FASCICULI MALATENSES 
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measuring the living person are those of Anthropological Notes and Queries , 
except when otherwise stated. 
Age. With regard to the ages noted in the tables, it must be understood 
that they are only approximate. Especially among the lower races, it is often 
impossible to estimate the age of a person, and even among the more civilized 
tribes we found that few individuals had anything more than a general idea of 
their own age, as they not infrequently dated their birth from some local event 
such as ‘ the year of the great wind.’ Occasionally, among the Malays and 
Siamese, the Siamese cycle was in general use ; but the system is too compli- 
cated for ready reckoning. In young adults, in whom the third molar was 
fully erupted on one side or on both, we were accustomed to record the age 
as ‘ ± twenty-five.’ 
Colour of Skin. This was judged by placing the edge of the plate given 
in Anthropological Notes and Queries against the skin of the inner surface 
of the upper arm. As the tints given in this plate are very limited in number 
and in some cases of very doubtful utility, we have been obliged in a great 
number of instances to record the colour as intermediate between two of them, 
not always those in a linear series. The nomenclature attached to these tints 
is quite conventional, but we have been obliged to adopt it for want of a better 
one. The colour of the eyes is also that of this scale. 
Amount of Hair. It should be noted that depilation, both of the face and 
body, but especially of the former, is practised to a greater or less degree in 
all the races whom we investigated, and that in many it was impossible to see 
the pubes. 
Character of Hair. The usual classification of this feature appears to us 
both vague and unsatisfactory, especially when it is applied to a race whose 
hair is of different character in different individuals. We will, therefore, 
attempt to explain what we mean by the terms c wavy,’ ‘ curly,’ ‘ woolly,’ and 
* frizzly.’ By ‘wavy’ hair we mean that which is not straight but which has 
a tendency, more or less marked in different individuals, to grow in arcs of a 
circle of a radius which varies but is never relatively small, these arcs never 
approaching to a semi-circle. ‘Wavy’ and ‘curly’ hair may grow to a con- 
siderable length. By ‘ curly ’ hair we mean that in which the circles formed 
are nearly complete, and are almost invariably of smaller radius than is the 
case in the arcs of ‘wavy hair.’ ‘ Woolly’ hair is always short and fine, grows 
in short, distinctly separated coils of small diameter, not exceeding ten milli- 
metres, and is of a springy nature. ‘ Frizzly ’ hair is more difficult to define, 
as it appears to be produced in large measure by artificial treatment applied to 
hair which only differs from ‘ woolly ’ hair in that it is longer, and perhaps 
