1 68 LIFE OF FLOWER 



Nasamenians, related by Herodotus, be accepted as 

 historical, the river they came to, c flowing from west 

 to east,' must have been the Niger, and the northward 

 range of the dwarfish people far more extensive twenty- 

 three centuries ago than it is at the present time." 



Sir William's only remaining anthropological paper 

 of any importance appears to be one on skulls of the 

 aboriginal natives of Jamaica, published in the Journal 

 of the Anthropological Institute for 1890. 



It should not, however, be forgotten that, as more 

 fully narrated in an earlier chapter, one of the last acts 

 of Sir William's scientific career was to organise 

 the arrangement of the anthropological series in the 

 Natural History Branch of the British Museum an 

 undertaking of which he was not spared to witness the 

 completion (so far as anything of this nature can be 

 said to be anywhere near " complete "). 



If he had left nothing but his anthropological labours 

 to bear testimony to his zeal for science and his capacity 

 for organisation, Sir William Flower would have 

 deserved well of posterity. And it should be recorded 

 to his credit that the majority of naturalists, at all 

 events in this country, are employing, with some 

 minor modifications, not only his anthropological 

 classification, but that of mammals in general. It is 

 true that both these schemes were based on the labours 

 and ideas of his predecessors, but it was reserved for 

 him to so modify and improve them as to lead to the 

 almost universal acceptation with which they have been 

 received. 



