312 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN XIX 



the most acceptable evidence that an anthropologist can possess 

 of many of the most important physical characters of a race. 

 There we have facts which can always be appealed to in 

 support of statements and inferences based on them. 

 Height, proportions of limbs, form of head, characters of 

 the face even, are all more rigorously determined from the 

 bones than they can be on the living person. Therefore, 

 the value of these remains, imperfect as they unfortunately 

 are, and of course insufficient in number for the purpose of 

 establishing average characters, is very great indeed. 



As I have entered fully into the question of their 

 peculiarities elsewhere, 1 I can only give now a few of the 

 most important and most generally to be understood results 

 of their examination. The first point of interest is their 

 size. The two skeletons are both those of full-grown people, 

 one a man, the other a woman. There is no reason to suppose 

 that they were specially selected as exceptionally small ; they 

 were clearly the only ones which Emin had an opportunity of 

 procuring ; yet they fully bear out, more than bear out, all 

 that has been said of the diminutive size of the race. Com- 

 paring the dimensions of the bones, one by one, with those of 

 the numerous Andamanese that have passed through my 

 hands, I find both of these Akkas smaller, not than the 

 average, but smaller than the smallest, smaller also than 

 any Bushman whose skeleton I am acquainted with, or whose 

 dimensions have been published with scientific accuracy. In 

 fact, they are both, for they are nearly of a size, the smallest 

 normal human skeletons which I have seen, or of which I 

 can find any record. I say normal, because they are 

 thoroughly well grown and proportioned, without a trace 

 of the deformity almost always associated with individual 

 dwarfishness in a taller race. One only, that of the female, 

 is sufficiently perfect for articulation. After due allowance 

 for some missing vertebrae, and for the intervertebral spaces, 

 the skeleton measures from the crown of the head to the 

 ground exactly 4 feet, or 1'218 metres. About three-quarters 



1 In a paper read before the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain 

 and Ireland, 14th February 1888, and published in the August number of 

 the Journal. 



