376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gians belong to the perfected types. Some races have the same 

 skulls very small, of about the same volume as the microcephalous 

 skulls ; for example, the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands and 

 the Veddahs of Ceylon have been regarded as microcephalic. A 

 more exact study has, however, shown a difference between them 

 and the real microcephalic races. The head of an Andaman- 

 islander or of a Veddah is very regular, only all its parts are a 

 little smaller than among men of the ordinary races. Nanicephalic 

 heads (dwarf), as I call them, have none of those characteristic 

 anomalies that distinguish really microcephalic heads. 



A single race, that of the Orang-Simaings and the Orang- 

 Cekai of the peninsula of Malacca, still remains unstudied. The 

 single traveler who has penetrated into the mountainous coun- 

 tries inhabited by them, the bold Russian, Miklukho Maklai, has 

 ascertained that certain isolated individuals among Simaings are 

 small and have curled hair. A new expedition has been sent into 

 that country to study the anthropology of the Orang-Cekai, from 

 which I have recently received a skull and a few locks of hair ; 

 the stock is really a black race with curly hair, the brachycepha- 

 lous head of which is distinguished by very moderate interior 

 volume, but it does not offer the most trifling sign of bestial 

 development. 



Thus we are repulsed at every line of the assault upon the hu- 

 man question. All the researches undertaken with the aim of 

 finding continuity in progressive development have been without 

 result. There exists no proanthropos, no man-monkey, and the 

 "connecting link" remains a phantom. 



Scientific anthropology begins with living races ; and the first 

 step in the construction of the doctrine of transf ormism will be the 

 explanation of the way the human races have been formed, and 

 of the means by which they have acquired their specific peculiari- 

 ties while still preserving hereditary transmission. That is the 

 future field of anthropological debate and investigation. But 

 this field is outside of the limitations of our Congress. It is easy 

 at first sight to suppose a dolichocephalous skull to be trans- 

 formed into a brachycephalous skull, but still nobody has ever 

 observed the transformation of a dolichocephalous race into a 

 brachycephalous one, or vice versa, or of a negro race into an 

 Aryan race. 



Prehistoric anthropology should find methods of facilitating 

 acquaintance with the types of ancient races and peoples, and of 

 making possible the discovery of them among living men. It 

 might add to that, if the occasion should present itself, data re- 

 specting strange individual cases, by the aid of which it is im- 

 possible to form a continuous line or constitute a genealogical 

 tree, but which should be kept in the scientific lumber-room till 



