220 
PROFESSOR KARL PEARSON, MATHEMATICAL 
a slip in using Manouvrier’s table, and thus much underestimated the Saint-}darcel 
male stature. 
I think it impossible to accept Rahon’s vie\v that the modern French are sensibly 
of the same stature as the mediaeval French, because the slight apparent ditference 
may be accounted for by a process of selection preserving for us only the larger bones. 
It is not, as R^moN supposed, a difference of "7 centirn. which has to be accounted 
for, but one of nearly 3 centims. We have the following series for France, male 
and female :— 
Neolithic man. 
. 162-5 
151-4 
Pvomano-Gauls ...... 
. 164-8 
152-3 
Franks. 
. 166-4 
152-9 
French, 4th to 7th century . 
. 168-0 
154-8 
,, 10th to 11th century . 
. 166-2 
154-5 
,, modern. 
. 165-0 
152-3 
These results v.muld seem to indicate that the Gauls were taller than the races 
they superseded in France, that their Frankish conquerors v^ere taller again than 
they ; but that the stature has been sinking during the last 800 years, and that the 
French commonalty of to-da}^ is very close in stature to the Romano-Gauls. 
This may denote a selection of stature, or it may mean that the Celtic element of 
the population has superseded the Teutonic element—an explanation m accordance 
with the recognised greater fertility of the Breton element in France. We should 
then have an interesting illustration of the manner in which reproductive selection 
may reverse the results of natural selection. Y7hile it might be rash to attribute the 
decrease in stature which has taken place in France to any one definite cause, it is 
interesting to note that we do not trace the like decrease in stature in England, yet 
we should certainly expect to do so, if the result were due simply to a selective 
process by which the larger bones were preserved. There does appear to be a like 
decrease in the stature of the Bavarian population, where we have compared (p. 215) 
the Row-grave population with that of Munich town recruits, which appears to be 
considerably above the average of recruits from other near districts,"^ and considerably 
above the corpse length (166 centims.)—itself greater than the stature of the 
living—'which I have found from Bischoff’s data. 
(21.) On Giants and Dwarfs. 
If we pass from the consideration of races wdth mean statures varying from about 
157 centims. to 170 centims. to the consideration of individual giants and dwarfs, we 
very soon discover that our formulse give statures hopelessly too small in the case of 
* The average of the conscripts for the Isi Infanterie Brigade, which includes Munich, was only 
166 centims. The average of the Laden conscripts was 163 centims. 
