Jan. 8, 1SS5] 



NA TURE 



223 



Herat. They do not recognise the authority of the Amir 

 of Kabul, and should the Czar, who is about to assume 

 th; title of " Emperor of Central Asia," claim the allegi- 

 ance of this outlying Central Asiatic tribe, here will be a 

 fruitful source of future complications. Their submission 

 would at once advance the Russian frontier far into 

 Afghan territory and up the Murghab valley to within 

 easy distance of Herat from the north. The route in this 

 direction is well known, and constantly traversed by 

 traders from Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarkand. It ap- 

 pears to present no greater difficulties than the more 

 westerly route crossing the Barkhut ridge recently sur- 

 veyed by Lessar. 



There remain to be mentioned the Kataghani US- 

 BEGS, who form the bulk of the population in Afghan 

 Turkestan. They belong to the same ethnical group as 

 the Usbegs of the Khanates, and have even some settle- 

 ments in Bokhara beyond the Oxus. They are mostly 

 agriculturists and traders, Sunnite Mohammedans of 

 pure Turki speech, and bear with reluctance the hard 

 yoke of their Afghan masters. Their sympathies are 

 entirely with their northern kinsmen, and as the country 

 (Kunduz, Balkh. Maimene) belongs geographically to the 

 Aralo-Caspian basin, it is difficult to see how further 

 rectifications of frontier can ultimately be prevented in 

 this direction. Exponents of advanced public opinion in 

 Russia already openly claim the whole of this region to 

 the crest of the Hindu-Kush as properly belonging to the 

 ruler of Central Asia, and their arguments are largely 

 based on ethnological grounds. 



Table 0/ the North Afghan Border Tribes 



Caucasic Stock 

 Tribe Locality Population ' 



£ I Siah-Posh Kafiristan 150,000 



-g I Badakhshi Badakhshan 160,000 



"3 1 YVakln Wakhan 3, 000 



O i Shugnani Shugnan 25,000 



'Kohistani Kohistan ? 



r Firuz-Khoi .. Prov. Herat, Murghab | 30,000 



Valley \ tents 



c Jemshidi Prov. Herat, Khushk ) 12,000 



Valley i families 



Tajiks Herat. Balkh, &c 200,000? 



Afghans Herat 100,000? 



Mi 1 tGOLic Stock 



Hrzarajat 



Koh-i-Baba, Safed-Koh . 

 Ghor, Herat, Khorasan . 



o Hazarahs .. 



;/. 



C N 



^ I Aiuiaks 



S ii >r Turkomans About Martshag, Murghab ) 



S Valley 1 



.a 1 Kataghani Usbegs Afghan Turkestan, Bok- j , 



300,000 



350,000 



30,000 



OOO 



A. H. Keane 



ANTHROPOME TRIG PER-CENTILES 



T SEND the following Table, partly to exemplify what 1 

 ■•■ trust will be found a convenient development of a 

 statistical method that I have long advocated, and partly 

 for its intrinsic value, whatever that may be. It will at 

 all events interest those of the 9337 persons measured in 

 my Anthropometric Laboratory at the late International 

 Health Exhibition, who may wish to discover their rank 

 among the rest. 



Its meaning is plain, and will be understood by the 

 help of a single example, for which 1 will take the line 

 referring to Strength of Squeeze am >ng males. We see 

 that a discussion was made of 519 measurements in that 

 respect, of men whose ages ranged between 23 and 26 ; 

 that 95 per cent, of them were able to exert a squeeze 

 with their strongest hand (the squeeze was measured by 



1 Population mostly conjectural. 



a spring dynamometer) that surpassed 67 lbs. of pressure ; 

 that 90 per cent, could exert one that surpassed 71 ; 80 

 per cent, one that surpassed 76 ; and so on. The value 

 which 50 per cent, exceeded, and 50 per cent, fell short 

 of, is the Median Value, or the 50th per-centile, and 

 this is practically the same as the Mean Value ; its amount 

 is 85 lbs. This line of the Table consequently presents 

 an exact and very complete account of the distribution of 

 strength in one respect among the middle 90 per cent, of 

 any group of males of the tabular ages similar to those who 

 were measured at the laboratory. The 5 per cent, lowest 

 and the 5 per cent, highest cannot be derived directly 

 from it, but their values may be approximately inferred 

 from the run of the tabular figures, supplemented by such 

 deductions as the Law of Error may encourage us to 

 draw. Those who wish to apply this law will note that 

 the probable error is half the difference between the 

 25th and the 75th per-centile, which can easily be 

 found by interpolation, and they will draw the per- 

 centiles that correspond respectively to the median value 

 minus twice, three times, and three-and-a-half times the 

 probable error, at the graduations S7, 2 '4, o - 8, and those 

 that correspond to the median value plus those amounts, 

 at the graduations 9i'3, 97'6, and 99'2. The Table is a 

 mere statement of observed fact : there is no theory what- 

 ever involved in its construction, beyond simple inter- 

 polations between values that differ little from one another 

 and which have been found to run in very regular series. 



It may be used in many ways. Suppose, for example, 

 that a man of the tabular age, viz. above 23 and under 26, 

 and who could exert a squeeze of 80 lbs., desired to know 

 his rank among the rest, the Table tells him at once 

 that his strength in this respect certainly exceeds that of 

 30 per cent, of those who were measured, because if it 

 had been only 79 lbs. it would have done so. It also tells 

 him that his strength does not exceed that of 40 per cent, 

 of the rest, since it would have required a pressure of 

 82 lbs. to have done this. He therefore ranks between 

 the 30th and the 40th per-centile, and a very simple 

 mental sum in proportion shows his place to be about the 

 33rd or 34th in a class of 100. 



The Table exhibits in a very striking way the differences 

 between the two sexes. The 5 th male per-centile of 

 strength of squeeze is equal to the 90th female per-centile, 

 which is nearly but not quite the same as saying that the 

 man who ranks 5th from the bottom of a class of 100 

 males would rank 10th from the top in a class of 100 

 females. The small difference between the two forms of 

 expression will be explained further on. If the male 

 per-centiles of strength of squeeze are plotted on 

 ruled paper, beginning with the lowest, and if the female 

 per-centiles are plotted on the same paper, beginning 

 with the highest, the curves joining their respective tops 

 will be found to intersect at the 7th per-centile, which 

 is the value that 7 of the females and 93 of the males 

 just surpass. Therefore, if we wished to select the 

 100 strongest individuals out of two groups, one con- 

 sisting of 100 males chosen at random, and the other 

 of 100 females, we should take the 100 males and draft 

 out the 7 weakest of them, and draft in the 7 strongest 

 females. Very powerful women exist, but happily perhaps 

 for the repose of the other sex, such gifted women are 

 rare. Out of 1657 adult females of various ages mea- 

 sured at the laboratory, the strongest could only exert a 

 squeeze of 86 lbs. or about that of a medium man. The 

 population of England hardly contains enough materiaL 

 to form even a few regiments of efficient Amazons. 



The various measurements of males surpass those of fe- 

 males in very different degrees,but in nearly every particular. 

 A convenient way of comparing them in each case is that 

 which I have just adopted, of finding the per-centile which 

 has the same value when reckoned from the lower end 

 of the male series, and from the higher end of the female 

 series. When this has been done, the position of the 



