PROFESSOR TIEDEMANN ON THE BRAIN OF THE NEGRO. 
511 
It is evident from the comparison of the capacity of the cavum cranii of the Negro 
with that of the European, Mongolian, American, and Malayan, that the cavity of 
the skull of the Negro, in general, is not smaller than that of the European and other 
human races. The result of Hamilton’s * researches is the same. I hope this will 
convince others that the opinion of many naturalists, such as Camper, Soemmerring, 
Cuvier, Lawrence, and Virey, that the Negro has a smaller skull and brain than the 
European, is ill founded, and entirely refuted by my researches. The mistaken notion 
of these naturalists arose from the application of Camper’s facial line and facial angle 
on a few skulls of negroes living on the coasts -f* ; who, according to credible travel- 
lers, are the lowest and most demoralized of all the Negro tribes ; the miserable re- 
mains of an enslaved people, bodily and spiritually lowered and degraded by slavery 
and ill treatment. I look upon Camper’s facial line and facial angle as very unsatis- 
factory in determining the capacity of the skull, the size of the brain, and the degree 
of intellectual powers. 
The general characters and marks of the Ethiopian race, as given by naturalists, 
cannot be received as universal, nor are they strictly applicable to the greater number 
of the Negro tribes in the high lands of the interior of Africa. These characters are, 
the skin black ; the hair black and woolly ; the skull compressed laterally ; the fore- 
head low, depressed, slanting, and narrow ; the cavity of the cranium smaller, and 
reduced both in its circumference and in its transverse diameters ; the eyes promi- 
nent ; great development of the face, and projection towards its lower part ; the 
cheekbones prominent; the jaws narrow; the superior incisor teeth oblique; the chin 
retracted ; the nose broad, thick, and flat ; the lips, particularly the upper one, thick 
and projecting. This is the countenance of the Mozambique and Guinea Negroes, 
but it is not the feature of the natives of the high lands of Africa. The truth of this 
assertion is fully attested by the latest African travellers. Winterbottom J says 
of the tribes of Timmanu and Soosoo Negroes, in the mountainous districts of 
* 1. c. p. 5. He says : “ The common doctrine, that the African brain, and particularly that of the Negro, is 
greatly smaller than the European, is false. By a comparison of the capacity of two Caffre skulls, male and 
female, and of thirteen Negro crania, (six male, five female, and two of doubtful sex,) the encephalus of the 
African was found not inferior to the average size of the European.” 
f Camper has determined the facial angle of the Negro from the skull of a slave from Angola, and has given 
a plate of it, plate i. fig. 1. 
Lawrence has given (plate viii.) a drawing of a Negro skull, of which he says (p. 363) : “ In such a skull 
as that represented in the eighth plate, which indeed has been particularly selected, because it is strongly cha- 
racterized, no person, however little conversant with natural history or physiology, could fail to recognise a 
decided approach to the animal form. This inferiority of organization is attended with corresponding infe- 
riority of faculties, which may be proved, not so much by the unfortunate beings who are degraded by slavery, 
as by every fact in the past history and present condition of Africa.” 
I must confess that I cannot call the figure a good one ; and amongst some hundreds of Negro skulls I saw 
not one of so bad a form. 
+ Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, vol. i. pp. 184, 198. London, 1S03. 
