TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. DEPT. ANTHROPOLOGY. G87 



and trouble in heaping up elaborate tables of measurements, and minutely 

 recording every point that is capable of description, with little regard to any con- 

 clusions that may be drawn from them. It is certainly time now'to endeavour, if 

 po.^sible, to discriminate characters which indicate deep-lying affinity from those 

 that are more transient, variable or adaptive, and to adjust, as far as may be, the 

 proper importance to be attached to each. 



It is, however, quite to be expected that, in the infancy of all sciences, a vast 

 amount of labour must be expended in learning the methods of investigation. In 

 none has this been more conspicuous than in the subject under consideration. 

 Many have come to despair, for instance, of any good, commensurate with the time 

 it occupies, coming of the minute and laborious work involved ia craniometry. 

 This is because nearly all our present methods are tentative. We have not yet 

 learnt, or are only beginning to learn, what lines of investigation are profitable 

 and what are barren. The results, even as far as we have gone, are, however, 

 quite sufficient, in my opinion, to justify perseverance. I am, however, not so sure 

 whether it be yet time to answer the demand, so eager and so natural, which is 

 being made in many quarters for the formulation of a definite plan of examination, 

 measurement, and description to which all future investigation should rigidly 

 adhere. All steps to promote agreement upon fundamental points are to be' cor- 

 dially welcomed, and meetings or congresses convened for such a purpose will be 

 of use by giving opportunities for the'impartial discussion of the relative value of 

 difierent methods ; but the agreement will finally be brought about by the general 

 adoption of those measurements and methods which experience proves to be the 

 most useful, while others will gradually fall into disuse by a kind of process of 

 natural selection. 



The changes and improvements which are being made yearly, almost monthly, 

 in instruments and in methods, show what we should lose if we were to stop at any 

 given period, and decree in solemn conclave that this shall be our final system, 

 this instrument and this method shall be the only one used throughout the world, 

 that no one shall depart from it. We scarcely need to ask how long such an 

 agi-eement would be binding. The subject is not sufficiently advanced to be 

 reduced to a state of stagnation such as tliis would bring it to. 



To take an example from what is perhaps the most important of the anatomical 

 characters by which man is distinguished from the lower animals, the superior from 

 the inferior races of man : the smaller or greater projection forwards of the lower 

 part of the face in relation to the skull proper, or that which contains the brain. 

 From the time when Camper drew his facial angle, to the present day, the readiest 

 and truest method of estimating this projection has occupied the attention of ana- 

 tomists and anthropologists, and we are still far from any general agreement. 

 Every country, every school, has its own system, so different that comparison with 

 one another is well-nigh impossible. This'is undoubtedly an evil ; but the question 

 is whether we sTiould all agree to adopt one of the confessedly defective systems now 

 in vogue, or whether we should not rather continue to hope for, and endeavour to 

 find, one which may not be subject to the well-known objections urged against all. 



We want, especially in this country, more workers, trained and experienced men 

 who will take up the subject seriously, and devote themselves to it continuously. 

 Of such we may say, without offence to those few who have done occasional excel- 

 lent work in physical anthropology, but whose chief scientific activity lies in other 

 fields, we have not one. In the last number of the French Rei-ue cV Anthropologic, 

 a reference caught my eye to a craniometrical method in use by the ' English school ' 

 of anthropologists. It was a reference only to a method which I had ventured to 

 suggest, but which, as far as I know, has not been adopted by anyone else. A 

 school is just what we have not, and what we want— a body of men, not only 

 willing to learn, but able to discuss, to criticise, to give their approval to, or reduce 

 to its proper level, the results put forth by our few original investigators and 

 writers. The rapidity with which anyone of the most slender pretensions who 

 ventures into the field (I speak from painful experience) is raised to be an oracle 

 among his fellows is one of the most alarming proofs of the present barrenness of 

 the land. 



