34 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 92 



The group differences may now be seen very plainly. The lowest 

 incidence as well as the lowest development of the fossa is shown by 

 the Cantonese Chinese, and the next lowest by the Old Peruvians; 

 the highest occurs in the Eskimos, Aleuts, and the Old Egyptians. 

 The U. S. Whites and Negroes— the latter, as far as the adult bones 

 are concerned, all fullblood or very nearly so— are as remarkably 

 close in the adults as they were in the young, and in both the well- 

 marked fossa is rather infrequent. The North American Indians 

 and the pre-Aleut Kodiak Islanders, much alike, occupy a medium 



position. 



It is evident that matters in some of the instances do, in others 

 do not, follow racial affinities. There is a close similarity in conditions 

 in the racially widely apart Whites and Negroes, and a dissimilarity 

 between the fundamentally related Whites and the Old Egyptians. 

 The Old Peruvians differ, as they do in other respects, from the com- 

 bined contingents of the same race in North America, but are near 

 the Chinese, with whom the racial affinity is considerably less. The 

 frequency and prevalent development of the fossa are plainly, there- 

 fore, manifestations of no great value as racial criteria. 



In groping for other possible causes of the above differences it 

 is soon appreciated that the subject, as is usual with biological prob- 

 lems, is not simple. There are doubtless involved old chance segrega- 

 tions and consequently dift'ering hereditary influences, and there may 

 be ontogenetic factors. One of the latter that would seem to deserve 

 especial consideration is the general development of the bone. Looking 

 at the above data from this point of view we detect some concordance 

 — but also some disharmonies. The Canton Chinese have on the 

 average relatively short and weak femora, and so have the old 

 Peruvians— and these two groups stand together at the lowest inci- 

 dence of the fossa; on the other hand, very strong, though not the 

 largest, femora are common to the Eskimos and the Aleuts, while 

 strong as well as large bones are shown by the Egyptians, and these 

 three groups stand at or near the maximum end of our series. But 

 the pre-Aleut Kodiaks have also relatively short and weak, the 

 North American Indians prevalently large and strong, bones, yet the 

 two stand side by side in the middle of the groups; and both the 

 U. S. Whites and Negroes have relatively large and often powerful 

 femora, yet they stand in the scale of frequency and development 

 of the fossa next to the weak Peruvians. Thus here too, although 

 some probability of a correlation between the fossa and the mass 

 of the femur cannot be denied, the conditions are not definite and 

 regular enough for any clear deductions. 



