ANTHROPOLOGY: F. BOAS 
713 
NEW EVIDENCE IN REGARD TO THE INSTABILITY OF 
HUMAN TYPES 
By Franz Boas 
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
Read before ihe Academy, November 14, 1916. Received, November 24, 1916 
A number of years ago I carried on, under the auspices of the United 
States Immigration Commission, an investigation on the physical 
types of immigrants and of their descendants. One of the results of 
this inquiry was the estabHshment of the fact that there is a difference 
in appearance between the immigrants and their descendants. So 
far as the bulk of the body is concerned, this information was not new. 
Analogous phenomena had been observed in 1877 by H. P. Bowditch 
in Boston, and by Peckham in Milwaukee. It was new, however, 
that there is also a change in such features as the cephalic index and the 
width of the face. It was found that on the average the heads of de- 
scendants of immigrants of East European types are more elongated, 
and those of the descendants of South Europeans more rounded, than 
those of their parents. The data were obtained partly by a generalizing 
method, partly by a comparison between parents and children. 
The results of this inquiry have been attacked by many writers, on 
the basis that they decline to beheve that such changes can occur. 
I have not found any actual criticism of my method and of the results, 
except by Corrado Gini, who doubts the inferences drawn in regard 
to the populations of Italian cities which also show a modification of 
the cephalic index. 
I think the hesitation of many authors to accept the results is due 
largely to a misinterpretation of their significance. I may be allowed 
to state concisely here what 1 think has been proved, and what infer- 
ences seem justifiable. 
The investigation has a direct bearing upon the question of the clas- 
sification of human local types, more particularly of European types. 
Many attempts have been made to give a satisfactory classification of 
the divergent types that occur in Europe. Pigmentation, stature, 
form of the head, and form of the face, show material differences in 
various parts of Europe, notwithstanding the fundamental sameness 
of the whole race. Authors hke Deniker, and many others, have car- 
ried out on this basis an elaborate classification of European types in 
a number of ^races' and 'sub-races.' 
In this classification the assumption is made that each race that we 
find at the present time in its particular environment is an hereditary 
