AN AMERICAN TYPE.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 160, 25 November 1926, Page 1

AN AMERICAN TYPE.

NOW DEVELOPING. An American type ui man is developing. In the older American stock, this type lias already reached a point where it is possible, without much difficulty, to distinguish it Lem the people of otlter countries. T'.iys is the conclusion of Dr Harold Krdlicka, anthropologist of the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, D.C., based cn many years of scientific measuremen'to and study of those whom he designates a “Old Americans,” and of the immigrants differing from the original stock (says the World Magazine). < “The work as now completed ’ jays Dr HrdLilcka “shows that the older stock has approached the formation of a distinct American type. Tins type is still nearest to that of its main progenitors, the British, but in stature, in physiognomy, and in behaviour, it is already more or less different— American. The type i-s a good one.” Here is Dr 1-Irdlicka's description of the American type of man, so far as it has been developed: “It is characterised by tall stature, being the tallest of the larger groups of white people l ; by on the average medium pigmentation of the hair, with scarcity of adult blondes and nearabsence of blacks; by (prevalently mixed eyes, or light ones showing more or .less of a brown admixture; by inclination, £ specially in youth, to Isinewy slenderness; and by other features. Tf.uei main characteristics

of its behaviour are, in general, frankness, openness, yet shrewdness, energy and persistence, with, in genera,l but -little sentimentality or affectation, and relatively few extremes except perhaps in industrial, financial, and occasionally in religious endeavours.

“This typia, contrary to recent unscientific belief, i/s not Nordic; it is not even nearer Nordic than i-t is to the Al/pine. Like the British, it is an intermediate type. “The bulk of the immigrants represented i'n our records, outside of hbad form and a few other features, are remarkably uniform in physique, with Ihe exception of the Jews and the Southern Italians, both of whom are characterised by smaller stature and other more or less aberrant features. They are, in genera. l , a good, sturdy lot. In average stature, in size of c'hest, and in muscular strength they are above the mb an of Europeans. They present as groups no signs of physical degeneration.”