824 
of any year and a little less rapid in those of ten. 
. . . Admitting the theory of the inheritance of 
acquired characteristics as proven, a change would 
have to appear in the parents after a long stay in 
the United States, and this change would have to 
be transmitted to the descendants; 7%. e., the 
cephalic, facial and other forms would first change 
in the parents and would then be transmitted to 
the children. But this is not the case; according 
to Boas such a change appears ex novo in the 
children as soon as the parents land in America or 
have lived here a year or two. This is absurd in 
theory and as a matter of fact these are not the 
conditions, as I have shown. 
Finally, Dr. Sergi says that one is tempted 
to ask: 
Why should the two types tend toward a com- 
mon form in America? Is it because one finds 
there one fixed type, either absolutely dolicho- 
cephalic or decidedly brachycephalic? Not even 
such a justification exists, because America, both 
with regard to her natives and her immigrants, 
has always had dolichocephalics, mesocephalics and 
brachycephalics; hence there is no influence of 
environment which can tend to fix a single cephalic 
form in either natives or immigrants (p. 11). 
The general reader ought to know these 
facts. The main purpose of my critique, as 
well as that of the present discussion, is not 
to answer but to raise the questions in regard 
to the causes of changes of the cephalic type. 
Whatever the prima facie explanation may 
be, the causes of the shape of the head can not 
be solved by Boas’s new theory, because it is, 
as I showed in my critique, “based rather on 
a cross-section of the facts than on a genetic 
interpretation of them. It is only a genetic 
description and explanation of them that can 
give a trustworthy basis for a theory.” Is it 
not a fact that in a considerable part of pres- 
ent-day anthropological, psychological and 
pedagogical writings one is led to think that 
the most primary phenomena have been ex- 
amined with mathematical accuracy, when as 
a matter-of-fact there must have been left out 
of account numerous accompanying condi- 
tions which determined, to a greater or less 
extent, the results of the problem studied. 
The main objection to Professor Boas’s 
new theory of the changes in bodily form of 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 908 
descendants of immigrants in America is 
that it finds only one causal relation, viz., 
that between figures and environment, ignor- 
ing all biological and methodological factors. 
He does that in spite of the most recent at- 
tempts of biologists to explain all organic 
and inorganic changes by the principles of 
“plural effects” and “the limits of possible 
oscillations ” (see especially Petrunkewitsch’s 
“Gedanken iiber Vererbung,” Freiburg, 1904). 
These modern biologists support their the- 
ories also by the logic of mathematics; so, 
for example, the formula comprising the el- 
lipse, the parabola and the hyperbola (where 
r and A are polar coordinates) : 
Fm BEDS eas 
1—ecosA 
is capable of many solutions and thus creates 
many possibilities. I believe that Professor 
Sergi is perfectly warranted in characteriz- 
ing as “absurd” an anthropological theory 
which claims that human bodily forms are 
plastic and can be moulded even during the 
“first generation” and “a short time after 
the arrival of parents under new surround- 
ings.” 
To sum up. As the general reader knows, 
the form of the head is considered by anthro- 
pologists as the most unchanging physical 
characteristic of the human body, so that the 
scientists classify the race into a few cephalic 
types. Professor Boas, on the contrary, 
makes unwarranted, sweeping conclusions 
that even the shape of the head undergoes far- 
reaching changes in type due to the new en- 
vironment, a new theory which is not justified 
by his own figures and is not based on scien- 
tific methods and on the required technique of 
experimental physical anthropology. 
Paut R. RaposavisEvicH 
NEw YorK UNIVERSITY, 
April 18, 1912 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
Pflanzenphysiologie. By W. Patuapin. Ber- 
lin, Julius Springer. 1911. Pp. vi-+ 310, 
figs. in text 180. Price M. 9, paper M. 8. 
The new plant physiology from the hand of 
