TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 191 



Tlie average brain- weight of the human adnlt, as determined by a 

 numerous series of observations, ranges for man from 40 oz. to 52^ 

 oz., and for woman from 35 oz. to 47^ oz. But some indications 

 among ancient crania tend to suggest a doubt as to whether this 

 difference in cerebral capacity was a uniformly marked sexual distinc- 

 tion among early races; due allowance being made for difference 

 in stature. Dr. Thurnam made the race of the British Long Bar- 

 rows a special subject of study ; and Dr. Eolleston has followed up 

 his researches with valuable results. Amongst other points, he notes 

 that the males appeared to have averaged 5 feet 6 inches, and the 

 females 4 feet 10 inches in. height. But while the difference of 

 stature between the male and the female exceeds what is observable 

 in most modern races, the variation in the size and internal capacity 

 of their skulls appears to be less than among civUized races. The like 

 characteristics are noticeable in the lai'ger race of Europe's paliEO- 

 technic era. Nothing is more striking in the discovery of those 

 ancient remains of European man than the remarkable development 

 of the skulls, and the good brain capacity of the race of the palseo- 

 technic dawn, where man is proved, by his works of art and all the 

 traces of his hearth and home, to have been still a rude hunter and 

 cave-dweller. Whatever other changes, therefore, may have affected 

 the brain as the organ of human thought and reasoning, it does not 

 thus far appear that the average mass of brain has increased since 

 the advent of European man. Important exceptions have indeed 

 been noted. Professor Broca's observations on the cerebral capacity 

 of the Parisian population at different periods, based on nearly 400 

 skulls derived from vaults and cemeteries of various dates from the 

 11th or 12th to the 19th century, appear to him to show a progres- 

 sive cerebral development in that remarkable centre of European 

 civilization.* But though the assumption is not inconsistent with 

 other results of civilization, and is the necessary corollary of the 

 postulate that intellectual activity tends to permanent development 

 of brain ; the fact that the crania presented a still greater diversity 

 in type than in size reminds us of the intermixture of races on the 

 banks of the Seine, and the consequent necessity for much more 

 extended observations before so important a deduction can be received 

 as an established truth. 



Taking the average brain-weight of the human adult as already 

 stated, all male brains falling much below 40 oz. or 1130 grammes, 

 * " BuU. de la Soc. d'Anthropologie de Paris."' 1861, ii., p. 501; 1862, iii., p. 102, 



