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surgeon. The characters of the brain vary immensely, nothing 
being less constant than the form and size of the cerebral 
hemispheres, and the richness of the convolutions upon their 
surface, while the most changeable structures of all in the 
human brain, are exactly those on which the unwise attempt 
has been made to base the distinctive characters of humanity, 
viz. the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle, the hippo- 
campus minor, and the degree of projection of the posterior 
lobe beyond the cerebellum. Finally, as all the world knows, 
the hair and skin of human beings may present the most ex- 
traordinary diversities in colour and in texture. 
So far as our present knowledge goes, the majority of the 
structural varieties to which allusion is here made, are indivi- 
dual. The ape-like arrangement of certain muscles which is 
occasionally met with* in the white races of mankind, is not 
known to be more common among Negroes or Australians : 
nor because the brain of the Hottentot Venus was found to 
be smoother, to have its convolutions more symmetrically 
disposed, and to be, so far, more ape-like than that of ordinary 
Europeans, are we justified in concluding a like condition 
of the brain to prevail universally among the lower races of 
mankind, however probable that conclusion may be. 
Weare, in fact, sadly wanting in information respecting the 
disposition of the soft and destructible organs of every Race 
of Mankind but our owig and even of the skeleton, our Mu- 
seums are lamentably cient in every part but the cra- 
nium. Skulls enough there are, and since the time when Blu- 
menbach and Camper first called attention to the marked and 
singular differences which they exhibit, skull collecting 
and skull measuring has been a zealously pursued branch 
of Natural History, and the results obtained have been 
arranged and classified by various writers, among whom the 
late active and able Retzius must always be the first named. 
Human skulls have been found to differ from one another, 
* See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology of the Orang, 
in the Natural History Review, for 1861. 
