AMERICAN NEGRO BRAIN 185 
of the convolution pattern with the object of discovering par- 
ticular features for different races, characters suggesting primitive 
development or indications of the mental traits. Few compre- 
hensive studies from a racial standpoint have been made, so 
opinions based on these must be cautiously expressed. It 
would seem that fissure and convolution variations possess no 
value as race characters, but it must be remarked that the proc- 
ess of development is still imperfectly understood. When we 
can interpret growth processes and localize function more ex- 
actly, perhaps variations which are now termed individual will 
take on a racial significance. 
No comprehensive study of the Negro brain has as yet been 
published. Some features have been carefully investigated by 
Bean, and Cunningham has drawn comparisons from a small 
series in his Memoir, but most anthropologists have employed 
generalizations when referring to it. It seems to be generally 
agreed that the Negro brain is more simply convoluted than 
the Caucasian, but such a character is too subject to indi- 
vidual variation in both races to establish a standard for race or 
intelligence. 
Bean (’06) has suggested the points of inferiority of the Negro 
in the following: ‘‘The Negro has the lower mental faculties 
(smell, sight, handcraftsmanship, body sense, melody) well 
developed, the Caucasian the higher (self control, will power, 
esthetic sense and reason).” Or, expressed in another way, 
the Negro is more objective, the Caucasian more subjective. 
Granting the correctness of this analysis, we may examine the 
brains of the two races with this idea in view. It is generally 
agreed that the frontal lobe, and anterior association center, 
are relatively and actually smaller in the Negro than in the 
European. Generally associated with this flattened frontal 
lobe is an unusually prominent inferior parietal area or parietal 
association center which gives rise to the term ‘square cut’ 
occipital contour as an indication of inferiority (Duckworth ’07). 
This does not prove, however, the inferiority of the Negro brain, 
for we can only assume that the parietal association center is 
primarily an objective sense center and do not know whether 
