THE president's ADDRESS. 56 



the skull of a man " I replied. " Impossible, perhaps you will tell me 

 this is a man's scull," said the monk taking up another "Virgin." 

 "Yes she was also a man." "But how can you possibly tell ? " saidmy 

 guide, who did not quite know whether to be more outraged or staggered. 

 *' Because " I replied, " I can by some points of its structure, such as 

 the frontal sinuses, its thickness, size, &c., tell the difference just aa 

 certainly between a male and female scull after death as I can between 

 a man and woman when alive." 



Camper, if you remember, formed a very sensible and ingenious 

 theory from the formation of the scull, professiag to discover from the 

 different facial angles, not only the distinctions between the sculls of 

 the several species of animals, but also those which exist between 

 different nations. Thus he considered the Negro an intermediate step 

 between the European and the Orang-Utang, and he established a sort 

 of scale graduating from a newt up to the loftiest type of human 

 beauty. Thus birds have the smallest angles, asses an angle of 42, 

 to 50, a Negro and a Calmuck a facial angle of 70, while the average 

 angle of European faces is 80-, except in the loftiest or most sublime 

 style of beauty where it amount to 100 degrees. On this difference of 10 

 degrees, depends the difference in beauty between the Negro and the 

 lovliest of Europeans. But I am sorry to say that, ingenious as this 

 theory undoubtedly is, it is not quite true, indeed it was founded on an 

 error, as the skulls of apes which were used for comparison were those of 

 immature animals, and Professor Owen has clearly proved that in the 

 adult ape the facial angle is far less than stated by Camper, being 

 indeed only 30 to 35, so that the transition is far more abrupt than 

 he imagined, and makes a difference so great that the utmost diversity 

 between any two human races becomes quite insignificant compared to 

 it. I had intended giving a slight Ethnological sketch in my paper this 

 evening, but I found it would unduly extend its limits ; I trust however 

 some of you will give us a paper on this subject ere long. It was a 

 subject which first forced itself on my attention when travelling in 

 Iceland and afterwards in Lapland, where I noticed the curious noma- 

 dic or wandering habits of the people, apparently so inappropriate to 

 the cold, inhospitable country in which they dwell, and which must 

 have been, as they were, imported from the sunny skies and burning 

 deserts of the far east. In the interior of Iceland you see a scattered 

 people, travelling continually on horseback from place to place, dwelling 

 in tents, subsisting by scanty flocks just as do the Arabs of the desert, 

 practising too, like them, a prodigal hospitality, which is given and 

 H 



