THE PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF MAN. 



117 



When individuals of the Negro races are removed to more temperate 

 climates than Africa, such as Europe or North America, they arrive at 

 puherty sooner than tlie White races, the difference in this respect com- 

 monly amounting to a year. This serves to indicate that their races are 

 naturally more precocious than ours. The same remark is also applicable 

 to the Mojul races. On the authority of several travellers, the females of 

 Siam, Golconda, China, and Japan, are marriageable at eleven or twelve 

 years; but even in climates much colder than our own, individuals of 

 the same races still continue to be more precocious. A Calmuck, or a 

 Mo^ul woman of Siberia, in a climate as cold as ihat of Sweden, is mar- 

 riageable at thirteen, while a Swedish woman would not be so under 

 fifteen or sixteen. The Samoiede and Lapland women present the 

 usua'fappearances of puberty at the age of eleven or twelve, and the 

 males at twelve or thirteen, while the English, German, and French, be- 

 come marriageable only at a much later period. We thus see that each hu- 

 man race possesses a peculiar aptitude in this respect, that the individuals 

 of one race naturally become formed at an earlier period than those of 

 another, and this they do notwithstanding the various differences of 

 climate, food, and temperament. 



Females who become marriageable at an early age soon lose their 

 powers of conception. From the ages of thirty to thirty-five years, the 

 women of India are accounted old, according to Paxman The Javanese 

 women do not conceive beyond thirty years, and even in Persia, accord- 

 ing to Chardin, many women do not produce after twenty-seven years. 

 The Siamese women are apparent exceptions to this observation, for 

 they are said to have children at the age of forty, although they attain to 

 puberty at a very early period. Upon the whole, it may be stated gene- 

 rally, that the usual period for the commencement of puberty in females 

 varies, under the burning sun of the Tropics, from nine to twelve years, 

 and terminates about thirty, though sometimes extending as late as forty 

 years. On the other hand, the Samoiede women, though marriageable 

 at an early age, continue their powers unimpaired to forty-one. In our 

 own country, its termination may be stated at the ages of forty to forty- 

 five years. 



Puberty is represented by external signs. These appear (in 

 France) from the ages of ten to twelve in girls, and from twelve to 

 sixteen in boys. In warm countries they are sooner observable ; 

 and either sex is rarely capable of procreation before that period. 



Among other well-known signs of puberty, the deepening of the voice 

 in the male, and the expansion of the breast in the female, are the most 

 obvious and constant. 



MATURITY. 



After attaining the age of puberty, the body soon acquires its maximum 

 of height. Some young men do not grow after fourteen or fifteen years 

 of age ; while others continue as long as twenty-two or twenty-three 

 years. Nearly all of them, during this time, are of a slender make, their 

 thighs and legs small, with the muscular parts not so perfectly developed 

 as they ultimately become. 



At the age of eighteen years the youth usuall}' ceases to grow. 

 The adult man rarely exceeds the height of six feet, and is seldom 

 found below five feet. Women are usually some inches less. 



The stature of individuals is subject to great variations. Dwarfs have 

 been known scarcely more than two feet high, while we are not without au- 

 thentic accounts of giants nearly nine feet in height. Contrarj' to what is 

 observed among the domestic animals, the medium height of one human 

 race is but httle different from that of another. The height of women is 

 less variable than that of men. Among all nations of great stature, they 

 are very considerably smaller than the men, while the difl^erence in the 

 relative height of the sexes varies but slightly among the races of diminu- 

 tive stature. The height of the smallest dwarf bears to that of the largest 

 giant the ratio of 1 to 4 very nearly: and, supposing them to be equally 

 well-proportioned, their ratio of bulk will therefore he as 1 to 64. On 

 the other hand, the medium height of the smallest races is to that of the 

 largest only as 1 to IJ; consequently, their ratio of bulk will be very 

 nearly as I to 3J. 



The following tables, deduced by M. Isidore Geoffroy-Sr-Hilaire, from 

 a number of scattered observations, published by different authors, serve 

 to exhibit the average amount of the hereditary variations of height. 



N.\TIO\S REM.ARK.-iBLE FOR THEIR GREAT .STATURE. 



INHABITING 



Patagonians, 1 45° to 50° S. 



Do 



Inhabitants of the Navigators' 



Islands, 



Carribees, 



Patagonians, 



Mbayas, 



New Zealanders, 



Otaheitan Chiefs 



Marquesas, | 



lat. 



do. 



14° S. lat. 



8° to 10° S. 1 



45° to 50° S. 



20° to 21° S. 



35° to 45° S. 



17° S. lat. 



10° S. lat. 



lat. 

 lat 

 lat. 

 lat. 



Patagonians, i 45° to 50° S. lat. 



1 



AUTHORITIES. 



Rather cold, 

 do. 



Warm. 



Very warm. 

 Ratlier cold. 



Warm. 



Rather warm. 



Very warm. 



do. 

 Rather cold. 



KKKT. 



6 

 6 



6 



6 

 6 

 6 

 5 



4.7 

 2.6 



2.6 



1 5 

 0.5 

 05 

 11.4 

 103 

 10.3 

 9. 



La Giraudais, Malaspina. 

 Commerson, De Gennes. 



I-a Perouse. 



Humboldt. 



Bougainville. 



Azara. 



Garnot & Lesson. 



do. 

 Marchand. 

 Cook, Wallis. 



NATIONS REMARKABLE FOR THEIR SMALL STATURE. 





INHABITING 



CLIMATE. 



HRIGHT. 



AUTHORITIES. 





35° S. lat. 



12° S. lat. 



51° N. lat. 



50° to 60° N. lat. 



0° to 1° S. lat. 



60° to 75° N. lat. 



70° N. lat. 

 30° S. lat. 



Warm. 



do. 



do. 



Very cold. 



Very warm. 



Very cold. 



do. 

 Rather warm. 



FEET. IN. 

 5 2.9 



5 2.3 

 5 1.8 

 5 1.8 

 4 106 

 (5 1.8^ 



(4 96) 

 4 3.2 

 4 3. 



Quoy & Gaimard. 



do. 

 La Perouse. 



do. 

 Garnot & Lesson. 



f Krusenstern, La Perouse, 

 \ Regnard, Depaw. 



Hearn, Depaw. 



Barrow, PeiDii. 



Inhabitants of Vanikoro, 



nrotcli\'S Tartars 





Panoiis of (Iffack 



Different European and Asi- ^ 

 atic Nations near the Arc- > 

 tic Circle, ) 



Esquimaux, 



Roschismans 





The differences in the statements regarding the average height of the 

 Patagonians may partly be explained by the circumstance, that these tribes 

 are of migratory habits, and partly through the observers paying too much 

 attention to the individual variations of stature. 



It has long been remarked, that the nations of smallest stature abound 

 more especially in the northern hemisphere, and towards its most north- 

 ern extremity. The second of the preceding tables shows this fact clearly ; 

 but it also exhibits some exceptions. On the other hand, the tallest na- 

 tions are almost confined to the Southern Hemisphere, where they form 

 two series, the one continental, from the Carribees to the Straits of Ma- 

 gellan, and the other insular, extending from the Marquesas to New Zea- 

 land, throughout the islands of the Southern Ocean. This peculiarity, 

 though often interrupted, commences about 8° 10' of S. latitude, and ter- 

 minates towards the 50th degree. In the Southern Hemisphere we meet, 

 however, with many nations, whose medium height, without being very 

 30 



small, is still above the average ; and reciprocally, there are many in the 

 Northern Hemisphere of very considerable height. 



Upon comparing the geographical position of nations, whose stature is 

 very great, with that of the very diminutive races, we are led to notice a 

 very curious, and apparently paradoxical result. Nations of very small 

 stature are always found in the immediate vicinity of the very tallest in- 

 habitants of the whole globe; and, reciprocally, there arenationsof consider- 

 able stature dwelling in the neighbourhood of the veiy smallest. Thus, in 

 the Southern Hemisphere, the island of Terra del F'uego, though separated 

 from Patagonia merely by the Straits of Magellan, and only at a short 

 distance from the Navigators' Islands, is inhabited by a very diminutive 

 and, ill-made race of men. It is the same in the Northern Hemisphere, 

 where the inhabitants of Sweden and Finland, though bordering upon 

 Lapland, are rather above the middle stature. Thus the influence of 

 climate upon the height of the human races appears unquestionable, al- 



