ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 89 



Forty-Seventh Regular Meeting, December 6, 1881. 



Mr. M. B. W. Hough read a paper entitled A Question in 

 Classification, of which the following is an abstract : 



Classification is made possible by the persistence of inherited 

 peculiarities, while it is rendered necessary by the diversities of 

 such peculiarities which meet us daily in the street. It proceeds 

 upon the present condition of affairs, but many considerations 

 must enter any discussion of the subject. 



Races of men are described by color, habitation, and by families. 

 The last is the true method, but each observer has his own theory. 



The proportionate diameter of the skull when measured laterally 

 and longitudinarily, and the contents of the brain in cubic inches 

 are also favorite methods. Men have also been divided into two 

 species by the position of the nostrils, whether close together or 

 wide apart. 



The angle between lines drawn from the forehead and the base 

 of the brain, meeting at the front of the upper jaw, and the 

 relative prominence of the jaws compared with the forehead and 

 the chin, is used for the same purpose, and seem to be persistent. 

 A division founded on the cross section of the hair seems incisive, 

 but must, it would seem, yield to some, as yet, unrecognized 

 distinction, which shall divide men into two families of races. 



The diversities of the individuals who compose these classes, 

 when each is taken as a whole, are manifold. One class delights 

 in repose, is ruled by desires and acts from impulse; the other 

 delights in action, is ruled by ideas and acts from motive ; one is 

 patient under restraint and satisfied with material comfort ; the 

 other is ambitious of improvement and impatient of control. 

 Anatomical differences are well known to specialists : one class has 

 less muscular development and more protruding mouth ; it has also 

 more flattened and scanty hair, accompanied by larger and more 

 active perspiratory glands, whether these facts are related or not. 

 The feet are less arched, arms longer, legs weaker, chests shallower, 



