522 
DR. J. BARNARD DAVIS ON THE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN 
observation, since the brain had undergone much decomposition*. The brain of a 
Negro examined by Dr. Edmond Simon was found to weigh, with the membranes, 
1226 grins, f. 
As a general conclusion, without analyzing the results of Tiedemann’s gaugings of 
Negro skulls, it may be unhesitatingly asserted that the brain-weight of Negroes is posi- 
tively below that of Europeans. 
23. Kafirs — The average brain -weight of Kafirs is considerable, and quite in contrast 
with that of the true Negroes. The average of 7 Kafir men is no less than 49*04 oz., 
or 1390 grms., and that of the series 48T6 oz., or 1365 grms. 
Tiedemann’s friends examined for him four skulls of Kafir men, and one that of a 
woman. The result of these observations, which, for brevity’s sake, shall be reduced to 
our standard, is for the whole 46*05 oz., or 1305 grms. Perhaps our examples may be 
of a somewhat unusual size. 
25. Bushmans. — Finally, we have this singular race of people, inhabiting the self- 
same countries as the Kafirs and other Tribes, and so remarkably different from them 
all, especially in the development of the brain. These four skulls of Bushmans, one of 
a man and three of women, yield a mean brain-weight of only 39*70 oz., or 1125 grms., 
which is nearly a sixth less than the mean of Europeans, no doubt, a people of greater 
stature, and about in the same proportion less than their fellow aborigines the Kafirs. 
In the elaborate and valuable account of the Brain of a Bush woman, by Professor 
John Marshall J, there is a careful calculation of its weight in that specimen. The 
brain reached him in the cranium preserved in spirits of wine, which had also been 
injected into the carotid arteries. Professor Marshall endeavoured to determine by 
experiment the amount of loss of weight ensuing from this process of hardening in spirit. 
His conclusion was that it is “from one-third to one-fourth, i. e. as a mean seven-twenty- 
fourths of the original weight ”§. Hence, he determines that in a recent state, when 
deprived of its membranes, the brain of this Bushwoman, who appears to have been 
rather aged, would have weighed 30*75 oz., or 875 grms. Our estimate of the weight 
of the smallest brain of the three Bushwomen is 37*22 oz., or 1055 grms. This is not 
in agreement with Professor Marshall’s calculated weight, still, it is fully supported by 
the statement of Messrs. Flower and Murie, as we shall see, and also by Professor 
Marshall’s gauging of the capacity of this Bushwoman’s skull. 
Besides weighing the brain and carefully restoring its original weight by his experi- 
ments to ascertain loss from hardening in spirit, Professor Marshall gauged the capa- 
city of the skull itself by filling it with water. He thus found the internal capacity of 
this Bushwoman’s skull was equal to 60*64 cubic inches. Here we have both the cubic 
capacity of the cranium, and also the actual weight of the brain it contained determined 
metrologically, which might be regarded as a crucial test of the accuracy of the method 
we have been led to adopt. By our method followed in the Tables of this Memoir, of 
* Bulletins de la Soeiete d’ Anthropologic de Paris, tome i. p. 54. 
% Philosophical Transactions, 1864. 
t Ibid, tome iv. p. 350. 
§ Loc. cit., p. 506. 
