﻿32 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



As to the relation of strength with stature, the 15 healthy tallest 

 Kharga men gave the average right hand pressure of 36.5 kg., the 

 20 shortest ones 33.9 kg., a decided advantage for those of higher 

 stature. Everything indicates that those of the lowest statures at the 

 Oasis are also those who present a greater general weakness, as well 

 as subnormal metabolism, while with those of the highest statures 

 these conditions are reversed. From this it seems safe to conclude 

 that short and tall statures, in this locality at least, are not pure racial 

 characteristics, but that they are largely due to the state of health 

 and nourishment of the individual during growth, and hence to en- 

 vironment ; and it can be assumed that when the economic and hy- 

 gienic conditions of the Oasis shall ameliorate, as they are bound to 

 do with the advance of civilization, the population will respond to 

 an important degree by better physical development. 



RESUME OF THE PRINCIPAL PHYSIOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 



The Kharga Oasis men show on the average, in comparison with 

 the European whites, a perceptibly faster pulse ; a slightly faster 

 respiration ; a perceptibly lower temperature ; and decidedly lower 

 muscular power. 



The differences in these functions according to age and stature 

 follow in general the same laws as among whites, American Indians, 

 and other races. 



The principal defects observed in the Kharga natives in these 

 tests are evidently not anthropological characteristics, but local and 

 temporary phenomena, attributable in the main to the immediate 

 environment, particularly nutrition, and are in all probability largely 

 remediable. 



7. OBSERVATIONS ON THE BODY 



COLOR 



The skin of the Kharga natives, like that of the Egyptians of the 

 Valley, is predominantly more or less brown. The color is, in the 

 main, quite the same as that of the American Indian of the moderate 

 zones. Individually it ranges from tawny and light brown to 

 medium brown ; darker shades in those who show no evidence of 

 negro mixture are rare. The records show that lighter shades of 

 yellow-brown or brown existed in 18 per cent; moderate brown in 

 81 per cent, and dark brown in but 1 per cent of the men examined. 

 The secondary shadings of different parts of the body are, so far as 



