LECTURE III. 7o 



photography, it is only the subjective conception of the de- 

 signer which can serve as a means of comparison. Grenerally 

 we cannot place races side by side. Naturalists sail or steam 

 round the world ; they observe one race or tribe, then, after 

 weeks, or perhaps months, they see another, and, from memo- 

 randa and sketches, try to discover resemblances and to in- 

 stitute comparisons. The zoologist, who is required to institute 

 a comparison between two similar animals — ^he one from 

 Africa, the other from Asia — and to determine from memory, or 

 from notes and drawings, whether or not they belong to the 

 same species, shrugs his shoulders and says, " Show me the 

 animals side by side, or at least the skin and the skeleton, but 

 do not ask anything unreasonable." Nevertheless, this demand 

 is frequently made of the anthropologist. Though photography 

 cannot place the races themselves side by side, it, to a certain 

 extent, supplies the want of them by the exactness of its 

 delineations. 



With regard to the delineation of the skull, there are two 

 points of view, and the opinions of naturalists vary accord- 

 ingly. If the object be to obtain figures which are to repre- 

 sent the character of the skull and its peculiarities, so as to 

 strike us at the first glance, perspective delineation, which is 

 to be obtained most perfectly by means of photography, is to 

 be preferred above all others, as it best renders the peculiar 

 physiognomy of the original. But when a recent author re- 

 commends, in the portraiture of the skull, positions of half or 

 one-third profile, according as either of these positions is most 

 characteristic, it seems to us a mistake, because one of the 

 chief objects of delineation, viz., comparison, is ignored. When 

 Welcker, for instance, gives a skull with an open frontal 

 suture and widely-distant orbits four-fifths full face, and some- 

 what inclined to the left side, we cannot see that such a dis- 

 torted position better represents the peculiarities of formation 

 depending on open sutures, the position of the eyes, &c., than 

 a full front view. If we compare with these the excellent 

 photographic delineations of Von Baer, it can easily be seen, 

 that even in strictly geometrical positions, the characteristics 

 of cranial formation can be better rendered than by the method 

 just mentioned. 



