STATUKE MEX OF DIFFERENT NATIVITIES. 



28 



and movable liead-board. He also measured them in the erect position. The com- 

 parison resulted as follows : 



Mean height, vertically 1.G58 metres, (05.2s inches.; 



Mean height, horizontally. ..... l.(!71 metres, (00.79 inches.) 



The mean difference he estimated to be from one to two centimetres. Inspector 

 Marshall, of the British army, instituted similar experiments with a resulting difference 

 of about a quarter of an inch. It is urged in fovor of the horizontal method of meas- 

 urement that it prevents drafted men from resorting to various little urtitices foi- dimin- 

 ishing their actual height, Avhich are practicable in the upright position, and by which 

 they hope to fall below the minimum limit of stature.' 



Omalius d'Halloy lays it down as an ethnological axiom that blonde races are 

 characterized by superior stature.'^ The ensuing table, which displays the order of 

 superiority in mean stature of twenty-four nativities, will be found confirmatory of 

 this assertion. It is true that the list is headed by the aboriginal Indians, whose small, 

 number might lead to the conclusion that they were picked men, and that their pre- 

 eminence was to be thus accounted for. It is probable, however, that their case is 

 really an exception; for Mr. Gould's tables contain 517 Indians whose mean height 

 was 08.225 inches, yielding superiority in this respect only to the natives of Kentucky 

 and Tennessee. If compared with the natives of the United States only, the Indians 

 would rank as ninth in the list of States. Switzerland is lower than might have been 

 anticipated, and Hungary as much higher, while the American negro holds a fairly 

 intermediate position, below which dark-haired races follow in regular gradation, with 

 the single exception noted. 



Table showiiif/ the order of superiority in stature of 501,068 n).en, of different nativities. 



' Barou Larrey asserts that this deception is ofteu successfully practiced by the French conscript. 

 I'Acad. de M6d. t. xxxii, p. 672, 1867.) 



' Bull, de la Soc. d'anthropoh)gie, t. iv, p. 254, Paris, 1863. 



(Bull de 



