T68 REPORT— 1897. 



Section H.— ANTHROPOLOaY. 



Peesident of the Section — Sir William Tuener, M.B., LL.D., D.C.L , 



F.R.S., F.R.S.E. 



The President delivered the following Address on Friday, August 20 : — 



Some Distinctive Characters of Ilicman Structure. 



When the British Association for the Advancement of Science held its first 

 •Canadian meeting at Montreal in 1884, the subject of Anthropology, or the 

 Science of Man, attained on that occasion for the first time the rank of an 

 independent Section. 



It was presided over by the accomplished writer and learned anthropologist 

 Dr. E. B. Tylor, who selected as the subject-matter of his opening address several 

 prominent questions in Anthropology, with special reference to their American 

 aspects. For example, the question of the presence of a stone age in America ; 

 whether the aborigines are the descendants and representatives of man of the post- 

 glacial period ; the question of the Asiatic origin of the American Indiana, and the 

 aro-umeuts derived from anatomical structure, language, and social framework, 

 bearing upon this theory. The traces of Asiatic intiueuce in the picture writings 

 of the Aztecs, correspondences in the calendar cycles of Mexico and Central 

 America with those of Eastern Asia, and the common use of certain games of 

 chance were also referred to. 



It is not my intention, even had I possessed the requisite knowledge, to enlarge 

 on the topics so ably discussed by my eminent predecessor. As my own studies 

 have been more especially directed to the physical side of Anthropology, rather 

 than to its arcbasological, historical, philological, moral and social departments, I 

 naturally prefer to call your attention to those aspects of the subject which have 

 from time to time come within the r.ange of my personal cognizance. I have selected 

 as the subject of my address ' Some Distinctive Characters of Human Structure.' 



AVlien we look at man and contrast his form and appearance with other 

 vertebrate creatures, the first thing probably to strike us is his capability of 

 assuming an attitude, which we distinguish by the discinctive term, the erect 

 attitude. In this position the head is balanced on the summit of the spine, the 

 lower limbs are elongated into two columns of support for standing on two feet, or 

 for walking, so that man's body is perpendicular to the surface on which he stands 

 or moves, and his mode of progression is bipedal. As a consequence of this, two 

 ■of his limbs, the arms, are liberated from locomotor functions ; they acquire great 

 freedom and range of movement at the shoulder-joint, as well as considerable move- 

 ment at the elbow and between the two bones of the forearm ; the hands also are 

 modified to serve as organs of prehension, which minister to the purposes of his higher 

 intelligence. The erect position constitutes a striking contrast to the attitude 



