88 FOURTH GENERAL MEETING. 



44-5 kg. The Wedda-men (71 individuals) as measured by the 

 Drs Sarasin attain an average height of 157-5 cm. The average 

 height of the Bushmen, having a mean cranial capacity even lower 

 than the Weddas, is also below that of these Ceylonese people. 



As to the size of the body of the anthropoid apes the Gorilla 

 considerably exceeds man in bulk. The body-weight of the adult 

 male, of which Owen has observed the brain-weight, was estimated 

 by him at 200 lbs., or about 907 kg. Ford observed a body-weight 

 wdthout the intestines of 170 lbs. or Tj kg. Adding for the intestines 

 of the thorax and the abdomen and the blood lost 1 3 kg., we arrive 

 at an estimation of 90 kg. for this male Gorilla also. No observa- 

 tions of the body-weight of full-grown Chimpanzees have come to 

 my knowledge. But of the Orang-utan the weight of one large 

 adult male was observed by Fick to be 76-5 kg., and of another 

 by MM. Deniker and Boulart to 73-5 kg. Thus these large man-like 

 apes considerably exceed man by their bulk, the average weight of 

 the London-man of the working classes being 61 kg. as deduced 

 from a table by Beddoe, the mean of the full-grown Belgians ob- 

 served by Quetelet 637 kg. 



Now it is a well-known fact, that the size of the brain in animals 

 as in man depends not only upon the degree of organic development 

 of the brain, but to a large extent also upon the size of the body. 

 It is perhaps less known that it is possible to estimate the extent 

 of that dependency and to calculate the relative encephalisation. 

 Allow me to bring before you the chief argumentation of two 

 papers, published by me in the German ArcJiiv fiir AntJiropologie, 

 — the one regarding mammalia, the other man. 



While the relations of the animals to the external world become 

 more manifold and intricate, the centres of the nervous system 

 gain in complexity of structure and in volume, for here as in other 

 cases function and organ are proportionate. 



If we compare the Vertebrata from the lowest class, the fishes, 

 to the highest, the Mammalia, we observe an ascending scale in 

 accordance with an increase in the volume as well as in the concen- 

 tration of the central nervous system in the skull. The nearer we 

 approach to the mammalia and in this class to man, the larger the 

 proportionate quantity and weight of the brain as compared to the 

 spinal cord. Moreover it is the most differentiated part of the 

 brain, the cerebral hemispheres, that makes the greatest advance. 



All mammals of equal bulk with man have much smaller brains 

 than he. Man has 4 times as large a brain as the most nearly 

 allied man-like apes of an equal bulk of body, and 10 times as 

 large as those of dogs of the same weight. A horse, though having 

 on the average a body-weight 6 times as large, possesses less than 

 the half of the average brain-weight of man. Under the living 

 mammalia only the elephant and the large species of whales 

 surpass man by their absolute brain-weight. Comparing mammals 

 of equal bulk but occupying a different degree in the scale of 



