238 PRoi'KKWNUS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



relationship of the various groups examined, the indications afforded 

 are indefinite. Take the Aberdeen inhabitants, for instance : amongst 

 the males the orang type occurs in 28 per cent, in the sane, 23 per 

 cent, in the insane ; a similar percentage is found in people so widely 

 apart as Hamburg and Cork ; the percentage with which the chim- 

 panzee type occurs associates the Aberdeen people with the South 

 Welsh and Whitechapel Jews. Yet in some instances the type of ear 

 is characteristic of race. Nearly 80 per cent, of the Bushmen and 

 Hottentots have ears of the orang type. The chimpanzee type prevails 

 in the south-west and north-east of Ireland, and from descriptions 

 given by travellers it is evidently the common form met with in 

 Northern Mongolia and in Siberia. In estimating the value of these 

 two types of ear, as anthropological characters, one has to remember 

 that they are the result of a tendency to be seen at work on the ears 

 of all the higher primates. 



In the genus cynocephalus (baboons) alone is the helix fully 

 developed and pointed ; in the order in which the various genera 

 of primates are named below there is to be seen a reduction of the 

 helix and an increased prominence of the anthelix : cynocephalus, 

 macacus, cercopithecus, colobus, semnopithecus, mycetes, lagothrix, 

 cebus, chimpanzee, gibbon, man, gorilla, orang. The processes which 

 have given the primate ear its peculiar form are evidently a common 

 inheritance, and have been in operation in all the members of the 

 order in some more and in some less so that it is doubtful how far 

 similarity in form of ear can be utilised as a guide to genetic rela- 

 tionship. 



My main reason for bringing this investigation before the mem- 

 bers of the Anatomical and Anthropological Society of Aberdeen 

 University is because I believe it to be true of anthropological as of 

 medical investigation, that more is to be learned from men's failures 

 than from their successes. For the main purpose of my inquiry 

 the relationship of one group of people to another this labour of 

 mine has l,<vn a complete failure. Nor do I believe, had my methods 

 ITCH more exact and all my observations made by measurement, that 



