894 REPORT— 1892. 



tongue, by its accommodation to the modified moutli, became shorter and more 

 horizontally flattened, and the higher refinements of pronunciation depend for 

 their production upon more extensive modifications in the same directions. 



I can only allude now very briefly to the efl^ects of the third set of factors, the 

 sizes of the sense organs, on the conformation of the skull. We have already noted 

 that the shape and the size of the orbital opening depend on the jaw as much as on 

 the eye. A careful set of measurements has convinced me that the relative or 

 absolute capacity of the orbital cavity is of very little significance as a character- 

 istic of race. The microsome Australian orbit and the megaseme Kanakan are 

 practically of the same capacity, and the eyeballs of the two Australians that I 

 have had the opportunity of examining are a little larger tlian those of the averao-g 

 of mesoseme Englishmen. 



The nasal fossfe are more variable in size than the orbits, but the superficial area 

 of their lining and their capacity are harder to measure, and bear no constant pro- 

 portion to the size of their apertures, because it is impossible without destroying 

 the skull to shut off the large air sinuses from the nasal fossas proper for purposes of 

 measurement. Thus the most leptorhine of races, the Esquimaux, with an average 

 nasal index of 437 has a nasal capacity of 55 c.cm., equal to that of the platy- 

 rhine jVustralian, whose average is 54-5, and both exceed the capacity of the lepto- 

 rhine English, which average about 60 c.cm. There is an intimate and easily 

 proved connection between dental size and the extent of the nasal floor and of 

 the pyriform aperture. 



These are but a few of the points which a scientific craniometry should take 

 into consideration. There are many others to which I cannot now refer, but which 

 will naturally occur to the thoughtful anatomist. 



In this rapid review of the physical side of our subject the study of these 

 race-characters naturally suggests the vexed question as to the hereditary trans- 

 mission of acquired peculiarities. This is too large a controversy for us now 

 to engage in, but in the special instances before us there are grounds for the 

 presumption that these characters of microdontism and megacephaly have been 

 acquired at some stage in the ancestral history of humanity, and tliat they are 

 respectively correlated, with diminution of use in the one case, and increase of 

 activity in the other. It is a matter of observation that these qualities have be- 

 come hereditary, and the point at issue is not the fact, but the mechanism, of the 

 transmission. We know that use or disuse affects the development of structure 

 in the individual, and it is hard to believe that the persistent disuse of a part 

 through successive generations does not exercise a cumulative influence on its 

 ultimate cotidition. 



There is a statement in reference to one of these characters which has gained 

 an entrance into the text-books, to the effect that the human alveolar arch is 

 shortening,^ and that the last molar tooth is being crowded out of existence. I 

 have examined 400 crania of men of the long and round-barrow races, Romano- 

 British and early Saxon, and have not found among all these a single instance of 

 absence of the third molar or of overcrowded teeth. On the other hand, out of 

 200 ancient Egyptian skulls 9 per cent, showed displacement or disease, and H per 

 cent, showed the want of one molar tooth. Out of 200 modern English skulls there 

 was no tliird molar tooth in 1 per cent. So far this seems to confirm the current 

 opinion. 



Yet the whole history of the organism bears testimony to the marvellous per- 

 sistence of parts in spite of contumely and disuse. Take, for example, the present 

 position of the little toe in man. We know not the condition of this digit in 

 prehistoric man, and have but little information as to its state among savage 

 tribes at the present day ; but we do know that in civilised peoples, whose feet 

 are from infancy subjected to conditions of restraint, it is an imperfect organ — 



Of every function shorn 

 Except to act as basis for a corn. 



In 1 per cent, of adults the second and third joints have ankylosed ; in 3 per 

 cent, the joint between them is rudimentary, with scarcely a trace of a cavity ; in 



