URDLICKA] 



PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 



269 



It is hardly possible, therefore, to assume that a narrow nose is an 

 ancient inheritance of the Eskimo. From the facts now at hand it 

 seems much more probable that the Eskimo nose or respiratory nasal 

 aperture was not originally very narrow, but that it gradually 

 acquired this character as the people extended farther north and 

 northeastward; and there appears to be but one potent factor that 

 could influence this development and that increases from south to 

 north, namely, cold. A narrowing of the aperture can readily be 

 understood as a protective development for the throat and the organs 

 of respiration. 



It is not easy to see how the bony structures respond to the effects of 

 cold or heat, but that they do, particularly where these are aggravated 

 by moisture, has long been appreciated, and shown fairly con- 

 clusively through studies on the nasal index by Thomson and later 

 by Thomson and Buxton. 9 " An even more satisfactory study would 

 have been that of the nasal breadth alone. Perhaps the normal 

 variation with the elimination of the less fit are the main agencies. 



The next two tables show other interesting conditions. The first 

 of these, seen best from the more general data, are the relations of 

 the nasal dimensions and index in the two sexes. The females in 

 all the three large groupings have a higher nasal index than the 

 males. This is a general condition among the Indians as well as in 

 other races. It is usually due to a relative shortness of the female 

 nose. This condition is very plain in the Eskimo. The female nose 

 is actually narrower than the male, due to correlation with shorter 

 stature and lesser facial breadth, yet the index is higher. The reason 

 can most simply be shown by comparing the general mean nasal 

 breadth and height in the two sexes. The breadth in the female is 

 approximately 96.2 per cent of that in the male; the height is only 

 02.7 per cent. 



Nasal Dimensions in Western and Other Eskimo Crania 



" Thomson, Arthur, The correlation of isotherms with variations in the nasal index. 

 I'roc. Seventeenth Intern. Cong. Med., London, 1913, Sec. I, Anatomy and Embryology, 

 pt. II, 89 ; Thomson, Arthur, and Buxton, L. H. D., Man's nasal index in relation to err 

 tain climatic conditions, Jouru. Koy. Authrop. Inst., liii, 92-122, London, 1923. Addi- 

 tional references in these publications ; also in the latter an extensive list of data ou 

 nasal index in many parts of the world. 



