438 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



serving person feels certain tliat lie can 

 easily pick from a heterogeneous crowd 

 the Jew, the Scotchman, the Irishman, 

 the Englishman, the German, the 

 Frenchman, the Greek, or the Italian. 

 But when questioned as to the criterion 

 for the selection, more often the basis 

 will be peculiarities of the clothing, 

 dress of the hair, beard or mustache, or 

 even facial expression and slight man- 

 nerisms. But these are not permanent 

 and stable characters Ijy means of which 

 we may always distinguish individuals 

 of one nationality from those of an- 

 other. The farther back an individual 

 can trace his American ancestry the 

 more difficult it is to guess the nation 

 of his origin. This difficulty is due not 

 to any marked change in biological 

 make-up but to very great changes in 

 language and culture. 



For the purpose of determining the 

 racial origin of an individual or 

 group of individuals we must resort 

 to the more staple biological char- 

 acters. A character to be of any per- 

 manent value in distinguishing one race 

 of mankind from another must be an 

 inheritable anatomical character trans- 

 mitted from parent to offspring. One 

 has only to consider the complexity of 

 the human body to gain a conception of 

 the number and variety of these charac- 

 ters. It is probably safe to say that 

 there are racial differences of varying 

 degrees in every organ and part of the 

 body. Thousands of these differences 

 have been discovered and described and 

 with our newer methods of research 

 others are coming to light daily. Many 

 of these differences are complex and 

 minute and require special training and 

 refined technique for their detection. 

 But there are numerous very important 

 racial characters with which we are all 

 more or less familiar. 



Of prime importance in anthropo- 

 logical analysis are the form and color 

 of the hair. Human hair ranges in 

 form from the coarse straight hair of 

 the American Indians, Chinese, Japa- 



nese, and Malayans to the closely coiled 

 and frizzly hair of the Negro. In color 

 it grades from the pale blond hair of 

 the Norwegians and Swedes to the very 

 black hair of South European peoples, 

 the Negroes, and the various Mongo- 

 loid types. The distribution of the hair 

 on the body differs also. The Mongo- 

 lian and many of the Negro types are 

 characterized by very sparse beards and 

 mustaches and the body hair is very 

 poorly developed. Our European peo- 

 ples, some of the inhabitants of south- 

 ern*Asia, the Australians, and the Ainu 

 are characterized by profuse beard and 

 mustache and an abundance of body 

 hair. 



We are all familiar with the marked 

 differences in skin color ranging from 

 the white skin of the North European 

 peoples through the darker colored 

 southern Italians and Spaniards, the 

 yellowish brown Chinese and Japanese, 

 the darker brown American Indians, 

 and the dark chocolate In'own or nearly 

 black Negroes. 



Closely correlated with the color of 

 the hair and skin are differences in the 

 color of the eyes. The North European 

 peoples have blue eyes prevailingly as 

 do also some of our Central European 

 peoples. All the rest of the more 

 deeply pigmented types of mankind 

 have light or dark brown eyes. A l^lue 

 eye differs from a brown eye, not in the 

 nature of the pigment, which is the 

 same in Ijoth cases, Imt in the amount 

 and distribution of the pigment. When 

 the pigment is confined to the deep 

 layer of the iris the eyes appear blue or 

 gray, but when the outer la3^er of the 

 iris is also pigmented the eye appears 

 brown or even black. Irises having 

 only a small amount of pigment in the 

 outer layer often appear green or green- 

 ish gray. 



Another inheritable character is stat- 

 ure or height of the l)ody. Perhaps 

 we have occasion to note the extremes 

 and range of differences for stature 

 more often than for anv other charac- 



