ANTERROPOMETRY.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1800, 27 November 1879, Page 3

ANTERROPOMETRY.

An Austrian professor has come forward ae the discoverer of a new science. He has approached humanity with a measuring tape, and now publishes the results of bis laborious investigations, All science is built up more or less on statistics, and Professor Weisbach has laid the foundation of what he himself calls " Anterropometry." He has divided the human race into nineteen different people, and, collecting his inferences from a sufficient number of individuals, has published his knowledge in a tabulated form. The points which he has selected for illustrating his theories seem curiously chosen. The length of the body, the circumference of the head, the proportions of the nose, the relation of the arm as compared with other limbs, and the rapidity of pulsation are the chief centres of his system. For example, in the matter of rapidity of pulse he thus catalogues humanity. The dullest circulation seems to belong to the negroes of Congo, who have 62 pulsations in a minute. After them come the Hottentots with 61, the Kaffirs 70, the Northern Slavs 72, the Siamese 74, the Jews 77, the Sandwich Islanders 78, and the Nicobars 81. In matters of height the shortest people in the world—not being actually dwarfs —are the Hottentots, the average height, in millimetres, being 1.287. Tkcn follow the Japanese at 1,669, the Jews 1.599, the Australians 1.617, the Slavs 1 671, the Northern Chinese 1,675, the Kaffirs 1.753, and the Maoris 1.757. These figures may be iostructively compared with recognised European altitudes, which the Professor exhibits in a parallel column. The results are curious, and establish inconteatably the superiority of northern races. The Norwegians are the tallest, but they are not as tall as the Maoris, the average heights being relatively 1.728 and 1.758. The Scotch come next at 1.708, then the Swedes at 1.700, then the English at 1.690, and next follow the Danes 1.685, the Germans 1.680, the French 1.667, the Italians and the Portuguese. It is found that largeness of head is generally in inverse proportion to length of body ; not that tall men have little heads so much as that tall races have small heads, the only exception being the Patagonians, whose great height is not deformed by insignificant brain. The variations of nose are more remarkable than those of any other organ which the Professor has measured. The Jews and the Patagonians head the list, the average in millimetres being 71; the nearest are the Maoris at 52 ; and the furthest the Australians at 30; while in breadth of nostril the list must be read upside down ; it commences with the Australians at 52, and ends with the Jews at 34. For torso and breadth of chest the American Indians surpass all other people, while it is recorded of the Africans, and especially of the Congo negroes, that the relative proportion between length of arm and length of leg is, in their case, completely inverted.