632 



NATURE 



[Oct. 24, 1889 



in competitions, and therefore the order of merit deserves 

 recognition independently of the absolute amount of performance. 

 The general conclusion is, that before proceeding to decide on 

 scales of marks numerous measures should be discussed, made of 

 persons of the same age and social class as the candidates, so 

 that the quality of the men hereafter to be dealt with shall be 

 statistically determined. The next step is to decide upon the 

 relative weights to be allowed for absolute performance and for 

 relative rank. Then, after a few other obvious preliminaries 

 have been settled arbitrarily, consistent scales of marks could 

 be at once drawn up. 



A paper on left-leggedness, by Mr. W. K. Sibley, was read, 

 in which the author contended that man is either naturally or 

 artificially right-handed and left-legged, and, in walking, tends 

 unconsciously to bear to the right ; while the lower animals, on 

 the other hand, appear nearly always to circle to the left. The 

 left foot is more frequently the larger in the male than in the 

 female sex, and the percentage of feet of the same size is greater 

 in the female. The percentage of the right larger than the left 

 is very constant, whereas the numbers of the left larger and 

 those in which both feet are the same size are much more variable. 

 Prof. D. J. Cunningham read a paper on the occasional 

 eighth true rib in man, and its possible relationship to right- 

 handedness. In seventy subjects examined the anomaly occurred 

 fourteen times, i.e. in 20 per cent. It was found twice in the 

 male for every once in the female. Five cases were bilateral, 

 nine cases were unilateral, and of these no less than eight ex- 

 hibited the anomaly on the right side. From this Prof. 

 Cunningham considered that it was just possible that the 

 anomaly might have some connection with right-handedness. 



The following papers were also read : — Dr. W. Wilberforce 

 Smith, on the early failure of pairs of grinding teeth ; Dr. Ridolfo 

 Livi, on the development of the wisdom teeth ; Prof. D. J. 

 Cunningham, on the proportion of bone and cartilage in the 

 lumbar section of the vertebral column in the apes and in 

 different races of men. Prof. Cunningham also exhibited the 

 model of the head of a man stated to be 106 years old, with 

 the brain exposed, in situ ; and the model of the head and 

 shoulders of a young orang-utan, with the brain exposed, 

 in situ. 



On Friday, September 13, His Excellency Governor Moloney, 

 C.M.G., read a paper on African airs and musical instruments. 

 He distributed the airs geographically as follows : — A, Gambia ; 

 B, Ewe or Dahomey ; C, Yoruba ; and D, Houssa. In the 

 first division specimens were given of Bambara, Mandingo, and 

 Volof melodies, while Popo and Dahomey airs illustrated section 

 B. The Yoruba division included Lagos, Ibadan, and other 

 airs, and reference was made to several Houssa melodies. 

 These countries were topographically described, and brief 

 reference was made to their musical instruments and to the 

 native minstrels. The paper concluded with an explanation 

 of what is known as the " drum lan^iage." 



Mr. Paul B. Du Chaillu read the next paper — the Vikings 

 the direct ancestors of the English-speaking nations. The 

 author described the early civilization and antiquities of the 

 North-men, and dwelt upon the beauty of their ornaments and 

 weapons, and also upon the similarity of Scandinavian and 

 English ornaments belonging to the Early Iron Age, and the love 

 ■of the Northern people for the sea. He spoke of the three 

 maritime tribes of the North, according to the Romans, and of 

 the fleets of the Sueones in the time of Tacitus ; of the ex- 

 peditions of the so-called Saxons and Franks, and of the home 

 of these tribes ; of the proofs from antiquities found in the North 

 of the commerce of the North-men with the Roman Empire and 

 with Greece ; and also pointed out that the tribes of Germania 

 were not a seafaring people, and were uncivilized, according to 

 Roman writers. He gave an account of the probable origin of 

 the names "Saxon" and "Frank," and spoke of the early 

 settlements in Britain by the North-men during the Roman 

 occupation, and of how the name of England might have been 

 given to part of Britain. He alluded to the different countries 

 of the Jutes, and how the language of the North and that of 

 England was similar in early times, and that England was 

 always called by the North-men one of the Northern lands. 

 He mentioned the English and Frankish chronicles, in which 

 the Sueones, Danes, and North-men are described, and that 

 neither Saxons or Franks were a sea-faring people either at the 

 cime of Charlemagne or at any earlier period, and he dwelt on 

 the mythical settlement of Britain by Hengist and Horsa, given 

 i)y the English chronicles, which is quite contrary to the Roman 



records. Sagas, and archaeology, and concluded by expressing 

 his belief that the North-men, or Vikings, were the direct 

 ancestors of the English people. 



Canon Isaac Taylor contributed further researches as to 

 the origin of the Aryans. Since the Manchester meeting of the 

 Association in 1887, when the author read a paper on the same 

 subject, he had re-examined the whole question from the 

 anthropological rather than from the philological point of view. 

 Assuming that there had been no migration of any new race 

 into Europe since the Neolithic period, he contended that 

 anthropologists have established the existence in Europe of four 

 distinct prehistoric races, which might be reasonably connected 

 with four existing types, which occupied nearly the same regions 

 as the four prehistoric races. We have (i) the tall northern 

 dolichocephalic race, the Canstadt race of De Quatrefages, 

 which is the Scandinavian race of Penka, and the Eguisheim 

 race of other writers. The stature of this race amounted to 5 feet 

 10 inches. It was platycnemic, prognathous, and dolicho- 

 cephalic, with a mean cephahc index of from 72 to 73. The 

 only pure descendants of this race are the North Germans and 

 the Swedes. This Scandinavian or North-German type is 

 maintained by Penka and other German writers to represent the 

 primitive Aryans, who conquered the other European races and 

 imposed on them their own Aryan speech. (2) We have a 

 second type, also dolichocephalic, called the Silurian type by 

 Prof. Rolleston, which is found in the long barrows of England. 

 The normal stature was short, averaging 5 feet 4 inches ; 

 6 inches less than that of the other dolichocephalic race. The 

 cephalic index is between 73 and 74. This race was ortho- 

 gnathous, and swarthy, with dark curly hair, oval face, and feeble 

 muscular development. It is now represented by the Welsh of 

 Denbighshire, by the Irish of Kerry and Galway, by some of 

 the Scotch clans, by the Spanish Basques, the Corsicans, the 

 Sicilians, the Berbers, and the Guanches of the Canary Islands. 

 (3) We have a tall northern brachycephalic race, represented in 

 the round barrows of the Bronze Age in England, in the tumuli 

 of Denmark and some caves of Belgium. The average stature 

 was 5 feet 8^ inches, the mean cephalic index was 81. It was 

 macrognathous — with projecting teeth and powerful jaws, a 

 square powerful chin, and a face quadrangular rather than oval. 

 It is almost certain that the hair was light, either red or reddish- 

 yellow. It was, in all probability, the race which introduced 

 Celtic speech into England, and is now represented by the tall, 

 yellow, freckled Irish, by some Highlanders, by the Danes, and 

 most of the Slaves, by the Esthonians, and by many Finno- 

 Ugric tribes. (4) The fourth prehistoric race was also brachy- 

 cephalic, but short in stature. It never penetrated to England, 

 but is represented in the sepulchral caves of the Lesse in Belgium. 

 The stature was from 5 feet to 5 feet 3 inches ; the mean 

 cephali index was 84 ; it was orthognathous and acrocephalic. 

 It is now represented by the short dark population of Central 

 France, more especially by the Auvergnats, the Savoyards, and 

 the French Basques. It is found in the Rhaetian Alps and 

 among the Lapps. The hair is black and straight, and the eyes 

 are dark. These four types and no others appear to have 

 occupied Europe in the Neolithic period. It is difficult to find 

 for them unexceptionable names, but we may for convenience 

 call the first the Scandinavian type, the second the Silurian type, 

 the third the Slavic type, the fourth the Auvergnat type. We 

 have to determine which of these four races was probably the 

 original Aryan race. The primitive Aryans must have either 

 been by race Scandinavians or Slavo-Celts, and one must have 

 imposed Aryan speech on the other. The Celts seem to have 

 been in a higher stage of culture than the Germans, and there- 

 fore it is more probable that the Celtic race Aryanized the 

 Teutonic race than that the Teutonic race Aryanized the Celtic 

 race. Two hypotheses are possible — either the human race 

 originated in Europe, bifurcating into the African and Asiatic 

 races ; or we may suppose the white or European race to have 

 originated from the union of the yellow race of Asia and the 

 black race of Africa. 



Canon Taylor also read a paper on the ethnological signifi- 

 cance of the beech. While the Latin fagus and the Gothic 

 botea denote the beech, the word has come to mean the 

 oak in Greek. The author endeavoured to show that the 

 word fagus originally denoted the beech and not the oak, 

 also that the Greeks entered Hellas from the north-west. The 

 range of the beech is limited. It is a lover of chalk soils, and 

 does not grow east of a line drawn from Konigsberg to the 

 Crimea. West of this line we must therefore put the cradle of 



