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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



either have been perpetuated for an enormous lapse of time, if the sup- 

 position of a common origin be entertained, or else have developed 

 themselves independently. 



These are, however, only extreme or exaggerated cases of the al- 

 most universal custom of making a permanent aperture through the 

 lobe of the ear for the purpose of inserting some adventitious object 

 by way of adornment, or even for utility, as in the man of the Island 

 of Mangea, figured in Cook's " Voyages," who carries a large knife 

 through a hole in the lobe of the right ear. Among ourselves, the 

 custom of wearing ear-rings still survives, even in the highest grades of 

 society, although it has been almost entirely abandoned by one half of 

 the community, and in the other the perforation is reduced to the 

 smallest size compatible with the purpose of carrying the ornament 

 suspended from it. 



The teeth, although allowed by the greater part of the world to , 

 retain their natural beauty and usefulness of form, still offer a field 

 for artificial alterations according to fashion, which has been made use 

 of principally in two distinct regions of the world and by two distinct 

 races. It is, of course, only the front teeth, and mainly the upper in- 

 cisors, that are available for this purpose. Among various tribes of 

 negroes of Equatorial Africa, different fashions of modifying the nat- 

 ural form of these teeth prevail, specimens of which may be found in 

 any large collection of crania of these people. One of the simplest 

 consists of chipping and filing away a large triangular piece from the 

 lower and inner edge of each of the central incisors, so that a gap is 



Fio 5. Upper Front Teeth altered according to Fashion : 1, 2, 3, African ; 4, 5, 6, Malay. 



produced in the middle of the row in front (Fig. 5, 1). Another fash- 

 ion is to shape all the incisors into sharp points, by chipping off the 

 corners, giving a very formidable crocodilian appearance to the jaws 

 (2) ; and another is to file out either a single or a double notch in the 



