Academy of Sciences] 

 No. 3] 



OBSERVATIONAL DATA 



The two groups of the academicians show practically the same conditions; in the outsiders 

 there are a few more "lows." It is quite possible that the lesser loss of hair above the forehead in 

 the latter class, due to lower ages, has influenced judgment to the above extent. 



In the proportion of "high" foreheads the academicians and the old Americans at large are 

 identical, which demonstrates once more the fallacy of associating high foreheads with superior 

 brains. 



The equally generalized view that a sloping forehead means mental inferiority is also fal- 

 lacious. The sloping forehead, if we except pathological brains, is frequently due to a greater 

 than usual development of the frontal sinuses and the supraorbital region. Frequently the upper 

 part of the forehead is not depressed, but the lower part has been carried forward more than 

 usual. Such a condition gives more or less of an external slope to a forehead which inwardly, 

 together with the fore part of the brain, may be quite free from the slant. But even if the slope 

 is due to other causes it does not necessarily mean any inferiority of the brain. Such a forehead 

 may naturally and does in known instances coexist with a brain of high qualities. 14 It may be 

 added that a sloping forehead occurs with both dolicho- and brachycephaly, and that it is in the 

 main a male character. 



The conditions shown in this respect by the members of the Academy and in the outside old 

 Americans were as follows: 



Table 9. — Slope of the forehead 



In this condition, it is observed, the academicians make a slightly worse showing than the 

 old Americans at large, which shows the valuelessness of the character. In one of the academi- 

 cians, and in another now dead and not included in the series, the slope was about as pronounced 

 as ever met with among normal whites, yet one of these men is one of the very foremost tech- 

 nicians of this country, while the other was one of its outstanding naturalists and theoreticians. 

 The data present strong evidence for the conclusion that only when a low or sloping forehead is 

 associated with and caused by a subnormal brain, can either of those features be regarded as a 

 mark of inferiority; otherwise it is just a morphological variation, perhaps physiognomic but of no 

 other significance. 



In the case of one prominent member the skull, though spacious, showed a typical earlier 

 Aurignacian form. Such heads, too, occur in cases among the oblong-headed groups of the white 

 race, particularly in Scandinavia, as they did and do among the dolichoid American Indians. 

 Such interesting occurrences are cases of survival or perhaps a reversion to the earlier type of 

 our common ancestry and they too have, if everything else is normal, no other significance. 



Deformation of the Head 



In only one subject among all the 150 academicians examined was there a mild head defor- 

 mation, due to a premature occlusion in probably the coronal suture. Such occlusions are gen- 

 erally connected with some nutritional disturbance during childhood and have no further 

 significance. 



Supraorbital Ridges 



These ridges are the more or less attentuated remnants of the heavy protective supraorbital 

 arch of the diluvial man. They are largely a male character and in civilized modern human groups 



" Comp. The Old Americans, p. 228. 



