32 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 
As to the relation of strength with stature, the 15 healthy tallest 
Kharga men gave the average right hand pressure of 36.5 kg., the 
20 shortest ones 33.9 kg., a decided advantage for those of higher 
stature. Everything indicates that those of the lowest statures at the 
Oasis are also those who present a greater general weakness, as well 
as subnormal metabolism, while with those of the highest statures 
these conditions are reversed. From this it seems safe to conclude 
that short and tall statures, in this locality at least, are not pure racial 
characteristics, but that they are largely due to the state of health 
and nourishment of the individual during growth, and hence to en- 
vironment ; and it can be assumed that when the economic and hy- 
gienic conditions of the Oasis shall ameliorate, as they are bound to 
do with the advance of civilization, the population will respond to 
an important degree by better physical development. 
RESUME OF THE PRINCIPAL PHYSIOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 
The Kharga Oasis men show on the average, in comparison with 
the European whites, a perceptibly faster pulse ; a slightly faster 
respiration ; a perceptibly lower temperature ; and decidedly lower 
muscular power. 
The differences in these functions according to age and stature 
follow in general the same laws as among whites, American Indians, 
and other races. 
The principal defects observed in the Kharga natives in these 
tests are evidently not anthropological characteristics, but local and 
temporary phenomena, attributable in the main to the immediate 
environment, particularly nutrition, and are in all probability largely 
remediable. 
7. OBSERVATIONS ON THE BODY 
COLOR 
The skin of the Kharga natives, like that of the Egyptians of the 
Valley, is predominantly more or less brown. The color is, in the 
main, quite the same as that of the American Indian of the moderate 
zones. Individually it ranges from tawny and light brown to 
medium brown ; darker shades in those who show no evidence of 
negro mixture are rare. The records show that lighter shades of 
yellow-brown or brown existed in 18 per cent; moderate brown in 
81 per cent, and dark brown in but i per cent of the men examined. 
The secondary shadings of different parts of the body are, so far as 
