May 20, 1S80] 



NATURE 



59 



many investigators in the paths of natural science who 

 may find some difficulty in realising the physical basis 

 and real bearings of the theory, and who nevertheless 

 take a rational interest in the solution it is capable of 

 affording to some of the greatest difficulties of molecular 

 physics. The whole structure of physics may be said to 

 rest upon a mok.uhv basis, and therefore the importance 

 of a right view of this basis cannot be over-estimated. 

 The old theory of perfectly r^^i^molecules put an immense 

 difficulty in the way of the development of physical results 

 upon such a groundwork. A theory of clastic molecules 

 therefore becomes of the utmost importance as a practical 

 working hvpothesis, and the accordance with observation 

 of new results predicted from this hypothesis as a basis, 

 will then form additional confirming illustrations of its 

 truth. The removal of any misunderstandings that might 

 be obstacles in the way of the use of the vortex-atom 

 theory as a working hvpothesis becomes, therefore, a 

 point of considerable importance. Those more especially 

 who have handled the spectroscope and viewed the 

 exquisite precision of its lesults, become impressed with 

 the certainty of the groundwork upon which their molecular 

 studies are based, and no less imbued with the conviction 

 of the existence of that cxplanatio)i that forms the basis of 

 the facts that are recorded with such unfaihng accuracy. 

 S. ToLVER Preston 



COMPARATIVE ANArOJiV OF MAN^ 

 I. 



THE great scope and interest of the subject of anthro- 

 pology, as well as its most convenient subdivisions, 

 are well illustrated by the prospectus of the teaching at 

 the Anthropological Institute of Paris. There are at 

 present six chairs : — (i) Comparative Anatomy in Rela- 

 tion to Anthropology, by Broca ; (2) Biological Anthro- 

 pology, or the Application of Anatomy and Physiology to 

 Anthropology, by Topinard ; (3) Ethnology, or the Study 

 of the Races of Man, by Dally ; (4) Linguistic Anthro- 

 pology, by Hovelacque ; (5) Pala;ontological and Pre- 

 historic Anthropology, by Mortillet ; and (6) Demography, 

 which includes what we co iimonly call social and vital 

 statistics and Medical Anthropology, by Bertillon. 

 These subjects are pubUcly taught in a school sup- 

 plied with all necessary appliances, founded partly by 

 private munificence, but also liberally subsidised by the 

 Municipality of Paris and the Department of the Seine. 

 There is also at Paris a complete course of general 

 anthropology given yearly by I^I. de Quatrefages in 

 connection with the magnificent museum at the Jardin 

 des Plantes. To these institutions we have nothing 

 comparable in England, and neither at our Universities 

 or elsewhere is any branch of anthropological science 

 systematically taught. The present lectures only embrace 

 a small portion of one of the six subdivisions enumerated 

 above, that of biological anthropology. This science is 

 purely one of observation, and in proportion as the ma- 

 terials upon which our observations are founded are 

 multiplied, so will the value of the observations be 

 increased. These materials are collected in museums, 

 which at present in this country are not so complete as 

 might be desired. The largest public collection is 

 that of the College of Surgeons, containing about i ,200 

 crania of different races ; the largest private collec- 

 tion is that of Dr. Barnard Davis, of Shelton in Stafford- 

 shire, considerably exceeding that of the College both 

 in number and variety of specimens. Happily these 

 are about to be united, and, under the care of the Council 

 of the College, will be made accessible to all who 

 wish to pursue the study of anatomical anthropology. 



iin article on "The Atomic Theory of Lucretius," North British EeT'ie^i, 

 March, 1868, also by Prof. Taic, in his work "Lectures on Some Pectnt 

 Advances ia Physical Science." 



^ Abstract Report of Prof. Flower's lectures at the Royal College of 

 Surgeons, March 1 to March 19, on the Comparative .\natomy of Man. 



Besides the Barnard Davis collection, only a small 

 portion of which has as yet been received, one of the 

 most important additions to the museum since the last 

 course of lectures is a series of skulls collected in the 

 Fiji Islands in 1876 by Baron Anatole von Hiigel, forming 

 part of a donation made by Mr. Erasmus Wilson. They 

 consist of sixteen crania of the Kai Coios'or mountaineers 

 of the interior of the western portion of Viti Levu, and five 

 crania from the eastern coast and small islands adjacent. 

 The inhabitants of the Fiji group are generally described 

 by ethnologists as a mixed race, compounded of Me- 

 lanesians and of brown Polynesians, as the islands are 

 situated on the confines of the territories inhabited mainly 

 by these two races, and the few crania hitherto accessible 

 have favoured this view. Those, however, of the Kai 

 Colos brought home by Baron von Hiigel, and which 

 probably represent the most primitive native popula- 

 tion of the islands, show all the characters of the purest 

 Melancsian type, without the slightest trace of Poly- 

 nesian mixture. Their purity is shown by their wonderful 

 similarity, and by their very peculiar and strongly- 

 marked ' characters, discernible with equal facility in 

 both sexes and at all ages. They are large, the average 

 capacity of eight adult males being 1,482 cubic centi- 

 metres; and withmuscular ridges and impressions strongly 

 developed. In proportion to their length, they are the 

 narrowest crania known, having an average latitudinal 

 index of only 66'3. Not one has the index so high as 

 700, and in one it descends as low as 61 "9, which is below 

 that of any other normal skull in the collection. The 

 height in all very considerably exceeds the breadth, the 

 average altitudinal index being 74'i. They thus belong 

 to the most strongly marked hypsistenocephalic type. The 

 zygomatic arches are very wide compared with the 

 cranium. The brow ridges are strongly marked, though 

 less so than in the Australians. The orbits are low and 

 quadrangular, the nasal bones short, though rather 

 prominent, and the nasal aperture wide (index 57'i), the 

 jaws prognathous, though not to an extreme degree, 

 and the teeth large. The skeleton of the face thus con- 

 forms with what is generally found in the Melanesians or 

 Oceanic negroes, but the features are on a larger scale 

 and more strongly pronounced than in the inhabitants of 

 many of the New Hebridean and Papuan islands. The 

 skull of the Tongans and Samoans, living on islands 

 scarcely 300 miles from the P'ijis, presents the greatest 

 possible contrast to that just described. It is short and 

 round (latitudinal index 82-6), the orbits are rcund, the 

 nasal bones long and flat, and the aperture narrow (index 

 44-3), and the jaws are not prognathous. It is well known 

 that for a long time the Tongans have been in the habit 

 of visiting the Fijis, especially the smaller islands to the 

 east of the group, and that there is in the inhabitants of 

 that region a considerable infusion of Tongan blood. 

 Five skulls of natives of the small, island of Vanua 

 Balavu, where this influence is supposed to prevail, 

 show a distinct deviation in every character from that 

 of the Kai Colos, and these deviations are, without 

 exception, in the direction of the Tongan or Polynesian 

 type. The average latitudinal index is raised to 7i-9; 

 the nasal index is 50-0, the orbits intermediate in form, 

 and the prognathism much reduced. No skulls have as 

 yet been examined from the second large island, V'anua 

 Levu, and the numbers of those just described are, per- 

 haps, not sufficient to draw any great conclusions from, 

 but as far as they go, thev tend to show that, so far from 

 the' Fijians generally being a mixed race, the mass of 

 those that inhabit the interior of the l.irge islands are 

 remarkably pure, and of the Melanesian or Papuan 

 type in its most characteristic, almost exaggerated, form, 

 but that the natives of the coast districts and outlying 

 islands to the east shov.^ certain tendencies towards the 

 brown Polynesian type, and as these are the people with 

 whom European visitors to the Fijis have mostly come 



