340 REPORT—1904 
The cards of the 1,005 Egyptian fellahin measured have been sorted 
into provinces, and their measurements have been carefully copied out 
and collated, province by province, ready for publication. The cephalic 
and nasal indices have been determined, wherever possible, for each indi- 
vidual. The Copts have been considered separately from the Mahommedan 
population. Individuals whose parents belong to different provinces 
have been set apart in a ‘mixed’ group. Averages have been struck of 
the stature, maximal and minimal chest- and calf-measurements for the 
Mahommedans of each province and for the Copts. 
Certain measurements, the length, breadth, and horizontal circum- 
ference of the head, the cephalic and nasal indices, have been studied in 
greater detail with the object of obtaining the coefficients of variability 
and correlation for various districts. Such data have great biological 
interest, seeing that the anthropometric material now available from 
Egypt covers a range of some seven thousand years. The variabilities of 
certain provinces have been compared inter se, and with (a) Professor 
Petrie’s prehistoric Nakada skeletons measured by Miss Fawcett, Dr. 
Warren, and others ; (8) a series of Theban mummy-skeletons ; (y) a 
series of modern Cairo skeletons from the museums at Leipzig. 
The modern population of the Kena province shows slightly less 
variability and correlation in head, length, and breadth and slightly 
greater variability in cephalic index than the ‘ prehistoric’ Nakada popu- 
lation of this province. It may well be, therefore, that the homogeneity 
of the Upper Egyptians has not been seriously disturbed during the last 
seven thousand years ; but this conclusion cannot be regarded as certain 
until the variability of other measurements has been similarly studied. 
The greater variability of Theban mummies would be easily explicable on 
the ground of racial impurities in so famous and populous a city as ancient 
Thebes. The objection that modern conscripts are not representative of 
the Egyptian population, owing to the influence of stringent selection in 
stature and chest-measurement, may be disallowed on various grounds. 
There is no evidence either of correlation between stature and cephalic 
index or of the infiltration of a taller race into Egypt. Moreover, stature 
depends, as is well known, upon climate and nutrition as well as upon 
heredity. Lastly, the tallest Nakada individuals show even slightly 
greater variability in the above measurements than does the general 
population. 
The Coptic population appears to be decidedly more variable than the 
Mahommedan. This surprising result, if confirmed by investigation of 
further points of comparison, may be due to the greater struggle for exist- 
ence for so many centuries besetting a small Christian in the midst of a 
Moslem population. It may be that the chance of survival is greatest for 
those who show the most tendency to variation, so that the Copts, in spite 
of their freedom from relatively modern Arab admixture, still show greater 
variability than the Mahommedans. They appear actually to be more 
variable than the ‘mixed’ group of Mahommedans, but to be distinctly 
less variable than the modern Cairene series, town populations, as might 
be expected, always showing the most marked heterogeneity. 
