112 OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPTIAN ETHNOGRAPHY, 
The preceding table speaks for itself. It shows that more than eight tenths of the 
crania pertain to the unmixed Caucasian race; that the Pelasgic form is as one to one 
and a half, and the Semitic form one to eight, compared with the Egyptian: that one 
twentieth of the whole is composed of heads in which there exists a trace of N egro and 
other exotic lineage:—that the Negroid conformation exists in eight instances, thus 
constituting about one thirteenth part of the whole; and, finally, that the series con- 
tains a single unmixed Negro. 
To these facts I shall briefly add the results of the observations of some authors who 
have preceded me in this inquiry. ‘I have examined in Paris, and in the various col- 
lections of Hurope,’’ says Cuvier, “more than fifty heads of mummies, and not one 
amongst them presented the characters of the Negro or Hottentot.’”* 
Two of the three mummy heads figured by Blumenbach, (Decad. Cran., Figs. 1 and 31,) 
are unequivocally Egyptian, but the second, as that accurate observer remarks, has some- 
thing of the Negro expression.t The third cranium delineated in the same work, (Plate 
52,) is also Caucasian, but less evidently Egyptian, and partakes, in Professor Blumen- 
bach’s opinion, of the Hindoo form. Of the four mummies described by Sdemmering, 
“two differed in no respect from the European formation; the third had the African 
character of a long space marked out for the temporal muscle; the characters of the 
fourth are not particularized. The skulls of four mummies in the possession of Dr. 
Leach, of the British museum, and casts of three others, agree with those just mentioned 
in exhibiting a formation not differing from the European, without any trait of the 
Negro character.” f 
The two heads figured in the great French work, are both decidedly Egyptian, but 
the second and smaller one is the most strongly marked.§ 
Internal Capacity of the Cranium.|—As this measurement gives the size of the brain, 
I have obtained it in all the crania above sixteen years of age, unless prevented by frac- 
tures or the presence of bitumen within the skull; and this investigation has confirmed 
the proverbial fact of the general smallness of the Egyptian head, at least as observed 
in the catacombs south of Memphis. Thus, the Pelasgic crania from the latter city, give 
an average internal capacity of eighty-nine cubic inches; those of the same group from 
Thebes give eighty-six. This result is somewhat below the average of the existing 
Caucasian nations of the Pelasgic, Germanic, and Celtic families, in which I find the 
brain to be about ninety-three cubic inches in bulk. It is also interesting to observe that 
the Pelasgic brain is much larger than the Egyptian, which last gives an average of but 
eighty cubic inches; thus, as we shall hereafter see, approximating to that of the Indo- 
Arabian nations. 
* Lawrence’s Lectures on Zoology, &c., p. 347. t+ Decas Quarta, p. 6. 
{ Lawrence, ut supra, eighth edition, p. 325. } Description de L’ Egypte, Antiq. IL., pl. 49, 50. 
|| In my Crania Americana, p. 283, I have described an ingenious method of measuring the internal capacity of the 
cranium, devised by my friend Mr. John 8, Phillips. The material used for filling the skull, as there directed, was 
white pepper seed, which was chosen on acount of its spheroidal form, and general uniformity of size. Finding, how- 
ever, that considerable variation occurred in successive measurements of the skull, I substituted leaden shot one tenth 
of an inch in diameter, in place of the seeds. The skull must be completely filled by shaking it while the shot is poured 
in at the foramen magnum, into which the finger must be frequently pressed for the same purpose, until the various 
sinuosities will receive no more. When this is accomplished, the shot on being transferred to the tube, will give the 
absolute capacity of the cranium, or size of the brain, in cubic inches, 
