334 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 
The private enterprise of a few anthropologists has resulted in a some- 
what superficial survey of some of the physical characters of our population. 
A map?of the distribution of stature in the British Isles has been 
prepared from data collected by the Anthropometric Committee of the 
British Association, but it should be noted that the map has been prepared 
from measurements of only 8,585 persons, a quite inadequate sample of 
a population of forty millions. 
Dr. Eeddoe has prepared maps of the hair- and eye-colours of the British 
Isles, which are undoubtedly of the greatest value, though the number of 
observations again are far from sufficient. 
The scientific enthusiasm and patriotism of the school teachers of 
Scotland has enabled them to carry out a pigmentation survey of the 
children in the primary schools of Scotland. But all the anthropometric 
work that has hitherto been done in the British Isles is quite inadequate 
to give a correct representation of the physical characters of our population. 
As an indication that a complete anthropometric survey will show that 
quite different racial types will be found inhabiting different parts of the 
country, I exhibit a cephalic chart of a number (not very large) of measure- 
ments I have made of persons drawn from all parts of the British Isles. 
The contrast, say, between Yorkshire and Cornwall and Devon is very 
marked. But much more numerous data would be required to establish 
these results. 
The utilitarian applications of national anthropometry are likely to be 
of immense value to the social reformer. The evolution of man is deter- 
mined by the actions and reactions that take place between man and 
his environment. The genetic environment by the process of natural 
selection determines the capacities of the stock; the trophic environment 
controls the growth and activities of the living bodies, and produces a 
more or less efficient population from a given stock. 
It is of immense importance to know which of these modes of action 
of the environment exerts the greatest influence on man for good or evil. 
On this depends whether social legislation should be directed in the first 
place to the improvement of the trophic factors, such as nutrition, housing, 
physical training, education, &c., or to the introduction of genetic measures | 
which would improve the stock by selection. 
The collection of exact data by the measurement of the physical and 
mental characters of the people and the factors of their environment is 
the only method by which the above-mentioned problem can be solved. 
By the calculus of correlation the degree of association between any 
given factor of a child’s environment and its physical and mental characters 
can be determined and compared with the influence of stock on the same 
characters. For example, it has been shown by Miss Elderton that the 
stcck of the parent has more influence on the physique of the child than 
the presence or absence of drinking habits. 
Only the scantiest data exist at the present time for the solution of 
these vital problems, and such few and statistically imperfect examples 
as have been worked out appear to show that our measures of social reform 
are more often than not misdirected. 
Apart from the changes in our environment that have been introduced 
by legislation within the last century, the vast social changes that have 
been introduced by the growth of industry require to be carefully studied 
and directed by periodic measurements of the population. A few of these 
changes may be realised from the charts in a recently published Blue Book 
(Cd. 4671). 
Within the last fifty years the population of England has doubled, 
and almost as great an increase has taken place in the population of Wales 
* See Report Brit. Assoc., 1883, p. 264. 
