488 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



top the leafy Olympus, in their daring efforts to scale the heav- 

 ens, so modern Science has raised mountain on mountain high in 

 her effort to rise to the eternal source of truth. She may not have 

 sent Abaris around the earth on an arrow, but with lightning- 

 like swiftness she sends our messages from ocean to ocean and 

 from continent to continent. Her votaries may at times have 

 seemed to some narrow-minded persons about to hang a Nessus 

 shirt upon humanity, but, when the garment came to be received 

 and understood, it was found to be not only destitute of the hydra 

 venom, but filled with the greatest blessings for our race. Thus 

 has Science wrought, opening up Hesperian gardens with their 

 golden fruit, and, while scattering physical, intellectual, and 

 moral benefits on every hand, has impressed upon man the grand 



truth that 



" No pent-up Utica contracts his powers, 

 But the whole boundless continent is ours." 



-*- 



DRESS AND ADORNMENT. 

 I. DEFORMATIONS. 

 By Pkof. FREDERICK STARR. 



FOR our course of lectures in anthropology this year we have 

 selected a single subject : Dress arid Adornment This will 

 be treated in four lectures upon the following topics : 1. Defor- 

 mation. 2. Dress. 3. Ornament. 4. Religious dress. It is not 

 claimed that the treatment is exhaustive ; it is hoped, however, 

 that it will be suggestive. Nor is it the lecturer's expectation 

 that his audience will agree with him in all his views ; he simply 

 asks a fair consideration. 



The question as to whether beauty is a something inherent in 

 an object or a person, that appeals to a universal sentiment of 

 mankind, is one that has been much debated. The metaphysician 

 and the anthropologist are likely to answer the question differ- 

 ently. There is certainly no one ideal of personal beauty that 

 appeals to all the world alike. The face most beautiful to us 

 would be displeasing to a Hottentot. We may well look for a 

 moment at some ethnic ideals of beauty. The negro admires 

 blackness ; Clapperton tells us that among certain Africans the 

 white color of the skin, of which Europeans are so proud, ex- 

 cites only pity, astonishment, or terror ; the Chinese dislike our 

 noses, which they say are like the beaks of birds ; the woman in 

 Cochin-China sighs to be round like an apple ; and the Hottentot 

 women do not look with disfavor upon those enormous fatty 

 outgrowths above the hips which to us appear frightful. So a 



