COMMON THINGS- MAN. 



On the contrary, the Esquimaux and Bushmen have an average 

 height not exceeding 4 feet 3 inches. 



42. If, instead of comparing people with people, individual be 

 compared with individual, still greater departures from the average 

 standard are found. Thus, we have seen giants which have 

 attained the enormous height of 9 feet 6 inches, and, on the other 

 hand, dwarfs whose height did not exceed 2 feet. 



43. Among persons of average height, women are ahout a six- 

 teenth less tall than men ; but among people whose average height 

 is less than the common standard, such as the Esquimaux and 

 Bushmen, there is less inequality between the sexes ; while in 

 those of greater average height, such as the Patagonians, the 

 inequality is greater. In fact the sexual inequality appears to 

 vary nearly in the ratio of the mean stature. 



The inequalities of mean stature observed in comparing people 

 with people, depend partly upon race, or partly on the physical 

 conditions with which they are surrounded. 



44. The influence of race is more especially apparent when dif- 

 ferent people, inhabiting the same country, with similar manners, 

 and subject to like climatological influences, are compared together. 

 In Patagonia, for example, where certain nomadic tribes of very 

 elevated stature prevail, there are others whose stature has about 

 the ordinary standard, and at a little distance in the Tierra del 

 Fuego, people of low stature prevail. The people of greatest mean 

 stature are found chiefly in the southern hemisphere, either on the 

 South American continent, or in the several archipelagos of the 

 Southern Ocean. 



45. Although people of low average stature are found within 

 the tropics, and in places near the Cape of Good Hope, where the 

 climate is sufficiently temperate, it cannot be doubted that a 

 rigorous climate is unfavourable to the development of the human 

 form, for in high latitudes in both hemispheres the inhabitants are 

 invariably characterised by diminutive stature. 



Moderate cold, on the contrary, is favourable to the corporeal 

 development. In France and other parts of Europe, where the 

 climate is mild, the average stature is less than in the colder parts 

 of Europe, such as Sweden, Finland, and even Saxony and the 

 Ukraine. 



46. Temperature, however, exercises on the whole less influence 

 upon bodily development than the general hygienic conditions of 

 a people, and it may be received as a general principle that the 

 mean stature will be so much the more elevated, and the complete 

 growth sooner accomplished, other things being the same, as the 

 country inhabited by a people is more fertile and abundant, and 

 the sufferings and privations sustained during youth less consider- 



