December 21, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



947 



variety of races ; * Miss A. Whitely has 

 studied the correlation of certain joints of 

 the hand,j and is investigating the correla- 

 tion of the bones of the hand in a second 

 local race ; Miss C. D. Fawcett has made a 

 long series of measurements on the Naqada 

 skulls, and correlated their chief characters; 

 the present memoir, on the other hand, 

 deals with only a few characters, in the 

 skull, comparing, however, the results ob- 

 tained from a variety of local races. 



It is thus related to Miss Fawcett's work 

 much as Mr. Bramley-Moore's to Dr. War- 

 ren's, i. e., it endeavors, by selecting a few 

 characters and testing them, to ascertain 

 how far results obtained for one local race 

 are valid for a second. In Professor Pear- 

 son's memoir on the reconstruction of 

 the stature of prehistoric races, results ob- 

 tained from one local race were then ex- 

 tended to a great variety of other races. 

 The degree of accuracy in this procedure 

 can only be fully ascertained when the data 

 now being collected in both English and 

 German anatomical institutes are available 

 for calculation. 



The skull, however, differs very widely 

 from the stature and long bones ; for while 

 these have a very high degree of correlation 

 in all local races, the chief characters of the 

 skull are very loosely correlated, and such 

 correlation as they possess varies in a re- 

 markable manner with sex and race. This 

 was first indicated by Professor Pearson ; J 

 it has been amply illustrated in the measure- 

 ments of Miss Fawcett, and is confirmed in 

 a recently published memoir by Dr. Franz 

 Boas. It may be said that this want of 

 correlation in the parts of the skull is the 

 origin of its great importance for the an- 

 thropologist ; it is the source of its personal 

 and racial individuality. But this anthro- 



*Phil. Trans., A, Vol. 192, p. 169. 

 ■fSoy. Soc. Pioc, Vol. 65, p. 126. 

 tPhil. Trans., A, Vol. 187, p. 279, and Boy. Soc. 

 Proc, Vol. 60, p. 495. 



pological advantage, is, from the standpoint 

 of organic evolution, a great disadvantage. 

 Cuvier introduced the conception of corre- 

 lation with the idea of reconstructing from 

 a single bone the whole skeleton and even 

 the outward form of an extinct animal, but 

 the great want of correlation between the 

 parts of the skull, and between the skull 

 and other parts of the human skeleton, 

 renders quantitative reconstruction — and 

 this is the really scientific reconstruction 

 — of one character of the skull from a 

 second, or of the skull and parts of the 

 skeleton from each other extremely diffi- 

 cult, if not impossible, for all but a very 

 few characters. 



Among these characters one of the most 

 feasible to deal with, and one of the most 

 useful, is the capacity of the skull. This 

 is correlated to a fairly high degree (al- 

 though to nothing like the same extent as 

 the long bones among themselves) with the 

 maximum length and breadth, with the 

 total and auricular heights, and with the 

 horizontal and vertical circumferences of 

 the skull. The present memoir deals in 

 the main with the problem of the recon- 

 struction of the capacity from these char- 

 acters. 



Three fundamental problems arise in the 

 theory of reconstruction, i. e., the determi- 

 nation of the probable value of an unknown 

 character from a known and measurable 

 one, or from several such. Namely : 



I. The reconstruction of the individual 

 from data for his own race. 



II. The reconstruction of the average 

 value of a character in one local race from 

 data determined for a second local race. 



III. The determination of the probable 

 value in an individual of characters not 

 measurable during life from characters 

 which are measurable. 



These three problems are all dealt with 

 for the special character capacity of the 

 skull in the present paper. Their impoi-- 



