ANTHROPOMETRY IN INDIA. 195 



supposed ancestors derided the stumpy, noseless, black 

 aborigines ; still, it may be that differences in elevation of 

 habitat have exerted some influence. 



Other and more unequivocal characteristics seem to be 

 those derivable from the breadth of the nose, and somewhat 

 less positively from the naso-malar index of Flower and 

 Oldfield-Thomas, on both of which great stress is laid by 

 Risley, whose figures seem to bear out his opinion. 



The average nasal index of the Punjabis comes out at 

 70*2, just on the limit of the leptorhine and mesorhine class, 

 but the Sikhs, Pathans, and Biluchs are actually leptorhine, 

 and the index for the Goojurs, the very interesting pastoral 

 caste of the Punjab, is as low as 66 y ; unfortunately only 

 13 Goojurs could be examined. These figures are perfectly 

 European. 1 



The nasal index does not, as might perhaps have been 

 expected, increase with anything like regular progression as 

 we advance eastwards from the Punjab ; but it does increase, 

 and that considerably. Something should perhaps be al- 

 lowed for the fact that a partly arbitrary, partly fortuitous 

 selection of castes cannot be relied on to give the absolute 

 means of the whole population ; and something, certainly, 

 for the personal equation of the observers ; for the exact 

 measurement of the nose is one of the most difficult bits of 

 anthropometry. But it seems strange that Risley's Bengalis 

 yield a nasal index of 787, his Beharis one of 80, and his 

 men of the upper Ganges (Oudh, etc.) one of 80*9. Simi- 

 larly, his Brahmans of Bengal give us 70*4, those of Behar 

 73-2, those of the upper Ganges 74-6. Can it be that there 

 is actually a larger Aryan element in Bengal than in the 

 country between there and the Sutlej ? That seems very 

 improbable. On the other hand, the Mongoloid brachyke- 

 phalic people of the Darjiling Hills have a comparatively 

 low mesorhine index — only 747 on an average, and the 

 Lepchas of Sikkim are positively leptorhine, while the 

 people of the Chittagong Hills have a mesorhine index 

 of 827, not nearly so high as that of the more dolichous 



1 I found the nasal index 69- 1 in 50 Englishmen, mostly of the upper 

 class. 



