18 OBSERVATIONS AND MEASUREMENTS ACADEMY MEMBERS [Mem0 [vol N xxiit 



less is due largely to the advanced age of many of the members, but to some extent is also con- 

 nected with the frequently only moderate development of their alveolar processes and their 

 protrusion. 



The chin. — The chin in the members of the Academy, both groups, was found to be much 

 less frequently square than in the old Americans at large. This is another expression of the more 

 moderate development of the jaws in the members. 



Body and limbs. — With very rare exceptions the body and limbs of the academicians were 

 found to be normal. None could be described as very rugged, but none either as feeble, except 

 in some instances through age. In many of the members the preservation and relative vigor of 

 the body, notwithstanding their age, were remarkable and showed both a good endowment as 

 well as exercise and care. 



Anomalies. — The proportion of more noteworthy anomalies in the members was small, and 

 what there was reflected no weakness. 



General conclusions. — The general conclusions from the visual observations on the members 

 of the Academy and their comparison with old Americans at large are: 



The academicians represent a remarkably normal lot, indicating that a certain physical 

 superiority accompanies the mental selection. 



The two groupings within the Academy, i. e., the old Americans and those of later Euro- 

 pean derivation, differ somewhat in particulars of racial origin, but correspond closely in all the 

 more important characteristics, including those that distinguish the members from the old 

 American people outside the Academy. 



The principal differences of the members from the outside population consist of the absence 

 in the former of highly blond and tridy red hair, with the characteristic partly depigmented and 

 "rosed" skin that accompanies genuine red hair; and of a generally somewhat feebler development 

 of the facial parts of the skull, including the supraorbital ridges. In all probability the acad- 

 emicians present also a somewhat greater average thinness of the skull, as may be judged from 

 the smooth contours of the same and the somewhat less developed masticatory and other 

 musculature attached to the cranium. 



MEASUREMENTS 



Measurements of the body and its parts are generally given little if any reflection ; yet they 

 have more significance than do the measurements of inert objects. For what is measured on 

 the body is the result, at the age-period of the measurement, of the functions of growth and devel- 

 opment, modified by normal inherent variability and by sex, race, family inheritances, occupa- 

 tion, environmental and even pathological factors. In the measurements of man therefore 

 we are dealing with determinations of very considerable complexity which, if satisfactory 

 results are to be obtained, calls for dealing with large numbers of subjects, as far as possible 

 normal, of one sex and of a definite and restricted age category. 



To comply with such stipulations in such a body as the members of the National Academy 

 is difficult. There are two serious obstacles — the number of available subjects, and the wide 

 range of the ages of the members, with many more or less already involved in senile changes 

 in the body. Thus what can be presented in the following pages must be taken only as what 

 was feasible under the difficult conditions. But this does not mean that the data are incapable 

 of showing much of value, for notwithstanding their limitations, they do bring forth many 

 points of substantial interest. 



A serious question that came up in connection with the treatment of the data was that of 

 the usefulness in such series of data as these of any except the simplest mathematical deter- 

 minations. In my view of the matter it would be fallacious to believe that a "biometric" 

 treatment of the data could either add anything to the facts brought out by simpler treatment, 

 or show anything the latter was not able to show. In reality, with data of such a complex 

 nature such a treatment would tend more to cover and conceal than to extract and clarify mat- 

 ters. Biometrics used indiscriminately, as it often is today, is not only a great waster of time 



