490 ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN WITH THE LOWER ANIMALS 
more symmetrical than in the brain of the European. It remains, 
however, to be proved whether this symmetry is to be found in all 
negro brains, which I very much doubt.’—L. c., p. 519. 
One would like toknow the ground of Professor Tiedemann’s doubts, 
because the only other observation he details, bearing on this subject, 
leads him to precisely the same conclusion. Thus, at p. 316 of the 
same memoir, I find the express statement :—‘ This [symmetry] is 
particularly visible in the brain of the Bosjes woman.” Indeed, the 
fact must at once strike every one conversant with the ordinary appear- 
ance of a European brain, who glances at Pl. NXNIv. of Tiedemann’s 
Memoir, in which a view of the Bosjesman brain referred to is given. 
Fortunately, M. Gratiolet has also particularly described and 
carefully figured this brain (which is that of the “ Hottentot Venus;” 
who died in Paris, and had the honour of being anatomized by 
Cuvier), and his remarks upon the subject are exceedingly important 
and instructive :— 
“This woman, be it premised, was no idiot. Nevertheless, it may 
be observed, that the convolutions of her brain are relatively very little 
complicated. But what strikes one, at once, is the simplicity, the 
regular arrangement of the two convolutions which compose the 
superior stage of the frontal lobe. These folds, if those of the two 
hemispheres be compared, present, as we have already pointed out, an 
almost perfect symmetry, such as is never exhibited by normal brains 
of the Caucasian race.... . This regularity—this symmetry, in- 
voluntarily recall the regularity and symmetry of the cerebral convolu- 
tions in the lower species of animals. There is, in this respect, between 
the brain of a white man and that of this Bosjesman woman a difference 
such that it cannot be mistaken ; and if it be constant, as there is 
every reason to suppose it is, it constitutes one of the most interesting 
facts which have yet been noted.”—L. c., p. 65. 
“The antero-superior curve is less convex than in the white man: 
lastly, the orbital fossze are more concave ; and there may be observed 
at the level of the anterior extremity of the temporo-sphenoidal lobe, 
a very marked constriction, which results from a very remarkable pre- 
dominance of the supraciliary lobe. This disposition appears to result 
from the less development of the superior divisions. The brains of 
foetuses belonging to the white race present it at the maximum, when 
the operculum of the fissure of Sylvius does not yet cover the central 
lobe ; it is still quite apparent at birth; but it becomes slowly effaced 
with age, and in the adult it has completely disappeared. The brain 
of the Hottentot Venus is, then, in all respects, inferior to that of white 
men arrived at the normal term of their development. It can be 
