On the general question of cranial development as an index of cerebral capacity, Professor Welcker assigns a standard, which was accepted by Dr. Thurnam, thus: “Skulls of more than 540 to 550 millimetres in horizontal circumference (the weight of brain belonging to which is 1490 to 1560 grms., or 52.5-55 oz. av.), are to be regarded as exceptionally large. The designation ofkephalones, proposed by Virchow, might commence from this point. Men with great mental endowments fall, for the most part, under the definition of kephalony. If we consider the relations of capacity, 1800 grms. (63.5 oz.) appears to be the greatest attainable weight of brain within a skull not pathologically enlarged.” But the brain of Cuvier—the heaviest healthy brain yet recorded,—exceeded this. Its weight is stated by Wagner as 1861 grms., or 65.8 oz.; but this M. Broca corrects to 1829.96 grms. Even thus reduced it exceeds the limits assigned by Professor Welcker to the normal healthy brain. But a curious commentary upon this is furnished by the fact that the modern English skull which Dr. Davis selects as presenting the most striking analogy to the Neanderthal skull—“the most ape-likeskull which Professor Huxley had ever beheld,”—though marked not only by the prominence of the superciliary ridges, but by great depression of the frontal region, appears to have a cubical capacity equivalent to that of Dr. Abercrombie, whose brain is only surpassed by that of Cuvier among the ascertained brain-weights of distinguished men.[174]Its capacity is 94 oz. of sand, or 113 cubic inches, equivalent—after making the requisite deduction for membranes and fluids,—to a brain-weight of 63 oz.
I have attempted in the following table to reduce to some common standard such imperfect glimpses as are recoverable of the cranial capacity of some distinguished men, of whose actual brain-weights no record exists:—
CRANIAL CAPACITY OF DISTINGUISHED MEN
Some of the examples adduced in the above table appear to exhibit instances of mental endowment of high character, without the corresponding degree of cranial, and consequently cerebral development. The following table exhibits recorded examples of a series of actual brain-weights of distinguished men. It seems to lend confirmation to the idea that great manifestation of mental endowment is correlated, in themajority of observed cases, to a brain above the normal average in mass or weight. But even here intellect and brain-weight are not strictly in uniform ratio. Several of the following brain-weights, including that of Tiedemann, are furnished by Wagner, in theVorstudien des Menschlichen Gehirns; but in an elaborate table of brain-weights given in theMorphologie und physiologie des Menschlichen gehirns als Seelenorgan, the brain of Byron is classed above all except Cuvier; while Vogt gives the same place, by estimate, to Schiller’s, as next in rank to that of the great naturalist among highly developed brains. Dr. Thurnam states his authorities for others, when producing them in his valuable contribution to theJournal of Mental Science“On the Weight of the Brain.” For that of Webster he refers to “the unsatisfactory article on the brain of Daniel Webster,Edin. Med. Surg. Journ., vol. lxxix. p. 355.” Dr. J. C. Nott, in his “Comparative Anatomy of Races” (Types of Mankind, p. 453), says: “Dr. Wyman, in hispost-mortemexamination of the famed Daniel Webster, found the internal capacity of the cranium to be 122 cubic inches, and in a private letter to me, he says: ‘The circumference was measured outside of the integuments before the scalp was removed, and may, perhaps, as there was much emaciation, be a little less than in health.’ It was 23¾ inches in circumference; and the Doctor states that it is well known there are several heads in Boston larger than Webster’s. I have myself, in the last few weeks, measured half a dozen heads as large and larger.” The circumference, it will be seen, exceeds the corresponding measurement of Scott’s head, taken under similar circumstances. But the statement of 122 cubic inches as the internal capacity of Webster’s skull seems open to question. If correct, instead of 53.5 oz. of brain-weight as stated in the following table, it is the equivalent of a brain-weight of fully 65 oz., or one in excess even of that, of Cuvier. The brain-weights of Goodsir, Simpson, and Agassiz, are given in the following table from the reported autopsy in each case:—
BRAIN-WEIGHTS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN
Dr. Thurnam, in producing fifteen of the above examples, remarks: “Altogether, they decidedly confirm the generally received view of the connection between size of brain and mental power and intelligence”; and he adds his conviction that if the examination of the brain in the upper ranks of society, and in men whose mental endowments are well known, were more generally available, further confirmation would be given to this conclusion. The converse, at least, is certain, that no great intelligence or unwonted mental power is possible with a brain much below the average in mass and weightBut while the above list exhibits a series of exceptionally high brain-weights of distinguished men, the relative weights in some cases—as in Napoleon—are calculated to excite surprise if viewed as an index of comparative intellectual capacity. On the other hand, those lowest in the scale, and below the mean weight, include men of undoubted eminence in letters and science; while the proofs are no less unquestionable that a large healthy brain is not invariably the organ of unwonted intelligence or mental activity.
In thePhilosophical Transactionsof 1861, Dr. Boyd published an elaborate series of researches illustrative of the weight of various organs of the human body, including the weights of two thousand brains. Most of the healthy brains are those of patients in the St. Marylebone Infirmary, and have already been referred to as necessarily representing the indigent and uneducated classes of London. Here, therefore, if an unusually large brain is the index of intellectual power, every probability was against the occurrence of brains above the average size or weight. But the results by no means confirm this assumption. Among the patients in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, in like manner, though including the better class of artizans and others from country districts, we might still look for a confirmation of M. Broca’s assumption, based on extensive observations of French crania, “that, other things being equal, whether as the result of education, or by hereditary transmission, the volume of the skull, and consequently of the brain, is greater in the higher than in the lower classes.” But Dr. Peacock’s tables include four brain-weights, three of them of a sailor, a printer, and a tailor, respectively, ranging from 61 to 62.75 oz.; and so surpassing all but two, or at the most three, of the heaviest ascertained brain-weights of distinguished men. Tried by the posthumous test of internal capacity, three skulls of nameless Frenchmen, derived from the common cemeteries of Paris, in like manner showed brains equalling in size that of Cuvier. The following are the maximum brain-weights among the St. Marylebone patients apparently unaffected by cerebral disease:—
MAXIMUM BRAIN-WEIGHTS—ST. MARYLEBONE
The stature, or relative size of body, has already been referred to as an element in testing the comparative male and female weight of brain; and it is one which ought not to be overlooked in estimating the comparative size and weight of the brains of distinguished men. From my own recollections of Dr. Chalmers, who was of moderate stature, his head appeared proportionally large. The same was noticeable in the cases of Lord Jeffrey, Lord Macaulay, Sir James Y. Simpson, and very markedly so in that of De Quincey. The philosopher Kant was also of small stature; and Dr. Thurnam refers to the observation of Carus that he had a head not absolutely large, though, in proportion to the small and puny body of that eminent thinker, it was of remarkable size. Among the large-brained artizans of the Marylebone Infirmary, on the contrary, the probabilities are in favour of a majority of them being men of full muscular development and ample stature. Nevertheless, with every allowance for this, it still remains probable, if not demonstrable, that from the same humble and unnoted class, examples of megalocephaly could be selected little short in cerebral mass, and apparently in brain-weight, of the group of men whose large brains are recognised as the concomitantsof exceptionally great mental capacity and intellectual vigour. Unless, therefore, we are contented to accept the poet’s dictum, “Their lot forbad,”[175]and assume that “chill penury repressed their noble rage, and froze the genial current of the soul,” it is manifest that other elements besides those of volume or weight are essential as cerebral indices of mental power. Dr. Thurnam, after noting examples that had come under his own notice of brain-weights above the medium—but which, as those of insane patients, may be assigned to other causes than healthy cerebral development,—adds: “The heaviest brain weighed by me (62 oz., or 1760 grms.) was that of an uneducated butcher, who was just able to read, and who died suddenly of epilepsy, combined with mania, after about a year’s illness. The head was large, but well-formed; the brain of normal consistence; thepuncta vasculosanumerous.” In cases like this, of weighty brain with no corresponding manifestation of intellectual power, something else was wanting besides an ampler sphere. The mere position of a humble artizan or labourer will not suffice to mar the capacity to “make by force his merit known,” which pertains to the “divinely gifted man.”
Arkwright, Franklin, Watt, Stephenson, Farraday, Hugh Miller, and others of the like type of self-made men, are not rare. Among the large-brained artizans, scarcely one can have had a more limited sphere for the exercise of mental vigour than the poet Burns, the child of poverty and toil, who refers to his own early years as passed in “the unceasing moil of a galley-slave.” In his case the very means essential to a healthy physical development were stinted at the most critical period of life. His brother Gilbert says: “We lived sparingly. For several years butcher’s meat was a stranger to the house; while all exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength, and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of corn, and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the farm.” Such premature toil and privations left their permanent stamp on his frame. “Externally, the consequences appeared in a stoop of the shoulders, which never left him; but internally, in the more serious form of mental depression, attended by a nervous disorder which affected the movements of the heart.” He had only exchangedthe toil on his father’s farm for equally unremitting labour on his own, when the finest of his poems were written; nor would it be inconsistent with all the facts to assume that the privations of his early life diminished his capacity for continuous mental activity; as it undoubtedly impaired his physical constitution. But, while the possession of a brain much above the average in size might have seemed to account for his triumph over the depressing influences of his limited sphere, the fact that his brain appears to have been below the average size, points to some other requisite than mere cerebral mass as essential to intellectual vigour.
The brain is influenced in all its functions by the character and the amount of blood circulating through it, and promptly manifests the effects of any deleterious substance, such as alcohol or opium, introduced into its tissues. It depends, like other portions of the nervous system, on an adequate supply of nourishment. In both respects the brain of the Ayrshire poet was injuriously affected, in so far as we may infer from all the known circumstances of his life.
The human brain is large in proportion to the body in infancy and youth; and the opinions of leading anatomists and physiologists early in the present century favoured the idea that it attained its full size within a few years after birth. Professor Sœmmering assumed this to take place so early as the third year. Sir William Hamilton explicitly stated his conclusion thus: “In man the encephalon reaches its full size about seven years of age”; and Tiedemann assigns the eighth year as that in which it attains its greatest development. But the more accurate and extended observations since carried on rather tend to the conclusion that the brain not only goes on increasing in size and weight to a much later period of life; but that it is healthfully stimulated by habitual activity, and under exceptionally favouring circumstances it may increase in weight long after the body has attained its maximum.
The largest average brain-weights, as determined by observations on the brains of upwards of 2000 men and women in different countries of Europe, have indeed been found in those not above twenty years of age; and from a nearly equal number of English examples, Dr. Boyd determines the period of greatest average weight to be the interval between fourteen and twentyyears of age; but this includes cases in which death has ensued from undue or premature brain development.
Other evidence leaves no room for doubt that cases are not rare of the growth, or increased density of the brain up to middle age; while the observations of Professor Welcker indicate this process extended to a later period of life. The average brain-weights, as given by Boyd, Peacock, and Broca, from healthy or sane cases, along with those of Welcker, include the weights of 47 male brains from ten to twenty years of age, giving an average of 49.6 oz., or 1405 grms.; and of 112 male brains from twenty to thirty years of age, giving an average of 48.9 oz., or 1384 grms.; and the results of a nearly equal number of female brains closely approximate. They embrace English, Scotch, German, and French, men and women. Dr. Welcker’s results indicate the period of maximum brain-weight to be between 30-40, as shown in the following table:—
AVERAGE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN AT DIFFERENT AGES
In the female examples, amounting to thirty-one between seventy and eighty years of age, and six between eighty and ninety, the continuous diminution of brain-weight corresponds with the increasing age; but in the male examples, sixty-five cases between sixty and seventy years of age yield an average brain-weight of 46.1 oz., while twenty-seven cases between seventy and eighty years of age give 47.9 as the average; falling in the next decade to 43.8.
It may be inferred from the number of cases pointing to an early attainment of the highest average brain-weight, not that the brain differs from all other internal organs of the human body in attaining its maximum before the period of puberty; but that physical as well as mental vigour are dependent on the maintenance of a nice equilibrium between the brain and the other organs while in process of development. The observations of Dr. Boyd, including the results of 2614post-mortemexaminations of sane and insane patients of all ages, showed that the average weight of the brain of “still-born” children at the full period was much greater than that of the new-born living child. It is a legitimate inference, therefore, that death in the former cases was traceable to an excessive premature development of the brain. Again, when it is shown from numerous cases that the highest average weights of brain in both sexes occur not later than twenty years of age, it appears a more legitimate inference to trace to exceptional cerebral development towards the period of adolescence, the mortality which rendered available so many examples of unusually large or heavy brains, than to assume that the normal healthy brain begins to diminish at that age.
It is a fact familiar to popular observation that a large head in youth is apt to be unfavourable to life. A tendency to epilepsy appears to be the frequent concomitant of an unusually large brain; and with the congestion accompanying its abnormal condition, this may account for the weights of such diseased brains as have been repeatedly found in excess of nearly all the recorded examples of megalocephaly in the cases of distinguished men. But a greater interest attaches to a remarkable example of healthy megalocephaly recorded in theBritish Medical Journalfor 1872. The case was that of a boy thirteen years of age, who died in Middlesex Hospital from injuries caused by a fall from an omnibus. His brain was found to weigh 58 oz. He had been a particularly healthy lad, without any evidence of rachitis, and very intelligent. This is a strikingly exceptional case of a healthy brain, at the age of thirteen, exceeding in weight all but two of the greatest ascertained brain-weights of distinguished men.
From the evidence already adduced of relative cubical capacity of the skulls of different races, it appears, as was tobe expected, that there is a greater prevalence of the amply-developed brain among the higher and more civilised races. But all averages are apt to be deceptive; and the progressive scale from the smallest up to the greatest mass of brain is by no means in the precise ratio of an intellectual scale of progression. The results of Dr. J. B. Davis’s investigations, based on the study of a large, and in many cases a seemingly adequate number of skulls, bring out this remarkable fact, that, so far from the Polynesians occupying a rank in the lowest scale, as affirmed by Professor Vogt, the Oceanic races of the Pacific generally rank in internal capacity of skull, and consequent size of brain, next to the European.
But it is of more importance for our present inquiry to note that, as exceptionally large and heavy brains occur among the most civilised races, in some cases—and in some only—accompanied with corresponding manifestations of unusual intellectual power; so also it becomes apparent that skulls much exceeding the average, and some of remarkable internal capacity, are met with among barbarian races, and even among some of the lowest savages. Taking the crania in the elaborate series of tables in Dr. J. B. Davis’sThesaurus Craniorum, with an internal capacity above 100 cubic inches, they will rank in order as follows:—
Among the European series the largest is an Irish cranium of 121.6 cubic inches, and next to it comes an Italian, 114.3, and an Englishman, 112.4; an ancient Briton from a Yorkshire Long Barrow, 109.4; an ancient Roman, 106.4; aLapp, 105.8; an ancient Gaul, 103.7; a Briton of Roman times, 103.3; a Merovingian Frank, 101.5; and an Anglo-Saxon, 100.9. Those and other examples of the like kind are full of interest as showing the recurrence of megalocephalic variations from the common cranial and cerebral standard among ancient races; and among rudest savages as well as among the most cultivated classes of modern civilised nations. But the order shown in the above instances is derived from purely exceptional examples, and is no key to the relative capacity of the races named.
Opportunities for testing the size and weight of the brain among barbarous races are only rarely accessible to those who are qualified to avail themselves of them for the purposes of science. Some near approximation to the relative brain-weight of the English, Scotch, German, and French, may now be assumed to have been established. Dr. Thurnam instituted a comparison between those and two of the prehistoric races of Britain—the Dolichocephali of the Long Barrows, and the Brachycephali of the Round Barrows of England.[176]The results are curious, as showing not only a greater capacity in the ancient British skulls than the average modern German, French, or English head; but an actual average higher than that of all but five of the most distinguished men of Europe, whose brain-weights have been recorded. On comparing the ancient skulls with those of modern Europeans, as determined by gauging the capacity of both by the same process, the following are the results presented, according to the authorities named:—
The highest average of any nationality, as determined by Drs. Reid and Peacock from the weighing of 157 brains of male patients, chiefly Scottish Lowlanders, in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, is little more than 50 oz., or 1417 grammes; whereas the estimated average brain-weight in the ancient British skulls is 54 oz. for the Dolichocephali of the Long Barrows, which equals that of Sir James Simpson, and exceeds all but six of the most distinguished men adduced inTable IV.For the Brachycephali of the Round Barrows it is 53.5 oz., which is in excess of the brain-weights of Agassiz, Chalmers, Whewell, and other distinguished men, and exactly accords with that of Daniel Webster and Lord Chancellor Campbell. In so far, moreover, as this illustrates the cerebral capacity of ancient races, it is in each case an average obtained by gauging eighteen skulls, and not the cranial capacity of one or two exceptionally large ones. Dr. Thurnam does indeed suggest that the Barrows may have been the sepulchres of chiefs; nor is this unlikely; but the superior vigour and mental endowment which this implies fails to account for a cerebral capacity surpassing all but the most distinguished men of science and letters in modern Europe referred to in the above table. Rather may we conclude from this, as from other evidence, that quality of brain may, within certain limits, be of more significance than mere quantity; and that brains of the same volume, and agreeing in weight, may greatly differ in minute structure and in powers of cerebration.
In the case of the ancient British Barrow-Builders we seem to have large heads and remarkable development of brain, without any indications of an equivalent in intellectual power; and although the estimated brain-weight derived from gauging the capacity of the empty chamber of the skull proceeds on the assumption of mass and weight agreeing, sufficient data exist to justify the adoption of this for approximate results. The average weight of brain of twelve male Negroes of undetermined tribes, deduced from gauging their skulls, has been ascertained to amount to 1255 grammes, or 44.3 oz. The actual weight of brain of the Negro of Guinea, described by Professor Calori, was 1260 grammes; and other examples vary considerably from the average. Mascagni gives 1458 grammes as the weight of one Negro brain weighed by him; equivalentto an actual brain-weight of 51.5 oz., which is greater than that of Dupuytren, Whewell, Hermann, Tiedemann, or Grote. Nevertheless, although the extremes are great, and are confirmed by a like diversity in measurements of the horizontal circumference and of internal capacity, the average result given above appears to be a fair and reliable one.
Thus far the inquiry into data illustrative of comparative size and weight of brain has dealt chiefly with the races of the eastern hemisphere. The compass is great in point of time in so far as it embraces savage and civilised peoples, including the barbarians of Europe’s Palæolithic era, along with modern tribes of Asia, Africa, and Australia, and some of the most notable among the prehistoric races of the British Isles. The compass is equally great in the range of intellectual development, when to those are added data illustrative of the average brain-weight of some of the leading nations of modern Europe, and a series of examples derived from noted instances of the highest exceptional types of intellectual power and activity in recent times. Some general conclusions of a comprehensive kind seem to follow legitimately from this evidence. Notwithstanding the prominence given to the assumed evidence of a low type of skull, depressed forehead, and poor frontal development, in the assumed primitive European Canstadt race, when we keep in view the enormous interval of time assumed to separate “those savages who peopled Europe in the Palæolithic age” from our own era, the amount of difference in size and apparent brain-weight is not remarkable. Compared with those of contemporary savage races it suggests no more than the accompanying development of the brain in a ratio with the intellectual activities of progressive civilisation, and even then the relative brain-mass of the lowest type is suggestive of latent powers only needing development. But the old and later races of the New World stand in a different relation to each other; and the process thus far employed when applied to determine the comparative cranial capacities of the native American races, discloses results of a different character, and widely at variance with those above described relating to the ancient races of Britain. On the continent of America the native ethnical scale embraces a comparatively narrow range, and any intrusive elements are sufficientlyrecent to be easily eliminated. The Patagonian and the Fuegian rank alongside of the Bushman, the Andaman Islander, or the Australian, as among the lowest types of humanity; while the Aztecs, Mayas, Quichuas, and Aymaras, attained to the highest scale which has been reached independently by any native American race. We owe to the zealous and indefatigable labours of Dr. Morton, alike in the formation of his great collection of human crania, and in the published results embodied in theCrania Americana, a large amount of knowledge derived from this class of evidence in reference to the races of the New World. In one respect, at least, those results stand out in striking contrast to the large-headed barbarian Barrow-Builders of ancient Britain. Dr. Morton subdivides the American races into the Toltecan race, embracing the semi-civilised communities of Mexico, Bogota, and Peru, and the barbarous tribes scattered over the continent from the Arctic circle to Tierra del Fuego. His latest views are embodied in a contribution to Schoolcraft’sHistory of the Indian Tribes of the United States, entitled “The Physical Type of the American Indians.” In treating of the volume of brain, he draws special attention to the Peruvian skulls, 201 in number, obtained for him from the cemeteries of Pisco, Pachacamac, and Arica. “Herera informs us that Pachacamac was sacred to priests, nobles, and other persons of distinction; and there is ample evidence that Arica and Pisco, though free to all classes, were among the most favoured cemeteries of Peru.” Dr. Morton accordingly adds: “It is of some importance to the present inquiry, that nearly one-half of this series of Peruvian crania was obtained at Pachacamac; whence the inference that they belonged to the most intellectual and cultivated portion of the Peruvian nation; for in Peru learning of every kind was an exclusive privilege of the ruling caste.” In reality, however, later additions to our knowledge of the physical characteristics of the ancient Peruvians tend to confirm the idea of the existence of two distinct races: a patrician order occupying a position analogous to the Franks of Gaul or the Normans of England, though more aptly to be compared to the Brahmins of India; and a more numerous class, constituting the labouring and industrial orders of the community, abundantly represented in the Pacific coast tribes of Peru, thecemeteries of which have furnished the larger number of crania to European and American collections.
To such a patrician order or caste the intellectual superiority and privileges of the governing race pertained. But whatever may have been the exclusive prerogatives of the patrician and sacerdotal orders, there is no doubt that the Peruvians as a people had carried metallurgy to as high a development as has been attained by any race ignorant of working in iron. They had acquired great skill in the arts of the goldsmith, the engraver, chaser, and modeller. Pottery was fashioned into many artistic and fanciful forms, showing ingenuity and great versatility of fancy. They excelled as engineers, architects, sculptors, weavers, and agriculturists. Their public works display great skill, combined with comprehensive aims of practical utility; and alone, among all the nations of the New World, they had domesticated animals, and trained them as beasts of burden. It is not, therefore, without reason that Dr. Morton adds: “When we consider the institutions of the old Peruvians, their comparatively advanced civilisation, their tombs and temples, mountain roads and monolithic gateways, together with their knowledge of certain ornamental arts, it is surprising to find that they possessed a brain no larger than the Hottentot and New Hollander, and far below that of the barbarous hordes of their own race. For, on measuring 155 crania, nearly all derived from the sepulchres just mentioned, they give but 75 cubic inches (equivalent, after due deduction for membranes and fluids, to a brain of 40.1 oz. av. in weight,) for the average bulk of the brain. Of the whole number, only one attains the capacity of 101 cubic inches, and the minimum sinks to 58, the smallest in the whole series of 641 measured crania. It is important further to remark that the sexes are nearly equally represented, namely, eighty men and seventy-five women.”
Other collections subsequently formed have largely added to our means of testing the curious question thus raised of the apparent inverse ratio of volume of brain to intellectual power and progressive civilisation among the native races of the American continent. In 1866, Mr. E. G. Squier presented to the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology at Harvard, a collection of seventy-five Peruvian skulls,obtained by himself from various localities both on the coast and in the interior. “The skulls from the interior represent the Aymara on Lake Titicaca, as well as the Quichua, Cuzco, or Inca families; and the skulls of every coast family from Tumbes to Atacama, or from Ecuador to Chili.”[177]Subsequently the curator, the late Professor Jeffreys Wyman, made this collection, along with two others, of skulls from the mounds of Kentucky and Florida, the subject of careful comparative measurements. The following are the results: The crania from Florida were chiefly obtained from a burial place near an ancient Indian shell mound of gigantic proportions, a few miles distant from Cedar Keys. They are eighteen in number, and have a mean capacity of 1375.7 cubic centimetres, or nearly 84 cubic inches. The skulls from the Kentucky mounds, twenty-four in number, show a mean capacity of 1313 cubic centimetres, 80.21 cubic inches, with a difference of 125 cubic centimetres, or 7.61 cubic inches in favour of the males. Yet, small as the Kentucky skulls are, they exceed the Peruvian ones. Keeping in view the varied sources of the latter, Professor Wyman remarks: “Although the crania from the several localities show some differences as regards capacity, yet in most other respects they are alike.” And the numbers, when viewed separately, are too few to attach much importance to variations within so narrow a range. Nevertheless it is noteworthy that the highest mean is that of the Aymaras of Lake Titicaca; and this difference is considerably increased by measurements derived from subsequent additions to the Harvard collection, received since the death of Professor Wyman from the high valley of Lake Titicaca. In other respects besides their marked superiority in size, the latter crania differ from those of the Coast tribes, and confirm the earlier deduction of an ethnical distinction between the more numerous race so abundantly represented in the Coast cemeteries, and that which is chiefly represented by crania brought from the interior. The numbers from the several localities selected by Professor Wyman as fair average specimens of the whole stand thus: six from burial towers, or chulpas, near Lake Titicaca, 1292; five from Cajamaquilla, 1268.75; fourteen from Casma, 1254; four from Truxillo,1236; four from Pachicamac, 1195; sixteen from Amacavilca, 1176.2; and seven from Grand Chimu, 1094.28.
In 1872, the collection of Peruvian crania in the Peabody Museum was augmented by a large addition from 330 skulls obtained by Professor Agassiz, through the intervention of Mr. T. J. Hutchinson, British Consul at Callao, in Peru. From those contributed to the Harvard Museum, Dr. Wyman selected eleven as apparently the only ones unaffected by any artificial compression or distortion, and therefore valuable as illustrations of the normal shape of the Peruvian head. They are quite symmetrical. The occiput, instead of being flattened or vertical, as in the distorted crania, has the ordinary curves, and in some of them is prominent. Two of them are marked by a low, retreating forehead; but in all the others the forehead is moderately developed. As, moreover, the larger half appear to be the skulls of females, this accounts for the mean capacity falling below the Peruvian average. But they are all small. The largest of them is only 1260 cubic centimetres, or less than 74 cubic inches; and the average capacity of ten of them is 1129 cubic centimetres, or 69 cubic inches.
The collection, as a whole, differs from that of Mr. Squier, in having been derived from the huacas, or ancient graves of one locality, that of Ancon, near Callao. Professor Wyman stated as the result of his careful study of them: “The average capacity obtained from the whole collection, including those having the distorted as well as the natural shape, varies but little from that of previous measurements,” including those of Morton and Meigs, and his own results from the Squier collection.
Another collection of 150 ancient skulls, obtained by Mr. Hutchinson during his residence in Peru, and presented to the Anthropological Institute of London, has the additional value, like that of Squier, of having been carefully selected from different localities, including Santos, Ica, Ancon, Passamayo, and Cerro del Oro; and the same may be said of those enumerated in theThesaurus Craniorumof Dr. Davis. We have thus unusually ample materials for determining the cranial characteristics of this remarkable people, and the results in every case are the same. After a careful examination of the Peruvian skulls, in the London anthropological collection, Professor Buskstates his conclusions thus: “The mean capacity of the larger skulls, which may be regarded as males, appears, as far as I have gone, to be about 80 cubic inches, equivalent to a brain of about 45 ounces, roughly estimated. This capacity, and the measurements above cited, show that the crania generally are of small size”; and he adds: “this is in accord with the statements of all observers.”[178]
Dr. Davis has added to the valuable data included in hisThesaurus Craniorum, a series of measurements of skeletons. Unfortunately that of a male Quichua, procured by him in the form of a “Peruvian mummy,” proved to be affected with carious disease about the last dorsal and upper lumbar vertebræ; and consequently the length of the vertebral column essential for comparison with the skeletons of other races, is wanting; but the other measurements indicate in this example a stature below the average, while the skull exceeds it. The average internal capacity of eighteen Quichua male skulls, as given by Dr. Davis, is seventy-three, whereas this is 78.5. That the ancient Peruvian skulls are, with rare exceptions, of small size, is undoubted; and in view of this it becomes a matter of some importance to determine whether this was in any degree due to a correspondingly small stature. Obscure references are found in the legendary history of Peru to a pigmy race. Pedro de Cieza de Leon, whose travels have been translated by Mr. Markham, refers to the first emigration of the Indians of Chincha to that valley, “where they found many inhabitants, but all of such small stature, that the tallest was barely two cubits high” (p. 260). Garcilasso de la Vega repeats another tradition heard by himself in Peru, of a race of giants who came by sea to the country, and were so tall that the natives reached no higher than their knees. They lived by rapine, and wasted the whole country till they were destroyed by fire from heaven. Traditions of this class may possibly point to the existence of an aboriginal race of small stature. The aborigines of Guatemala, Salvador, and Nicaragua, are described as below the middle size (Bancroft, vol. i. p. 688); and Von Tchudi divides the wild Indians of Peru into the Iscuchanos, the natives of the highlands, a tall, slim, vigorous race, with the head proportionally large and the forehead low; and those ofthe hot lowlands, a smaller race, lank, but broad shouldered, with a broad face and small round chin. There appear, therefore, to be traces of one or more aboriginal races of small stature. But Dr. Morton says expressly of the Peruvians: “Our knowledge of their physical appearance is derived solely from their tombs. In stature they appear not to have been in any respect remarkable, nor to have differed from the cognate nations except in the conformation of the head, which is small, greatly elongated, narrow its whole length, with a very retreating forehead, and possessing more symmetry than is usual in skulls of the American race.” Some of the characteristics here referred to are, in part at least, the result of artificial modifications; but the small head appears to be an indisputable characteristic of the most numerous ancient people of Peru.
It may not unreasonably excite surprise that Dr. Morton should have adduced results apparently pointing to the conclusion that civilisation had progressed among the native races of the American continent in an inverse ratio to the volume of brain; and yet passed it over with such slight comment. The only hint at a recognition of the difficulty is where, as he draws his work to a close, he indicates his observation of a greater anterior and coronal development in the smaller Peruvian brain. “It is curious,” he says, “to observe that the barbarous nations possess a larger brain by 5½ cubic inches than the Toltecans; while, on the other hand, the Toltecans possess a greater relative capacity of the anterior chamber of the skull in the proportion of 42.3 to 41.8. Again, the coronal region, though absolutely greater in the barbarous tribes, is rather larger in proportion in the demi-civilised tribes.”[179]But Dr. Morton also noted that the heads of nine Peruvian children in his possession “appear to be nearly if not quite as large as those of children of other nations at the same age”;[180]so that he seemed to recognise something equivalent to an arrested cerebral development accompanying the intellectual activity of this remarkable people at some later stage, yet without apparently affecting their mental power. But it was characteristic of this minute and painstaking observer to accumulate and set forth his results, unaffected by any apparent difficulties or inconsistencies which they might seem to involve.
Important advances have been made in craniometry, as in other branches of anthropology, since Dr. Morton formed the collection which now, with many later additions, constitutes an important department in the collections of the Academy of Science of Philadelphia. Zealous and well-trained labourers are following in his steps; but the value of his services to science are more fully appreciated with every addition to the work he inaugurated. Researches have been prosecuted for some years by a committee of the British Association with a view to securing reliable data relative to the tribes of the Canadian North-West and British Columbia. In following out their instructions, Dr. Franz Boas has prepared valuable tables of measurements, both of living examples of the Haidah, Tsimshian, Kwakintl, and Nootka tribes, and of crania of those and other natives of the Pacific coast; but unfortunately he has omitted the cerebral capacity. But a large collection of crania of tribes lying to the south of British Columbia, now in the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, has furnished to Mr. Lucien Carr opportunities for a series of careful measurements showing some very distinctive diversities among tribes of the coast and the islands of Southern California. From those the following table is derived. The capacity is given in cubic centimetres; and shows not only a marked diversity in cerebral capacity distinguishing different island tribes, but also notes the relative difference of the male and female head. Among the Indians of the Pacific coast are the Haidahs and others noted for exceptional ingenuity and skill in their carvings, pottery, and other handiwork. But besides the fair-skinned Haidahs and Tsimshians of the north, there are essentially diverse tribes of Southern California, noticeable for swarthy and almost black colour; and not only inferior, but essentially differing in the style of their arts.
CRANIA OF PACIFIC COAST TRIBES
Santa Catalina Island, California.
San Clementé Island, California.
Santa Cruz Island, California.
Santa Barbara Islands and Mainland.
Among exceptional features claimed as more or less a racial characteristic of American crania, theos Incæ, or epactal bone in the occiput, has been noted as present in various stages of manifestation in 3.81 per cent; and among ancient Peruvian crania in 6.08 per cent; while it does not apparently exceed 2.65 per cent in the Negro; and only reaches 1.19 per cent in Europeans.[181]In so far as this may be regarded as a sign of arrested development, it is noteworthy as thus occurring in excess in the small-headed, yet highly ingenious and civilised Peruvian race. Dr. Morton noted as a remarkable fact that the skull of the Peruvian child appeared to equal in size that of other races; so that in a much ampler sense than in the perpetuation of a suture of the occiput beyond the stage of fœtal development, the small-sized skull and brain of the adult Peruvian is abnormal. But he followed out his observation of the phenomena no farther than to state, in summing up his investigations “On the internal capacity of the cranium in the different races of men:”[182]“Respecting the American race, I have nothing to add, excepting the striking fact that of all the American nations, the Peruvians had the smallest heads, while those of the Mexicans were something larger, and those of the barbarous tribes the largest of all,” namely:—
The enlarged tables given in the catalogue of Dr J. Aitken Meigs, increase this inverse ratio of cerebral capacity, thus:—