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Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
The People of the Faroes. By Nelson Annan dale, B.A. 
(Oxon.). Communicated by Professor D. J. Cunningham, F.R.S. 
(MS. received Oct. 7, 1903. Read Nov. 2, 1903.) 
Part I. — Anthropometrical. 
The physical anthropology of the Faroes has recently been 
described in a very elaborate manner, as far as the island of 
Suderoe is concerned, by Dr F. Jprgensen (1), who was resident 
there as a medical man for some years. While pointing out, how- 
ever, that the people of Suderoe differ considerably from those of the 
‘ northern islands,’ he only gives a comparatively small series of 
data regarding the latter, nor does he state to which of the northern 
islands the men he examined belonged, or even whether they 
came from one island or from several. Apart from Suderoe, there 
are sixteen inhabited islands (fig. 1) in the group, and between some 
of them very little communication exists even at the present day. 
In historical accounts of the Faroes the six following islands are 
usually called the ‘northern isles,’ — viz., Kalsoe, Kunoe, Boroe, 
Wideroe, Fugloe, and Svinoe, — hut I take it that Dr Jprgensen 
would include at least Osteroe, Stromoe, and Waagoe also. His 
elaborate, laborious, and presumably accurate tables serve so 
well to point the moral that until a uniform method, a uniform 
standard, and a uniform set of anthropometrical instruments are 
adopted by anthropometrists of all nationalities final work in this 
branch of science will he impossible, that I have thought it well 
to put on record a small series of measurements taken by myself 
in the Faroes recently, and at the same time to point out wherein 
some of the data pretty generally adopted fail in accuracy, differing 
with the observer as well as the observed. 
My measurements were taken in Thorshavn, the chief town in 
the islands, in August 1903, upon twenty adult males. The only 
value that can he claimed for so small a series is that it was 
obtained at a definite period and within a very limited area, for 
the men examined were all resident in the town. The length and 
breadth of the head, the length and breadth of the nose, the 
