are not the effect of climate, but are directly 

 dependent, as we have already said, on nutrition. In very cold cli- 

 mates, assimilation is excessive, for the organism needs a large 

 quantity of food to sustain it against the outer temperature. If, in 

 consequence of the rigor of the climate and the limited resources of 

 the country in game and fish, waste is a little superior, or quite equal, 

 to assimilation, the population subject to such conditions must con- 

 tinue small. This is the case with the Laplanders and the Esquimaux 

 of the Arctic islands and the east coast of Greenland. But when game 

 and fish are abundant, the stature of the tribe rises ; as takes place 

 with the Esquimaux, whose average height increases as their habitat 

 draws nearer to their southern limit. There the Esquimaux cease to 

 be dwarfs and reach the average height of five and a half feet, or 

 greater than that of the French population. The climate is still rigor- 

 ous in Canada, and organic assimilation very active, but the country 

 is fertile and food abundant. There the native Indians and the colo- 

 nists of European origin attain great size and vigor. The Norsemen 

 and the Russians in Europe are in analogous conditions. On what a 

 Russian mujik eats in a day a Spanish peasant could subsist for a week. 

 It is to the influence of a keen winter cold and the assimilative power 



