| Sex. | Race. | Authority. | Weight. | |
| M. | African, | Mozambique | Peacock | 43.80 |
| M. | „ | „ | 45.80 | |
| M. | „ | Buenos Ayres | „ | 44.00 |
| M. | „ | Congo | „ | 46.25 |
| M. | „ | „ | 42.80 | |
| M. | „ | Sœmmering | 45.40 | |
| M. | „ | Tiedemann | 35.20 | |
| M. | „ | Congo | C. Luigi Calori | 44.40 |
| M. | „ | Barkow | 50.80 | |
| M. | „ | „ | 45.90 | |
| M. | „ | „ | 38.90 | |
| M. | „ | Sir A. Cooper | 49.00 | |
| F. | Hottentot Venus | Marshall | 31.00 | |
| F. | Bushwoman | „ | 30.75 | |
| F. | „ | „ | 31.50 | |
| F. | „ | „ | 31.00 | |
| F. | „ | Flower and Murie | 38.00 | |
| F. | African | Peacock | 46.00 | |
| F. | „ | „ | 41.00 | |
The influence of race on the volume, weight, disposition, and relative proportions of the different subdivisions of the human brain, and so of brain on the character of races, has thus far been very partially tested. But the diversities of race head-forms—brachycephalic, dolichocephalic, platycephalic, acrocephalic, etc.—are now well-recognised, though their relation to cerebral development still requires much research for its elucidation. The ancient Roman forehead, as illustrated by classic busts, and confirmed by genuine Roman skulls, was low but broad, and the whole head was platycephalic. The Greek had a high forehead, and the works of the Greek sculptors show that this was regarded as typical. But contemporary with the classic races were the Macrocephali of the Euxine and the Caspian Seas, who, like many modern tribes of the New World, purposely aimed at depressing a naturally receding forehead, and thereby exaggerated the typical forehead characteristic of certain ancient barbaric races.
In the case of hybrids the interchange of physical and mental characteristics of the parents, including modifications of head-form, is a familiar fact. The English head-form appears to be an insular product of intermingled Briton, Teuton, and Scandinavian elements, which has no continental analogue; and its subdivisions, or sub-types, vary with the ethnical intermixture. The Scottish head appears to exceed the English in length, while the latter is higher. Where the Celtic element most predominates, the longer form of head is found; but even in the most Teutonic districts the difference between the prevailing head-form and that of the continental German is so marked that the latter finds it difficult to obtain an English-made hat which will fit his head.[[166]] Here the diversities of head-form are accompanied with no less marked differences of individual and national character.
Professor Welcker determined the average capacity of the German male skull as 1450 cubic centimetres, equivalent to 88 cubic inches, and representing an average brain-weight of 49 oz. Dr. Davis, by a similar process, assigns to the Germans, male and female, the larger mean brain-weight of 50.28 oz.; but by combining the means of both sexes, as derived from his own tables and those of Huschke and Wagner, we obtain a mean weight of German brain of 1314 grms., or 46.37 oz. The results of an extensive series of observations by Dr. Broca, on the male French skull, yield a mean capacity of 1502 cubic centimetres, or 91 cubic inches, representing an average brain-weight of 50.6 oz. Morton, taking his average from five English skulls, gives the great internal capacity of 96 cubic inches; while Davis arrives at a capacity of only 90.9 cubic inches from the examination of thirty-two skulls, male and female; and for the Scottish and Irish, each of 91.2 cubic inches, from an examination of thirty-five skulls. But unfortunately the Davis collection, so rich in other respects, derived its chief English specimens from a phrenological collection; and, along with a few large skulls, contains “many small and poor English examples.”[[167]] The average weight of the English brain may therefore, as Dr. Davis admits, be assumed to be higher than the mean determined by him. “Still a comparison with actually tested weights of brains shows that there cannot be any material error.” The average brain-weight of twenty-one Englishmen, as given by him, is 50.28 oz., that of thirteen women is 43.13; and of the combined series, 47.50. The results determined by the same process in relation to the other nationalities of Europe are exhibited in detail in Dr. Davis’s tables, printed in the Philosophical Transactions.
Such averages are, at best, only approximations to true results; and when obtained, as in Morton’s English race, from a very few examples, or in Davis’s, from exceptional skulls, collected under peculiar circumstances or for a special purpose, they must be tested by other observations. According to Dr. Morton, for example, the mean internal capacity of the English head is 96 cubic inches, while that of the Anglo-American is only 90 cubic inches. Such a conclusion, if established as the result of comparison of a sufficiently large number of well-authenticated skulls, would be of great importance in its bearing on the influence of change of climate, diet, habits, etc., as elements affecting varieties of the human race. But determined as it was in the Morton collection, from five English and seven Anglo-American specimens, it can be regarded as little more than a mere chance result. Ranged nearly in the order of mean internal capacity of skull, the following are the results arrived at, mainly by gauging the skulls in various collections available for such comparisons of different races of mankind. In presenting them here, I avail myself of Dr. Thurnam’s researches, augmenting them with other data subsequently published, including results deduced from Dr. Davis’s minute reports of his own extensive collections, and taking Tiedemann’s capacity of 92.3 for the European skull as 100.
TABLE II
RATIO OF CUBICAL CAPACITY OF SKULLS OF DIFFERENT RACES
| Race. | Authority. | Capacity. |
| European | Tiedemann | 100.0 |
| Asiatic | Davis | 94.3 |
| African | „ | 93.0 |
| American | Tiedemann | 95.0 |
| „ | Davis | 94.7 |
| „ | Morton | 87.0 |
| Oceanic | Davis | 96.9 |
| Chinese | „ | 99.8 |
| Mongol | Morton | 94.0 |
| „ | Tiedemann | 93.0 |
| Hindoo | Davis | 89.4 |
| Malay | Tiedemann | 89.0 |
| American Indian | Morton | 91.0 |
| Esquimaux | Davis | 98.8 |
| Mexican | Morton | 88.5 |
| Peruvian | Wyman | 81.2 |
| „ | Morton | 81.2 |
| Negro | Tiedemann | 91.0 |
| „ | Peacock | 88.0 |
| Hottentot | Morton | 86.0 |
| Javan | Davis | 94.8 |
| Tasmanian | „ | 88.0 |
| Australian | Morton | 88.0 |
| „ | Davis | 87.9 |
The tables of Dr. Morton and Dr. Davis furnish materials for drawing comparisons between diverse nations of the great European family; but though they are of value as contributions to the required means for ethnical comparison, they fall far short of determining the average cranial capacity of the different nationalities. Whilst, for example, the tabular data in the Thesaurus Craniorum show a mean internal capacity of 94 cubic inches for the combined Teutonic family, the Finns yield the higher mean capacity of 96.3 cubic inches. Again, Dr. Thurnam found that the results of the weighing of fifty-nine brains of patients at the Friends’ Retreat near York, mostly persons of the middle class of society, yielded weights considerably above those which he subsequently obtained from testing those of pauper patients in Wilts and Somerset. But this has to be estimated along with the undoubted ethnical differences which separate the population of Yorkshire from that of Somerset and Wiltshire. An interesting paper in the West-Riding Asylum Reports gives the results of the determination of 716 brain-weights, rather more than half being males. The average is 48.149 oz. for the male, and 43.872 for the female brain; whereas the average weights of 267 male brains of a similar class of patients in the Wilts County Asylum, as given by Dr. Thurnam, is 46.2 oz., and of 213 female brains, 41.0 oz. The results of the observations carried on by Dr. Boyd at St. Marylebone yield, from 680 male English brains, a mean weight of 47.1 oz., and from 744 female brains a mean weight of 42.3 oz.; whereas Dr. Peacock determined, from 183 cases in the Edinburgh Infirmary, the weight of the male Scottish brain to average 49.7, and that of the female brain to average 44.3 oz. Here the results are determined by so numerous a series that they might be accepted as altogether reliable, were it not that in the former case they are based to a large extent on a purely pauper class; whereas the patients of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh include respectable mechanics and others from many parts of Scotland, among whom education is common. It is not to be doubted, indeed, that a considerable difference in the form and size of the head, and no doubt also in brain-weight, is to be looked for amongst English, Scotch, Irish, German and French men and women, according to the county or province of which they are natives, and the class of society to which they belong.
The comparative ratio of the cubical capacity of the skull, or the average brain-weight, in so far as either is indicative of ethnical differences among members of the European family of nations, has thus to be determined by numerous examples; or dealt with in detail in reference to the different nationalities. Even in single provinces or counties, social position, and probably education, must be taken into account; so that a series of observations on hospital and pauper patients may be expected to fall below the general average; and fallacious comparisons between European peoples may be based on data, correct enough per se, but unjust when placed alongside of a different class of results. The great mass of evidence in reference to brain-weight has thus far been mainly derived, in the case of the sane, from one rank of life. A comparison of the results with those derived from the insane of various classes of society shows less discrepancy than might have been anticipated. But there are certain cases of hydrocephalous and other abnormally enlarged brains which have to be rigorously excluded from any estimate of the size or weight of the brain, either as a race-test or as an index of comparative mental power.