1920. ] Bodily Measurements and Human Races. 43 
as 50 mm. and the breadth as 40 mm. we get an index of 80, 
but if we measure the height as 51 mm. the result is 78°43. 
Slighter differences in the nasal index than this have been 
bridge is ill-defined, is not easy. Similarly (except that the 
measurements are greater and a small error relatively less im- 
portant) with measurements of other parts of the body, and es- 
pecially in measuring the length of the limbs, in which the points 
are particularly difficult to find. A practised anthropologist, 
aided by experience and by a knowledge of human or com- 
parative anatomy, . come some of these difficulties. 
But it is often implied, if not stated, that anthropometry is a 
method of research in which any intelligent person can indulge 
after, or even without, the most elementary training. 
cover of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of 
Great Britain and Ireland the following advertisement ap- 
ears :— 
' ‘* Invaluable to Medical Officers, Teachers, etc. 
REPORT 
of the 
ANTHROPOMETRIC COMMITTEE 
of the 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 
Being the Final Report on Anthropometric Method. 
Contains Full Instructions for Taking Measurements. 
With 33 Illustrations. 
PRICE ONE SHILLING NET.” 
I own experience, which has been considerable both in 
India,! and in other countries, this advertisement is almost as 
optimistic as those from which persons afflicted by incurable 
diseases gain the hope of a miraculous cure. Of all the biologi- 
cal investigations I have myself undertaken I have found no 
technique more difficult than that of measuring living persons. 
This may perhaps be due in some measure to lack of manual 
skill on my part, for the feats of anthropometry performed, and 
the speed with which they have been performed, by other an- 
thropologists, and especially by the Japanese,* fill me with 
The anthropometrical measurements taken recently in the labora- 
tory of the Zoological Survey in the Indian Museum are now being 
séd mathematically by Mr. P. C. Mahalanobis in the Presidency Col- 
lege, Calcutta, ; 
? See, for example, Kubo, T., Bettrage zur physischen Anthropologic 
der Koreaner, Published by the Imperial University of Tokyo, 1913. 
