6 
been made on these women a year or two before; and as they saw no pur- 
pose in submitting again to a procedure that had lost its novelty, my 
efforts to persuade them to be measured were without avail. 
When it is said that material is (or samples are) taken or collected at 
random, the statement may be strictly true in so far as the collecting is 
concerned and yet be inaccurate from the standpoint of the material (or 
samples). In so far as its paper is concerned the collector did not dis- 
criminate. Was the material in any way at fault? This may best be 
answered by referring to the correlation table, page 17, where it may be 
seen that four Oxford House men (Nos. 17, 18, 19, 20), with grey eyes, 
came all at once to the Mission House to report for measurement. Was 
it by chance or by design that four grey-eyed men, living in a brown-eyed 
community, reported together? It is to be noted that two of these (18 
and 20), have biparietal-bizygomatic indices of 89*5 and 92-0, which are 
respectively almost typically white and half-breed indices; and that the 
other two have indices of 99*0 and 101*5, which are characteristically 
Indian (if not Eskimoid) indices; yet, one of the former (18), and one of 
the latter (17), have heavy moustaches and the one with the index of 
101 *5 had a brother (14), who not only had grey eyes, but also an index of 
94*8 and was partly bald. All of this is more than suggestive that all 
four were of white admixture and that they had arranged to report together. 
Further, it is usual for Indians in these parts to live in family groups 
around one paternal hearth; three or four tents or tepees being disposed 
in radial manner around a central fireplace. It is only reasonable to sup- 
pose that such an assembly would agree amongst themselves upon certain 
lines of action — to be measured, to go hunting, or freighting, and the like. 
Again, when we were one or two days’ journey from Island lake we 
passed several canoes of Indians, who impressed me as being of distinctly 
shorter stature than those we were subsequently able to measure. Owing 
to such circumstances it may come to pass that certain material may, as 
it were, unconsciously conspire to frustrate the best efforts of the collector 
to sample at random; on the one hand, by presenting itself en masse; on 
the other, by withdrawing en masse. This factor should be borne in mind. 
Nevertheless, since during our stay in each of the localities we examined 
every adult male who was at home, it may be presumed that our data are 
comprehensive enough to allow of this factor being almost discounted. 
It was deemed expedient not to delay unduly those whom we inter- 
cepted on portages lest they become too impatient to proceed on their way. 
In such circumstances as these we refrained from recording the stature, 
the arm stretch, and the sitting height, because the taking of these three 
measurements consumes so much time: a level platform, a low box, fre- 
quently a third reading and many injunctions are prerequisite to the 
taking of these measurements. 
That an examination of the teeth, the eyes, and certain measurements 
are omitted in some cases must be attributed not to any design on my 
part but to inadvertency. A number of persons, even young adults, were 
so round-shouldered that it would have been useless to have taken their 
stature or sitting height. Some others we failed signally to persuade to 
stand or sit erect enough to allow of our taking an accurate reading. 
A few were lame; a few had crippled arms. 
