392 



NA TURE 



[February 21, 1901 



in the introduction reproduced in Hattendorff's first 

 edition, a science of physics (or more literally "a scientific 

 physics") first existed after the discovery of the differen- 

 tial calculus. A sound knowledge of the differential and 

 integral calculus is assumed in this book, but in Germany 

 such a knowledge is acquired by the majority of students 

 at the commencement of their academic curriculum, a 

 stage where, in this country, many students are still 

 attending lectures on fractions, highest common factor 

 and Euclid. Those possessing the necessary preliminary 

 training will find in Weber's new edition of Riemann an 

 excellent introduction to the methods of applying mathe- 

 matical principles to the problems of modern physics. 



G. H. B. 



THE CLASSIFICATION OF EARS. 

 The Human Ear, its Identification and Physiognomy. 

 By Miriam Anne Ellis. Pp. x-f-225. (London: A. 

 and C. Black, 1900.) Price 35. bd. net. 



A SIMPLE, workable, absolutely trustworthy system 

 is still urgently wanted for the detection of criminals, 

 and if the authoress of this book has succeeded she 

 certainly deserves the thanks of all the Governments of 

 Europe. Whatever worth her method may have when 

 it comes to be applied practically, it has some decided 

 drawbacks when the data are examined on which it is 

 founded. 



It so happened that about seven years ago the reviewer 

 came to the conclusion that the external ear ought to 

 yield some clue to the relationship of man and ape, and 

 of one race of man to another. As is well known, the 

 characters of the ear are fully inherited, and afford fairly 

 trustworthy .clues to family relationship, of which the 

 authoress gives some good illustrations. Founding his 

 method of observation and classification on data derived 

 from a study of the development and comparative anatomy 

 of the external ear, the reviewer proceeded to examine 

 by hundreds the various peoples and races living on the 

 shores of the North Sea, first on the Continental side, 

 then on the British, to see how far the data he accumu- 

 lated would support the semi-traditional accounts avail- 

 able concerning the early Saxon invasions of Britain. 

 These observations were continued into the Highlands of 

 Scotland, to Ireland and Wales. To test the "criminal- 

 mark " theory of Lombroso and many others, he examined 

 the ears of more than 800 confirmed criminals, and of 

 more than two thousand inmates of asylums for the insane, 

 situated in parts of the country where he had already ex- 

 amined the ears of«the sane. Altogether the ears of more 

 than 40,000 people of different races and of different morali- 

 ties, besides those of about 300 apes and anthropoids, were 

 examined, but the total results of this elaborate investiga- 

 tion were almost entirely of a negative nature. 



The authoress appears to take it for granted, and 

 evidently has not inquired into the matter, that the ear 

 of the criminal is peculiar. If the reviewer's methods 

 and observations are correct, the confirmed criminal's ear 

 is the ear of the average inhabitant of Great Britain. 

 Nor did the ears of the insane differ, on an average, from 

 those of the people from which they were drawn, and if 

 the authoress had carried her observations over a number 

 NO. 1634, VOL. 63] 



of men of genius or of high ability, instead of drawing 

 elaborate deductions from single observations, she would 

 probably have arrived at a similar conclusion as to 

 them. 



The great difficulty in a matter of this kind is to arrive 

 at a method of classification, and it is in this that all the 

 systems propounded break down when applied practically, 

 and the system propounded here is worse than those that 

 have gone before it. In her classification, the first divi- 

 sion is a separation of ears into (i) large ; (2) medium ; 

 (3) small. Unfortunately, she proposes no definite 

 measurements, but if she did it would be found that a 

 great proportion of ears fell on the limits of the medium 

 line, and it would be a matter of the greatest difficulty 

 to say to which of the great divisions it belonged. There 

 is another great obstacle to the application of measure- 

 ment of the ear to detection of criminals, of which the 

 authoress is unaware. As Schwalbe showed years ago, 

 and as the authoress may verify any quiet half hour 

 during sermon time, the ear, in the later decades of life, 

 undergoes a very considerable growth — enough to shift 

 the ear of a woman aged forty from the medium division 

 to the large division when she is aged sixty. 



The authoress has used one of the most variable and 

 untrustworthy features of the human ear for the purpose 

 of subdividing and indexing the forms in which it is 

 found. She detects in its helix (the upper and posterior 

 border of the ear) five divisions, separated by indenta- 

 tions more or less marked. The three great groups of 

 large, medium and small ears are subdivided according 

 to which and how many of these divisions of the helix are 

 present. ' In many cases no two observers would agree 

 as to the number of helical subdivisions present, which 

 is not remarkable when it is remembered that the helix 

 on the posterior border is a vestigial structure, the result 

 of the infolding of the free margin of the ear. The 

 amount of infolding does not indicate, as the authoress 

 supposes, certain psychological peculiarities, but merely 

 the degree of retrogression in the ear examined. Like 

 all truly vestigial structures, the infolded margin of the 

 helix is subject to such a variety of forms that it defies 

 classification. 



One or two interesting, although minor, points might 

 also be mentioned. The statement that the length of the 

 ear depends on the length of the nose, and that the 

 measurement of the one is identical with that of the other, 

 will be found, on trial, to be the exception and not the 

 invariable rule. In most anatomical works the relation 

 of the breadth to the length of the ear is used as a method 

 of classification • quite a useless one, in the reviewer's 

 opinion. The statement made here is that "the width of 

 the pinna should be at its middle part exactly half its 

 length. . . . Any .deviation from these exact measurements 

 at once forms a valuable aid in identification." The 

 scientific part of this book was read in the Anthropological 

 Section at the meeting of the British Association at 

 Bristol in 1898, and many of the observations it contains 

 were made on the ears of eminent men of science. The 

 authoress proposes the term of " otomorphology " to cover 

 the science of the external ear, but from the phrenological 

 character given it by this work perhaps the name of 

 "earistry" were better. A. Keith. 



