April i8, 1895] 



NATURE 



595 



Illinois River, three on Quiver Lake, and one each on Phelps 

 and Thompson's Lakes. 



Quiver Lake (Fig. i), in which the headquarters' boat was 

 placed, is an abandoned portion of the old bed of the river. It 

 varies in length (when the water is low enough to define it 

 clearly) from one and a half to two and a half mdes, and has a 

 usual width of about five hundred feet at low-water mark. It 

 lies nearly parallel with the main river, into which it opens, 

 j even in the lowest stage of water, at its lower or southern end, 

 by about half its greatest width. 



Thomson's Lake lies wholly within the bottom lands of the 



main river, and iis banks are consequently everywhere low and 



i flat. It is five miles in length by about half a mile in width at 



' an average midsummer stage. Neither this nor c)uiver Lake 



ever goes dry, the water in the deepest places being not less 



than three and a half or four feet during the dryest seasons. 



1 Phelps Lake (Kig. 2), on the other hand, is a pond about half a 



I mile long by a fourth as wide, having neither inlet nor outlet 



after the overflow has receded, rarely drying up entirely, but 



not infrequently being reduced to a few shallow pools. It 



is completely surrounded by a bottom-land forest, and its bed 



is a mere shallow depression in the mud. 



The results of the first season's work are, of course, but just 

 beginning to appear. Indeed, the problems to be solved in 

 such situations have scarcely more than dimly shown themselves 

 -as yet, but the promise is nevertheless already very interesting. 

 Notable contrasts in kind and number appear between animals 

 of the springy shore of river or lake, and those of the muddy 

 bottom, only a few rods away on the other side ; between river 

 and lake ; between Quiver and Thompson's Lakes ; between 

 each of these and Matanxas Lake ; and between all the other 

 lakes and the temporary pond distinguished locally as Phelps 

 Lake — comrasts sometimes easily comprehensible ; and some- 

 times peculiarly puzzling, like that between Quiver Lake on the 

 one hand, the waters of which are choked in midsummer with a 

 dense growth of aquaiic vegetation, but contain fewer of the 

 smaller animal forms (Entonioslraca, and the like) than the 

 open current of the river iiself, and Thompson's Lake, on ihe 

 •o her hand, where the water is relatively clear of aquatic 

 plants but abounds in rotifers and Entomostraca. Still more 

 curious is the contrast between the similarly situated and very 

 similar lakes, Quiver and Matanzas, the waters of one loaded 

 and clogged with plants, and swarming with small molluscs and 

 insect larvx, and those of the other with scarcely a trace of 

 even microscopic vegetation, and with a correspondingly insig- 

 nificant quaniity of animal life. 



One surprising result is the abundance of minute life in the 

 •main siream, which sometimes con'ains a greater abundance 

 of animal forms than most of the lakes connected with it ; and 

 another is the relatively small difference beuveen the animals 

 frequenting widely unlike situations in the same body of wuer. 

 A large number of new forms were found, especially among 

 rotifers, worms, and insect larva;. The collections of the 

 season, (jreserved for detailed study, are included under nine 

 hundred and fitiyeight collection numbers, representing as 

 many different lots of specimens. In connection with these. 

 Prof. Forbes and his assistants are now engaged upon deter- 

 mination work and other laboratory studies, and ihe preparation 

 of reports. The papers ami reports embodying these studies 

 will be printed in the BuUdiit of the Illinois .Mate Laboratory 

 of Natural History. So lar as possible, each general taxoiiomic 

 paper will be prece led by a thoroughly practical synopsis of 

 genera and species, illustrated by figures ol typical forms, and 

 intended to open up to the student and teacher of natural 

 history in Illinois many interesting and important parts of the 

 local zoology. 



THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES} 



TN man, as in other animals, we find physical characteristics of 

 two kintls, external arid internal. The first are principally 

 those penaining to the cutis and certain cutaneous appendages, 

 and include the c 'louring of the skin and hair, the structure and 

 form ol the hair, and also the colouring 01 the eyes. The chief 

 intern.nl characteristics are the bones from which the form and 

 figure of all the members are taken, as well- as those of the 



t Extracted from a transUtion nf Prof. Giuseppe Sergi's " Lc Varietu 

 iUmane.'' p blisticd by the Smithsonian Institution. 



NO. 1329, VOL. 51] 



separate parts of the body clothed with soft tissues, such as 

 muscles and fat. The cranium is the most important and most 

 characteristic part of the entire human skeleton. 



The cranium is a bony case which encloses a viscus of the 

 first order, the brain, which in man is, in relation to the animal 

 series, better developed, both in its forms and functions. It is 

 known that the brain and cranium, from Ihe embryological to 

 the adult state, are in a parallel manner and gradually connected 

 in evolution, and the external form of the one corresponds to 

 that of the other. Most certainly it is not the cranium which 

 gives form to the brain of man ; it is more probable that it is the 

 brain which moulds its organ of protection. Given hereditary 

 conditions, we may affirm that the form of the cranium is corre- 

 lative to that of the brain. If we could discover why 

 the brain lakes or has taken different forms, we would 

 possibly understand better its correspondence with Ihe 

 exterior structure of the cranium by which it is surrounded. 

 We might be able to learn also what functional and 

 especially what psychological characteristics are united to the 

 cerebral forms which are revealed by cranial forms. All that is 

 obscure for us, and also unexplored, because unsuspected ; for 

 in place of that, and in an inexact manner, the volume has been 

 taken into account, and therefore the weight of the brain, as 

 being the only means of making an anthropological diagnosis 

 of its functional value, the volume and weight corresponding to 

 the capacity of the cranium. 



But besides the cranium commonly called cerebral, there is 

 the face, which, from the morphologic point of view, is not less 

 important. The face has generally given more positive means 

 for distinguishing human groups, not only on account of the 

 colouring of the skin, but on account of the form and disposi- 

 tion of its parts, of the nose, of the cheeks, of the molar teeth, 

 and on account of other characteristics which, when considered 

 together, disclose differences not immediately revealed by the 

 cerebral cranium. 



The other parts of the skeleton also have difierences more or 

 less profound in the different ethnic groups, the stature, the 

 length of the extremities both absolutely and relatively to the 

 stature and to the trunk ; the thoracic form, and so on. But 

 such differences are but slightly characteristic in comparison to 

 those presented by the cranium and the face ; until now, more- 

 over, they have had but slight value, the reason being that they 

 are derived from characteristics which are merely secondary 



We are ignorant what may have been the primitive type or 

 the primitive human types, considered in all their internal and 

 external characteristics ; that is, what skeletal forms certain 

 ethnic groups of differently coloured skin possessed ; or, on the 

 other hand, what colour of skin and hair belonged to certain 

 skeletal forms. That difficultv is caused by a fact easy to under- 

 stand, by the mingling of different types among each other, and 

 by the hybrid forms from which man is derived. It is true, how- 

 ever, that certain hybrid results seem to be limited to certain 

 regions and to a few human groups ; and that, on account of 

 this, the elements which have furnished such products may be 

 learned up to a certain point ; but in the beginning, at least, it 

 will be necessary to learn the structures of the parts from which 

 hybrids are derived. 



it is impossible not to admit human hybridism, since it is 

 demonstrated clearly by all anthropologists ; in this direction 

 America alone shows us a peifect example of experimental 

 anthropology. It has been determined from observations that 

 liuiuan hybridism is multiform among all peoples; but what we 

 learn from the facts relates to the exchange of external charac- 

 teristics and their mixture with iho-e internal, that is, the 

 union of the external characteristics of one ethnic type with 

 the internal characteristics of another type. Thus, one may 

 observe the colour of the skin and hair with its special form 

 united to characteristics of skeletons which do not generally 

 belong to types of that colour, and vict versa. That may be 

 observed concerning certain characteristics, and not 01 all ; such 

 as the stature, or the face, with its soft covering, or the lorm of 

 the cranium only. 



If we study oar European populations which are called 

 white, but which have many gradations of whiteness, we may 

 note the great mixture of characteristics, a mixture which is 

 changeable, from which results a great variety ol forms of 

 individual types, constituted of characteristics dilf. ring from 

 each other. An analysis must be very accurate and very 

 ininute to discriminate these different elements which exist 

 in the composition of the ethnic characteristics of individuals 



