580 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 200. 



tween a curve drawn for a relatively simple 

 population and one in which several dis- 

 tinct types are coexistent. The narrowness 

 and height of the pyramids for the two 

 extremes of Italy culminating at indexes of 

 79 and 84 respectively, are notable.* The 

 two regions are severally quite homogeneous 

 in respect of the head-form of their popula- 

 tion ; for the apex of such curves rarely ex- 

 ceeds the limit of fourteen per cent, reached 



elusion of each differently characterized 

 population. It will be observed, however, 

 that even this curve for a highly complex 

 people preserves vestiges, in its minor 

 apexes, of the constituent types of which it 

 is compounded. Thus its main body 

 culminates at the broadened head-form of 

 the Alpine race ; but a lesser apex on the 

 left-hand side coincides with the cephalic in- 

 dex of the Mediterranean racial type, that 



Fig. 2. 



Note.— The?e curves are not strictly comparable with one another in detail ; since they 

 are based upon the differing systems of measurement of the French and German schools. 

 Direct comparisons of cranial and cephalic index curves are also impossible. The form 

 in all cases is, however, the same. 



in these instances. The curve for all Italy, 

 on the other hand, is the resultant of com- 

 pounding such seriations as these for each 

 district of the country. It becomes pro- 

 gressively lower and broader with the in- 



* Livi's maps of the distribution of these types in 

 Italy are reproduced in our article on that country, 

 in Popular Science Monthly, LI., 1897, p. 721 et seq. 



which entirely dominated in the simple 

 curve for Sicily alone. 



The second diagram contains examples of 

 a number of erratic curves. The Swiss one 

 represents a stage of physical heterogeneity 

 far more pronounced than that of all Italy, 

 which we have just analyzed. Or rather, 

 more truly, it is the product of an inter- 



