SMFXt. 



numerous fine branches proceed through the foramina of the 



bone. 



The extreme filaments of the first pair do not terminate 

 in papilla?, like the nerves of touch and taste, but deliquesce, as 

 it were, into the spongy and regular parenchyma of the nasal 

 membrane. 



" The organ of smell is very imperfect and small at birth. 

 The sinuses scarcely exist. Smell consequently takes place but 

 ] a te, as the internal nostrils are gradually evolved; and it is 

 more acute in proportion to their size and perfection, s 



" No external sense is so intimately connected with the sen- 

 sorium and internal senses, nor possess such influence over them, 

 as the sense of smell. h 



" No other is so liable to idiosyncrasies, nor so powerful in ex- 

 citing and removing syncope. 



" Nor is any other capable of receiving more delicate and de- 

 lightful impressions ; for which reason, Rousseau very aptly called 

 smell, the sense of imagination. { 



8 " While animals of the most acute smell, as those just mentioned, have the 

 nasal organs most extensively evolved, precisely the same holds in regard to some 

 barbarous nations. 



Thus, in the head of the North American Indian (a leader of his nation, and 

 executed at Philadelphia about fifty years ago), which I have given in my 

 Decas prima Collectionis Craniorum diversarum Gentium illustratce, tab. ix., the 

 internal nares are of an extraordinary size, so that the middle of the ossa spon- 

 giosa, for example, are inflated into immense bullae, and the sinuses, first de- 

 scribed by Santorini, which are contained in them, larger than I have found them 

 in any other instance. 



The nearest to these, in point of magnitude, are the internal nares of the 

 Ethiopians, from among whom I have eight heads, now before me, very different 

 from each other, but each possessing a nasal organ much larger than we find it 

 described to be in that nation by Sommerring, iiber die korperL Verschiedenh. 

 des Negers, &c. p. 22. 



These anatomical observations accord with the accounts given by most respect- 

 able travellers concerning the wonderful acuteness of smell possessed by those 

 savages. 



Respecting, v. c. the North American Indians, consult, among others, Urls- 

 perger, Nachr. von der Grossbritann. Colonie Salzburg. Emigranten in America, 

 vol. i. p. 862. 



Respecting the Ethiopians, Journal des S^avans. 1667. p. 60." 

 , h <f See Alibert on the medical power of odours, Mem, de la Soc. Medicate, 

 t. i. p. 44." 



5 " Emile, t. i. p. 367." 



