iirdlicka] THE LOWER JAW 301 



Lower Jaw of Various Races: Height at Symphysis — Continued 



Female ver- 

 sus male 

 (M = 11111) 



U. S. whites (miscellaneous) 



Negro, full-blood, African and American 

 Australians 



'SS. 7 

 89.2 



1 Approximately. 



The table shows the Eskimo jaw to be absolutely the highest at 

 the symphysis of all those available for comparison, with the female 

 nearly the highest. 16 Relatively to stature it exceeds decidedly all 

 the groups, the Indians that come nearest matching it in the abso- 

 lute measurement being all much taller than the Eskimo. And the 

 female Eskimo jaw is relatively high compared with that of the 

 male, being exceeded in this respect only in three of the Indian 

 groups, in two of which, however, the showing is due wholly and 

 in one partly to a lesser height of the male jaw. The relative excess 

 of the female jaw in this respect seems particularly marked in the 

 northern and northeastern groups, though it must remain subject 

 to corroboration by further material. 



The white, Negro, and Australian data have an interest of their 

 own. 



Strength of the Jaw 



The Eskimo jaw is generally stout. Barring rare exceptions there 

 is nothing slender about it. The body, moreover, is frequently 

 strengthened by more or less marked overgrowths of bone lingually 

 below the alveoli and above the mylohyoid ridge. These neoforma- 

 tions will be discussed later. 



The strength of the mandible may be measured directly in various 

 locations on the body. Due to the peculiar build of the body, how- 

 ever, and especially to its variations, these measurements are by no 

 means simple and wholly satisfactory. It is hardly necessary in this 

 connection to review the various attempted methods, none of which 

 has become standardized. As a result of experience I prefer since 

 many years to measure the thickness of the body of the jaw at the 



10 Rudolf Virchow, as far back as 1870. in studying some mandibles of the Greenland 

 Eskimo, found that the height of the body in the middle (3.5 centimeters) was greater 

 than that of tie lower jaws of any other racial group available to him for comparison. 

 Archiv. fur Anthrop., iv, p. 77, Braunschweig, 1870. 



