244 



NA TURE 



[January 12, 1899 



been a labour of love to Prof. Holgate. He has, how- 

 ever, in the terminology departed somewhat from that 

 which has been used in this country. He has altogether 

 eschewed the word " pencil " ; instead of it he uses for 

 the flat and axial pencils " sheaf of rays " and " sheaf of 

 planes," thus appropriating the word sheaf to one- 

 dimensional forms, whilst it has in England been used 

 for pencils of lines and planes in space. For these he 

 takes the word " bundle," thus adopting the German 

 phraseology. We think it is a pity he has made this 

 change, not because the old terminology is better, but 

 because it makes the adoption of a uniform system more 

 diflficult. 



The translator has made a few changes from the 

 original. He has broken up the lectures into articles 

 which he has numbered, and he has placed the numerous 

 exercises at the end of each lecture to which they belong, 

 instead of leaving them together at the end of the book 

 as in the original. He has also added an index. These 

 are decided improvements. In his preface he gives a 

 short account of the history of projective geometry. 



As far as the paper, the printing and the figures are 

 concerned, the book ranks among the best we have seen ; 

 in these respects it is, in fact, above praise. 



We recommend the book to all students of mathe- 

 matics, and advise them not only to read it, but also to 

 actually make accurate drawings of at least a great 

 number of figures ; especially to construct a variety of 

 conies from given conditions, and to solve as many as 

 possible of the problems proposed. These constructions 

 should be made accurately on the drawing board. They 

 offer a wonderful incitement to accuracy and neatness, 

 as every fault in drawing becomes at once evident to the 

 eye. For this reason the schoolmaster who has to teach 

 mathematics and geometrical drawing on the modern or 

 science sides of schools, will find it of great advantage 

 in his teaching. The book will afford him innumerable 

 examples for geometrical drawing, even if he cannot 

 much hope to enter at present on teaching the theory ; 

 although there is no reason, as far as the difficulty of 

 the subject is concerned, why he should not introduce a 

 good deal in the higher forms. It is most stimulating to 

 young students, as is evidenced lay the fact that students 

 have repeatedly told us that, although at school they could 

 not take any real interest in Euclid, and found geometry 

 very hard, they found the theory of conies as treated 

 according to Reye delightfully easy and interesting. In 

 fact, the subject is full of life ; the figures grow organ- 

 ically one out of the other, and the Propositions arrange 

 themselves in a natural sequence. O. Henrici. 



RACIAL ANATOMY. 

 Obsen'ations sur Ics Varinlions Musculaircs dans 

 les Races Humaines. Par Theophile Chudzinski. 

 Memoires de la Soci^t^ d'.-Vnthropologie de Paris, 

 .Ser. 3 ; t. ii. ; fasc. 2. (Paris, 1898.) 



THIS posthumous work of Chudzinski is a laborious 

 and systematic attempt to open up quite a new 

 field of anthropological investigation. It may be said, with 

 perfect truth, that the study of the \arious races of man- 

 kind has been superficial and empirical ; observations 

 hitherto have been confined to features, colour of skin, size 

 NO. 1524, VOL. 59] 



of body, proportion of limbs and bone measurements. 

 With the exception of the late Prof (iiacomini of Turin, 

 Chudzinski is practically the only man that ever went 

 beneath the skin to discover the real and essentia) 

 features that separate one race of man from another. 

 There is no desire here to minimise the value of the 

 few briefly recorded dissections, made on dark-skinned 

 waifs that have died in Europe, and found scattered in 

 the anatomical literature of the present century ; the 

 observations on the brains of negroid races by Parker, 

 Broea, Gratiolet, Waldeyer, Marshall, Tiedemann, Calori 

 and Barkow are good so far as they go, dissections of 

 individual specimens made by Flower and Murie, Cuvier 

 and Turner, are efforts in a right direction, but the 

 merit of having opened up a systematic investigation of 

 the anatomy of the races of mankind, taking a group of 

 individuals to represent the race, remains to Chudzinski 

 and Giacomini. This treatise is a record of the muscles 

 of ten negroes, five negresses, five individuals belonging 

 to yellow-skinned races, contrasted with the muscles of 

 six individuals of a white skinned race. 



The result of this laborious investigation is to show 

 that, on an average, in size, in proportion of flesh and 

 tendon, in relative and absolute extent of attachments, 

 the muscles of Chinamen, Frenchmen and negroes are 

 very different. Unfortunately, Chudzinski's methods are 

 open to serious criticism. Take his account of the soleus 

 muscle as an example ; it is a muscle peculiarly adapted 

 in men for erect progression. He gives in millimetres 

 the extent of its attachment to the fibula : the extent of 

 origin in white men is 135 ni.m. ; in yellow races, 97 

 m.m. ; in negresses, 945 ni.m. ; in negroes, 120 m.m. ; 

 the extent of origin is greatest in white men, as one would 

 expect, but it is obvious that a great error is introduced 

 if no account is taken of the size and stature of the 

 individuals compared, and of this factor Chudzinski has 

 taken no cognisance. Only here and there are relative 

 measurements given. Yet on the whole there can be no 

 doubt that Chudzinski has, in his minute analysis of the 

 muscular system, discovered very numerous features 

 wherein the white, the yellow and the black man differ, 

 and his results may be summarised by saying that, on 

 the whole, the muscular arrangement in the white mar» 

 is more accurately and powerfully adapted for erect 

 progression of the body and precision in the use of his 

 hands than in the negro, and in some points, although 

 by no means in all, the muscular system is rather more 

 simian in the negro than in the white man. 



But by far the most valuable part of Chudzinski's work 

 lies in his observations of muscular anomalies. Adding 

 his work to Giacomini's it may be said, without any 

 danger of over-stating the case, that the negro shows 

 in his muscular anomalies twice or three times the 

 number of simian characters met with amongst white 

 men. Looking at it from the point of view of descent, 

 the negro has retained certain primitive features much 

 more than the white races, among them his black colour. 



Little notice was taken in this country of Chudzinski's 

 death, which took place in Paris some eighteen months 

 ago. He was born a Pole, and, when a student at 

 Moscow University, became involved in the insurrection 

 of 1863, and, like many of his countr>inen who after- 

 wards became known in science, sought refuge in Paris. 



