PEOCEEDIN-GS OF THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF LONDON. 429 



April nth, 1865. 



The first paper was " On the African or Occidental Negro," by- 

 Mr. J. Crawfurd, F.R.S. 



The author in this paper gave a brief account of the physical 

 characteristics of the negro races of Africa, and endeavoured to 

 estimate their intellectual capacity as compared with that of other 

 races of man. 



By the term negro, in so far at least as it is applicable to Africa, 

 we understand a human being with the hair of the head always 

 black, and more or less of the texture of wool, with a black skin of 

 various shades ; dark eyes, a flat face, depressed nose, projecting 

 jaws, thick lips and large mouth, and with oblique incisor teeth. 

 To this may be added a peculiar odour of the skin, offensive to and 

 unknown in the other races of man. 



The true African negro is of the average stature of Europeans, 

 and perhaps even of their average physical strength; and in the 

 last quality is the only race of man that is so. The continent 

 of Africa, reckoning on its western side from the southern limits of 

 the Great Desert to the tropic of Capricorn, and on the eastern 

 from the equator to the thirty-third degree of south latitude, is 

 inhabited by the negro race. To the south of the limits mentioned 

 we exclude the squab yellow Hottentots, although with woolly hair ; 

 and to the north, the Abyssinians, the Samauli, and the Galla, who 

 have crisped, long hair, and elevated features, albeit of dusky or 

 black complexions. Although all African negroes partake of the 

 general character ascribed to them by the author, there is still much 

 diversity, consisting chiefly in the greater or less predominance of 

 the typical features above enumerated. As we know nothing to the 

 contrary, we must assume that all the races of man are of equal 

 antiquity, or that, in so far as mere time is concerned, every race has 

 had the same length of time for making advancement in civilization. 

 The great diversity of social conditions in which we now find them 

 must therefore depend either on quality of race or on difference of 

 opportunity. 



The negroes of Africa are unquestionably the most advanced of 

 all the woolly-headed races. They have been immemorially in almost 

 exclusive possession of the greater part of a vast continent, most of 

 it within the tropics, but a considerable part also in a temperate 

 climate. It would be needless to compare the civilization of the 



