180 LECTURE Til. 



To tlie long lean forearm, is joined a liand whicli lias a deci- 

 dedly simious cliaraeter. Tliougb. the stature of the Negro and 

 the Negress is on the average a few inches below that of the 

 White, the hand of both sexes is always absolutely, mostly an 

 inch or more longer than that of the white race. Besides this, 

 the hand is narrow, the fingers long and thin, the cushion of 

 the third phalanx scarcely perceptible, the nails narrow, flesh 

 coloured, rounded at the end, but much arched. The palm is 

 flat, the thumb-ball scarcely prominent, the coloration lighter 

 than on the dorsum. The thumb is narrow and long, but weak, 

 and reaches in the black to the middle of the second fingerj 

 and sometimes beyond. All these characters of the hand de- 

 cidedly approach those of the simian hand, which is equally 

 distinguished by narrowness, long fingers with curved nails, 

 and slight diflTerence between the thumb and the other fingers. 



The disproportion between the Hmbs is still more developed 

 in the Negress, in whom the arm is absolutely longer than in 

 the male, whilst the upper arm is absolutely shorter. I will, 

 however, not dwell on this, and bearing in mind that between 

 the two sexes of the same species diS'erences may and do pre- 

 vail greater than between the same sexes of different species, 

 I shall keep to the male sex. We may be sure that, whenever 

 we perceive an approach to the animal type, the female is 

 nearer to it than the male, hence we should discover a greater 

 simious resemblance if we were to take the female as our 

 standard. 



The leg exhibits the same proportions as the arm. The leg 

 of the Negro is proportionately somewhat longer than that of 

 the European ; not the femur, but the tibia and the foot. 

 Hence it is that the ends of the fingers seem to reach farther 

 down than in the White, as the knee is, from the shortness of 

 the thigh, brought nearer the trunk. The femoral bones as 

 well as the fibula seem curved outward, so that the knees are 

 more apart from each other than in the White. This mainly 

 arises from the narrowness of the pelvis, by which the articu- 

 lating surfaces of the heads of the femoral bones approximate 

 the central axis of the body. There is also a peculiar arrange- 

 ment in the muscles of the legs, which appear thin, calfless, and 



