CHAPTER VII 



ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK 



THE study of the physical characters of the various 

 native races of the human species that is to say, 

 anthropology, in contradistinction to ethnology 

 occupied a very prominent position in Sir William 

 Flower's scientific career ; and it is difficult to say 

 whether this or the study of whales was the branch 

 of biology on which his greatest interest was concen- 

 trated. Perhaps we might say that the two together 

 formed his especially favourite subjects. Whereas, how- 

 ever, as we have seen in the last chapter, he was study- 

 ing the Cetacea at least as early as the year 1864, when 

 papers from his pen were published, anthropology does 

 not appear to have been seriously taken up by him till 

 considerably later in life ; the first papers and lectures 

 by him that have come under the writer's notice dating 

 from 1878. 



As regards the special departments of this science to 

 which Sir William devoted a large share of attention, 

 we may mention, in the first place, the discovery of the 

 best methods of accurately determining the capacity of 

 the human cranium, and the drawing-up of formulae 

 for " indexes " to serve as a basis for comparing the 

 cranial measurements of different races. Secondly, we 

 may take the classification of these races as one of his 

 most important lines of investigation. While, in the 



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