86 Professor Owen on the [Feb. 9, 



by the successive conquerors of Syria for ages, — a low race of 

 people, and described by trustworthy travellers as being as black as 

 any of the Ethiopian races. Others of the Jewish people, parti- 

 cipating in European civilization, and dwelling in the northern 

 nations, show instances of the light complexion, blue eyes, and 

 light hair of the Scandinavian families. The condition of the 

 Hebrews, since their dispersion, has not been such as to admit of 

 much admixture by the proselytism of household slaves. We see, 

 then, how to account for the differences in colour, without having 

 to refer them to original or specific distinctions. As to the differ- 

 ence in size in mankind, it is slight in comparison with what we 

 observe in the races of the domestic dog, where the extremes of 

 size are much greater than can be found in any races of the human 

 species. With reference to the modifications of the bony structure, 

 as characteristic of the races of mankind, they are almost confined 

 to the pelvis and the cranium. In the pelvis the difference is a 

 slight, yet apparently a constant one. The pelvis of the adult 

 negro may sometimes be distinguished from that of the European 

 by the greater proportional length and less proportional breadth of 

 the iliac bones ; but how trifling is this difference compared with 

 that marked distinction in the pelvis which the orang-outang pre- 

 sents ! 



With regard to the cranial differences, the Professor selected 

 for comparison three extreme specimens of skulls characteristic of 

 race : one of an aboriginal of Van Diemen's Land (the lowest of 

 the Melanian or dark-coloured family), a well-marked Mongolian, 

 and a well-formed European skull. The differences were described 

 to be chiefly these. In the low, uneducated, uncivilised races, the 

 brain is smaller than in the higher, more civilised, and more educated 

 races ; consequently the cranium rises and expands in a less degree. 

 Concomitant with this contraction of the brain-case is a greater 

 projection of the fore-part of the face ; whether it may be from a 

 longer exercise of the practice of suckling, or a more habitual ap- 

 plication of the teeth in the intef-maxillary part of the jaw, and in 

 the corresponding part of the lower jaw, in biting and gnawing 

 tough, raw, uncooked substances, — the anterior alveolar part of thQ 

 jaws does project more in those lower races ; but still to an insigni- 

 ficant degree compared with the prominence of that part of the 

 skull in the large apes. And while alluding to them, the speaker 

 again adverted to the distinction between them and the lowest of 

 the human races, which is afforded by the inter-maxillary bone, 

 already referred to. In the young orang-outang, even when th& 

 change of dentition has begun, the suture between that bone and 

 the maxillary is present ; and it is not until the large canine leeth 

 are developed, that the stimulus of the vascular system, in the 

 concomitant expansion and growth of the alveoli, tends to obliterate 

 the suture. In the young chimpanzee, the maxillary suture disap- 

 pears earlier, at least on the facial surface of the upper jaw. In 



