94 A. STEADIING ANNIVEKSAEY ADDEESS : 



Wailes, ia his recent lechire on " Crystals and Precious Stones," 

 told lis how the tongue was applied to test diamonds. The way 

 in which the food is balanced by means of the muscles is very 

 wonderful, and so also is the way in which we detect a grain 

 of sand in the food and steady it against the teeth ; while the 

 whistling of the chromatic scale by a boy is an achievement pro- 

 bably unsurpassed in the animal world. On the other hand, the 

 movement involved in putting out the tongue is probably the easiest 

 of all bodily actions. 



"With regard to speech, we are told on the authority of Mr. 

 Edison that very few persons recognize their own voices, but 

 probably they would not recognize themselves if they could meet. 

 It is said that stammering is not known amongst savages, but is 

 a product of civilization. No savage makes the noise of clearing 

 the throat, and it is very doubtful whether a savage ever laughs 

 abuid. Eut savages soon learn to do so, as the wild dog learns 

 to bark on hearing the bark of the domestic dog. Gesture-language 

 is pretty much the same amongst savages as amongst the rest of 

 mankind; although it may seem remarkable at first, it is descriptive 

 and imitative in its origin. Language will have to be modified 

 very much in that toothless future of which dentists give us the 

 prediction. Cooked food has probably very much to do with the 

 loss of teeth, but the great expanse of the brain may take up so 

 much of the skull that there is not sufficient space for powerful 

 muscles to work a heavy jaw. 



The average weight of the brain of males is 49^ ounces ; that 

 of females is said to be about 6 ounces less, which shows what 

 capital stuff it must be made of, the smaller quantity doing so 

 much. These are, of course, the absolute weights ; if we take the 

 relative weight to the weight of the body, we shall probably find 

 that the female brain is proportionately equal in weight to the 

 male brain. Some very clever and intelligent men had very large 

 brains. Thackeray's brain weighed 58^ ounces ; a celebrated 

 French surgeon's 62-| ounces ; Abercrombie's an ounce heavier ; 

 and Cuvier's, the heaviest on record, 64 ounces. Napoleon's was 

 a very heavy brain. But there is no rule : the brain of some very 

 intelligent people is not much above the average; the brain of John 

 Stuart Mill was a very small one indeed. Only two animals in the 

 world have a brain heavier than that of man, the elephant and 

 the whale, both intensely stupid creatures; in fact, no animal comes 

 near to man in intellect in comparison with weight of brain. 

 Some of the giant brutes of bygone days were remarkably scanty 

 in this respect, some allied to the rhinocei'os having smaller brains 



