398 



large masses of darker clouds, which seemed as if pouring their sub- 

 stance into the central chasm-. The figure of the solar spots did not 

 undergo any perceptible change of form during the progressive pas- 

 sage of the edge of the moon over them. 



" On the Brain of the Negro, compared with that of the European 

 and the Ourang-Outang." By Frederick Tiedemann, M.D., Profes- 

 sor of Anatomy and Physiology in the University of Heidelberg, and 

 Foreign Member of the Royal Society. 



It has long been the prevailing opinion among naturalists that the 

 Negro race is inferior, both in organization and in intellectual powers, 

 to the European j and that, in all the points of difference, it exhibits 

 an approach to the Monkey tribes. The object of the present paper 

 is to institute a rigid inquiry into the validity of this opinion. The 

 author has, for this purpose, examined an immense number of brains 

 of persons of different sexes, of various ages, and belonging to dif- 

 ferent varieties of the human race, both by ascertaining their exact 

 weight, and also by accurate measurement of the capacity of the ca- 

 vity of the cranium 5 and has arrived at the following conclusions. 

 The weight of the brain of an adult male European varies from 31bs.3oz. 

 to 41bs. 1 1 oz. troy weight : that of the female weighs, on an average, 

 from 4 to 8oz. less than that of the male. The brain usually attains 

 its full dimensions at the age of seven or eight ; and decreases in size 

 in old age. At the time of birth, the brain bears a larger proportion 

 to the size of the body than at any subsequent period of life, being 

 then as one sixth of the total weight; at two years of age it is one 

 fourteenth ; at three, one eighteenth ; at fifteen, one twenty-fourth j 

 and in the adult period, that is, from the age of twenty to that of 

 seventy, it is generally within the limits of one thirty-fifth and one 

 forty-fifth. In the case of adults, however, this proportion is much 

 regulated by the condition of the body as to corpulence ; being in 

 thin persons from one twenty-second to one twenty-seventh, and in 

 fat persons often only one fiftieth, or even one hundredth of the total 

 weight of the body. The brain has been found to be particularly large 

 in some individuals possessed of extraordinary mental capacity. No 

 perceptible difference exists either in the average weight or the ave- 

 rage size of the brain of the Negro and of the European : and the 

 nerves are not larger, relatively to the size of the brain, in the former 

 than in the latter. In the external form of the brain of the Negro a 

 very slight difference only can be traced from that of the European ; 

 but there is absolutely no difference whatsoever in its internal struc- 

 ture, nor does the Negro brain exhibit any greater resemblance to 

 that of the ourang-outang than the brain of the European, excepting, 

 perhaps, in the more symmetrical disposition of its convolutions. 



Many of the results which the author has thus deduced from his re- 

 searches are at variance with the received opinions relative to the 

 presumed inferiority of the Negro structure, both in the conforma- 

 tion and relative dimensions of the brain ; and he ascribes the erro- 

 neous notions which have been hitherto entertained on these subjects 

 chietiy to prejudice created by the circumstance that the facial angle 



