WHY WE MEASURE PEOPLE. 



15 



A careful consideration of the data tends to show that, 

 independent of stature, the brachycephals possess a mean 

 nasal index of about 69, that is to say very near mesorhiny, 

 which is in agreement with previous investigations. The 

 dolichocephalic races are more leptorhine. 



One result of this inquiry is that the value of the nasal 

 index has received a serious blow. Certainly this character 

 is very important for the discrimination of the great trunks 

 of mankind, as has been abundantly proved in anthropo- 

 logical investigations in India, but so far as the European 

 peoples are concerned, it is incontestable that the nasal 

 index has only a subsidiary and relative value. 



HEIGHT INDICES OF THE CRANIUM. 



The importance of the vertical height of the cranium as 

 a racial character has been emphasised by Virchow, but 

 Collignon was the first to study this factor in the living. 

 The two height indices are obtained by comparing the total 

 height of the head measured from the vertex to the centre 

 of the ear-hole with — (1) the length of the head, and (2) 

 its greatest breadth, each of these two diameters being 

 taken as 100. 



The indices are classified as follows : — l 



A really high skull, if it is very broad, may appear 

 relatively low, or a low, but very narrow head, may appear 

 decidedly hypsicephalic. Hence the necessity to consider 

 first the cephalic index and thereby to recognise the normal 

 and harmonic fluctuations of the inverse variations of these 

 two vertical indices. 



1 These indices are taken from a subsequent memoir by Dr. Collignon. 

 {Man. Soc. d'Anthrop. Paris, i. (3 e ser.), 1895, pp. 94, 95.) 



