meajN staturk of full-grown man. 15 



the place of business of the officer intrusted with its operation was selected, and the 

 necessary aj^paratus for measui-ing- was provided. It is obvious that a surgeon sworn 

 to his duty, and without object or interest in evading it, furnished also with the need- 

 ful aid and ajDpliances, was vastly more likely to make accm-ate I'ecord than the re- 

 cniiting-officer of a regiment' 



An additional reason for precision was to be found in the strong desire felt and 

 expressed by the examining-surgeons to aid in checking desertion and the iniquity of 

 what was tersely named hoimty-jumping." If the soldier's descriptive list were, accurate, 

 he could be more easily identified in cg,se of desertion and second enlistment. It is 

 unquestionable that the measurements made use of in this work were actually taken, 

 and that, too, tvith a reasonable exercise of care. No doubt, some surgeons were more 

 painstaking than others; bvit all being possessed of the animus mensurandi, as Hersehel 

 terms it, and being without intentional bias, the mean results are, by a well-known law, 

 as trustworthy as if the same care had been employed in nil instances. 



There is probably no question connected with anthropology which has been more 

 debated, and which has, notwithstanding, been left in a more unsatisfactory condition 

 than that of the mean stature of the full-grown man. The principal reason of this 

 failure is to be found in the confused manner in which measurements have been pre- 

 pared for the purpose. Heights of young and old — of men of widely-differing nativ- 

 ities — of picked men, such as soldiers or militia — of men and women — of students under 

 the age of full growth — of convicts, a class generally below the mean height of their 

 countrymen — of men measured in shoes and men measured without shoes — have been 

 compared together in tables pretending to exhibit scientific conclusions! 



To approximate in any moderate degree to a calculation of the mean stature of 

 MAN, using the term in its broadest ethnological sense, a vast series of measurements 

 would be required. The comparative failure of the Novara expedition to jirocure a 

 sufficient number of observations from which to obtain a reliable mean statement of 

 stature for each country visited by the frigate, notwithstanding its excellent provision 

 of observers and apparatus, proves the diffic.ulty, perhaps the impossibility in this day, 

 of obtaining the necessary statistics.^ But when the inquiry is narrowed to the mean 

 height of a civilized nation, then a correct result is at least attainable. Here again, 



' This view of tlie case sceuis to hiive struck M. Ely. a distiiiguislied French armj- -surgeon. In an elaborate review 

 of the reports and tables introductory to this work, published in IHGO, lie .speaks of them as " Ics resuUats jn'oihiit:) par 

 une enquele aussi approfond'ie el faile exdusivvmcvt par ctis Itontmes de Purl." Le recrutement dans TarinCie fdddrale des 

 fitats-Unis pendant la guerre de sdcession. — Herinil de m^moires de medecinc, etc., 'ime sMe, t. xxii, p. 8. . Paris, 1869. 



-A ioitnty-jiimpir was a man who, having received the largo bounty ofleied for recruits by the State or General 

 Government, deserted at the first opportunity, and re-enlisted at sonic! distant place, thus pocketing a second bounty. 

 It was not UDCommon for this villainous trick to be repeated again and ajjain by tli(! same man, so that the Government 

 was defrauded both of money and men. 



'Au additional and fjuite recent example of the disconragemenls attending the attempt to gather such statistics 

 is to be found in the destruction of Doctor ScnwEiNFiinii's nniqne and valuabh^ collection of records and observa- 

 tions made in the hitherto unexplored regions of Central Africa. He nives this account of the extent of the calamity : 

 "All my preparations fur the projected expedition to the Niani-Niam ; all the produce of my recent journey ; all the 

 entomological collection that I had made with such constant interest; all tlie examples of native industry which I had 

 l)rocured by so much care ; all my registers of meteorological events, which had been kept day by day, and without 

 interruption, ever since my first departure from Suakin, and in which I had inscribed some 7,000 barometrical observa- 

 tions ; all my journals, with their detailed narrative of the transactions of S25 days ; all my elaborate measurements of the 

 bodiea of the natives, which I had been at so much pains and expense to induce them to j)ermit; all my vocabularies, which it 

 had been so tedious a business to compile; every*;hing, in the course of a single hour ; everything was gone, the plunder 

 of the flames."— jTAc Ueart of .Africa, 2 v. Is., 8vo, London, 187:i ; vol. ii, p. 3G1. ' 



