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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XXII. No. 564 



MY NEW PRINCIPLES OF THE CLASSIFICATION 

 OF THE HUMAN EACE. 



BY a. SEBGI, EOME, ITALY. 



The chief principle consists in discovering many varieties 

 in man, as in animal species. These varieties have internal 

 and external characters: the former are persistent and 

 fised by heredity, and in man are durable for many cen- 

 turies — according to my own observations, more than a 

 thousand years. The external characters are liable 

 to be changed by crossing the varieties. These char- 

 acters, novr, are very much mingled in various ways, 

 so that it is not easy to distinguish one from another. 

 These mingled characters are constant causes of mistakes 

 in the classification of human beings. 



The internal characters of the human varieties are in the 

 bony frame, especially in the skull; the externals are the 

 color of the skin and of the hair and eyes. 



Until the human classification is made by external 

 characters (Linneus, Cuvier, etc.), we cannot have one 

 upon a natural basis. Very little experience of the various 

 races of man, as now classified, shows that these are an 

 intermixture of various ethnic elements, with the same or 

 various colors of skin, hair and eyes. Elsewhere we find 

 various colors of skin with the same internal characters of 

 the skeleton. 



The skull chiefly furnishes the characters of classifica- 

 tion; it shows the external shape of the brain, the most 

 important and the highest organ of man; the skull is the 

 means of the classification of the brain. 



Now, I have discovered in the human skulls various 

 forms or types which are persistent by heredity; these 

 forms, which we find in many individuals, are varieties of 

 my primitive ideal form of skull in human beings. Again, 

 I have discovered that the varieties comprehend sub- 

 varieties by means of some new characters which modify 

 the variety, or are superadded to the characters of the 

 variety. 



Therefore, I consider the shape of the skull as a natural 

 basis of the classification of th« varieties of man, because 

 the varieties have a dependence upon a biological fact, viz., 

 the natural formation by variations, as in animal species. 



The various forms of the human skull have their origin 

 from a series of anatomical facts: (1) From the various de- 

 velopment of the bones of the human skull. (2) From the 

 different curves of the bones, and from the different direc- 

 tions of these curves. (3) From the capacity of the skull. 



It is true that anthropologists have often spoken of type 

 of skull, but they have not defined this type; we can show 

 it by the woi'ks of the German anthropologists, especially 

 of Von Holder, Ecker, Virchow, and others, of the French 

 and Swiss anthropologists, as His and Rtitimeyer, De 

 Quatrefages and others. The Italian anthropologist, 

 Mantegazza, has proposed a Linnean description of human 

 skulls. 



But all the anthropologists believe they can determine 

 the form of the skulls by the measurements and the cor- 

 related indices. 



This method of measurement, which Retzins introduced 

 in anthropology, was suggested by himself and by sub- 

 sequent scholars. Retzins classified the human races by 

 means of the cephalic index, which is one character of the 

 skull; he changed his classification four times in a few 

 years, because his method was uncertain. 



In my opinion, the method of measurements adopted 

 for this classification is no method. The measures only 

 discover some secondary characters of the skull; I have 

 proved that, under the same cephalic index, we have many 

 different forms of skulls, and under various cephalic indices 

 we have the same shape of the skull. Besides, the skulls 



of all people of the world are dolicho, meoo, and brachy- 

 cejjhalic. 



I think that Blumenbach laid the true basis of 

 anthropology in his little book, De generis humani varietate 

 nativa, a century ago. He found that the human varieties 

 are numberless, and investigated very accurately the 

 causes of the variations in man, as in animals. But sub- 

 sequent anthropologists have left off the Blumenbach 

 princijjles, which should have been the basis of systematic 

 anthropology and of classification. 



Now, my object is to establish the basis of sj stematic 

 anthropology on the shape of the skulls, without regard 

 to measurements. For this purpose it is necessary to find 

 a nomenclature of those forms which correspond to the 

 varieties and sub-varieties, as we have done in zoology. 

 The nomenclature is intended to distinguish one form 

 from another, and to fix definitively the forms of the differ- 

 ent varieties. Further, the nomenclature applies to the 

 geographical distribution of the varieties and serves to 

 analyze the various ethnic elements which compose the 

 peoples of the world. Thus we can follow the course of 

 human emigration and of mixture in various times. 



I have attempted, in many sketches, to show practically 

 the results of my principles and of my new method of classi- 

 fication of varieties. These sketches are the following: 



African and Armenian skulls: General considerations 

 on anthropology and craniology. (Archivio per I'Antro- 

 pologio, 1891). The human varieties in Melanesia (Acad- 

 emia de Meclicina de Parma, 1892). The h uman varieties 

 in Sicily (Acad, dei Lincei, Roma, 1892). The human 

 varieties in Sicily. (Acad dei Lindei, Roma, 1892). The hu- 

 man varieties in Lower Russia (Anali de Medicina 1892). The 

 primitive inhabitants of the Mediterranean Sea (not yet 

 published). The microcephalic varieties and pygmies of 

 Europe (Acad, di Medicina di Roma, 1893). Catalogue of 

 the varieties of man in Russia. Systematic classification of 

 the primitive inhabitants of European Russia. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



^^.Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 writer's name is in all cases required as a proof of good faith. 



On request in advance, one hundred copies of the number con- 

 taining his communication will be furnished free to any corres- 

 pondent. 



The editor vnll be glad to publish any queries consonant with 

 the character of the ioumal. 



The Mechanics of Flight. 



At the recent Aerial Navigation Congress in Chicago a 

 paper was read on this subject which was published in 

 Engineering Neivs for Oct. 12. The paper has caused a 

 great deal of discussion, which has appeared in the same 

 journal for Oct. 26 and Nov. 16. I think it will be of in- 

 terest to readers of Science, who may not have access to 

 this papier, to give a few points in these novel views and 

 to show how valueless they are in explaining the perplex- 

 ing problem of the soaring bird. 



The author has made a careful study of the flight of 

 buzzards in tropical regions, and assumes, as a premise, 

 that because he has not seen the bird move its wings, or 

 any portion of them, therefore it must gain some assist- 

 ance from air currents. It seems to me this is a violent 

 assumption at the outset; surely our eyes at a distance 

 cannot give us movements of wings which might be ample 

 to keep the bird at a level, or it may be that the bird does 

 not continue absolutely at the same level, though appear- 

 ing to the eye to do so. At all events, this premise 

 should not be granted, and should be proved by evidence 

 far better than any thus far adduced. 



The author thinks that the bird in flying with a cur- 

 rent and down an inclined plain will gain energy from the 

 current over and above that due to the descent, and this 



