BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE 
IN RELATION TO 
RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
BY 
DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.E.S.E 
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, 
TORONTO 
Read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 
at Buffalo, N.Y., 25TH August, 1876. 
[From the “ Canadian Journal,” October, 1876.] 
TORONTO: 
OOP?, CLARK & CO., 67 & 69 COLBORNE STREET. TO 
JOSEPH BARNARD DAVIS, M.D., F.R.S., F.S.A. 
THIS LITTLE BROCHURE 
ts DEDICATED, IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF HIS VALUABLE CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO ANTHROPOLOGICAL science. BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE 
IN relation to 
RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.B. 
Read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Buffalo, N. Y. 
25th August, 1876. 
Consistently with the recognition of the brain as the organ of intel- 
lectual activity, it seems not unnatural to assume for man, as the 
rational animal, a very distinctive cerebral development. One of the 
most distinguished of living naturalists, Professor Owen, has even 
made this organ the basis of a system of classification, by means of 
which he separates man into a sub-class distinct from all other mam- 
malia. But while a comparison between man and the anthropoid 
apes, as the animals most nearly approximating to him in physical 
structure, lends confirmation to the idea not only that a well de- 
veloped brain is essential to mental activity, but that there is a close 
relation between the development of the brain and the manifestation 
of intellectual power; the distinctive features in the human brain, 
as compared with those of the anthropomorpha, prove to be greatly 
less than had been assumed under imperfect knowledge. The sub- 
stantial difference is in volume. “No one, I presume,” says Darwin, 
“ doubts that the large size of the brain in man, relatively to his body, 
in comparison to that of the gorilla or orang, is closely connected 
with his higher mental powers* and it might not unfairly be rea- 
soned from analogy, that the same test distinguishes the intellectual 
man from the stolid, and the civilised man from the savage. A care- 
ful study of the subject, however, shows some remarkable deviations 
* “The Descent of Man,” Part 1., chap, iv. 6 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
from such a scale of progression. In this Mr. Darwin would recog- 
nize an analogy to greatly more ample proofs of inequality between 
the organic source of power and the manifestations of mental energy; 
as, for example, in the ant, with its cerebral ganglia not so large as 
the quarter of a small pin’s head, displaying instincts and apparent 
affections of wonderful intensity and compass. Viewed in this aspect, 
“ the brain of an ant is one of the most marvellous atoms of matter 
in the world, perhaps more marvellous than the brain of man.” Here, 
however, we look on elements of contrast rather than analogy; and 
seek in vain in this direction for any appreciable test of the sound- 
ness of the popular belief in the size of the brain as a measure of 
intellectual power. It is otherwise when we turn to the anthropo- 
morpha. There, alike in the scientific and in the popular creed, very 
special and exceptional affinities to man are admitted; and the more 
careful study of their anatomical structure tends to increase the 
recognized points of analogy. 
Mr. Lockhart Clarke, in a contribution to Dr. Maudsley’s work on 
the Physiology and Pathology of Mind, gives a minute description of 
the concentric layers of nervous substance which combine to form the 
convolutions of the human brain, and of the forms and disposition 
of the various nerve-cells of which its vesicular structure consists. 
Comparing the human brain with those of other animals, he says: 
“ Between the cells of the convolutions in man and those of the ape 
tribe I could not perceive any difference whatever; but they cer- 
tainly differ in some respects from those of the larger mammalia—- 
from those, for instance, of the ox, sheep, or cat.”* Apart from the 
difference in volume (55 to 115 cub. in.), the only distinctive features, 
according to Professor Huxley, between the brain of the anthropo- 
morpha and that of man, are “ the filling up of the occipito-temporal 
fissure; the greater complexity and less symmetry of the other sulci 
and gyri; the less excavation of the orbital face of the frontal lobe; 
and the larger size of the cerebral hemispheres, as compared with the 
cerebellum and the cerebral nerves.” 
The brain of the orang is the one which seems most nearly to 
approximate to that of man. In volume it is about twenty-six or 
twenty-seven cubic inches ; or about half the minimum size of a 
normal human brain. The frontal height is greater than in that of 
* “ Insanity and its Treatment,” by G. F. Blandford, M.D , p. 10. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
other anthropomorpha; the frontal lobe is in all respects larger as 
compared with the occipital lobe; and certain folds of brain-sub- 
stance, styled “ bridging convulsions,” which in the human brain are 
interposed between the parietal and occipital lobes, also occur, though 
greatly reduced, in the brain of the orang; while they appear to be 
wholly wanting in the chimpanzee, the gibbon, and other apes which 
superficially present a greater resemblance to man. Referring to the 
convolutions of the central cerebral lobe, Huschke says: “ With 
their formation in the ape, the brain enters the last stage of devel- 
opment until it arrives at its perfection in man;” and the higher 
class of brains may be arranged between the extremes of poorly and 
richly convoluted examples. 
But it must not be overlooked that, apart from structural differ- 
ences, relative, and not absolute mass and weight of brain has to be 
considered, otherwise the elephant and the whale would take the fore- 
most place. “ The brain of the porpoise,” Professor Huxley 
remarks,* “is quite wonderful for its mass, and for the development 
of the cerebral convolutionsbut it is the centre of a nervous system 
of corresponding capacity, while as compared with the size of the 
animal, the brain is not relatively large. Yogt states the weight 
of the human body to be to the brain, on an average, as 36 to 1 ; 
whereas in the most intelligent anunals the difference is rarely less 
than 100 to 1. 
Assuming the existence of some uniform relation between the size 
of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties, along 
with whatever is recognized as most closely analogous to them in the 
lower animals, it might be anticipated that we should find not only a 
graduated development of brain in the anthropomorpha as they 
approximate in resemblance to man; but, still more, that the pro- 
gressive stages from the lowest savage condition to that of the most 
civilized nations should be traceable in a comparative size and weight 
of brain. Dr. Carl Yogt, after discussing certain minor and doubtful 
exceptions, thus proceeds ; “We find that there is an almost regular 
series in the cranial capacity of such nations and races as, since 
historic times, have taken no part in civilization. Australians, Hot- 
tentots, and Polynesians, nations in the lowest state of barbarism, 
commence the series; and no one can deny that the place they 
* “ Mr. Darwin’s Critics : Critiques and Addresses.” 8 
occupy in relation to cranial capacity and cerebral weight corresponds 
with the degree of their intellectual capacity and civilization.”* But 
the position thus confidently assigned to the Polynesians receives no 
confirmation from the evidence supplied by the measurements of Dr. 
J. B. Davis, in bis Thesaurus Graniorum; and a careful study of 
the subject reveals other remarkable deviations from such a scale of 
progression, not only in individuals but in races. To these excep- 
tional deviations, with their bearing on the comparative capacity of 
races, the following remarks are chiefly directed. The largest and 
heaviest brains do indeed appear, for the most part, to pertain to the 
nations highest in civilization, and to the most intelligent of their 
number. But this cannot be asserted as a uniform law, either in 
relation to races or individuals. The more carefully the requisite 
evidence is accumulated, the less does it appear that the volume of 
brain, or the cubic contents of the skull, supply any uniform gauge 
of intellectual capacity. In the researches which have thus far been 
instituted into the characteristics of the human brain among the 
lowest races, the development is in many respects remarkable; and, 
as was to be expected, no organic differences between diverse races 
of men have been traced. 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
Professor C. Luigi Calori has published the results of a careful 
examination of the brain of a Negro of Guinea. It presented the 
ffiarked excess of length over breadth so characteristic of the Negro 
cranium; but in other respects it corresponded generally to the fully 
developed European brain. The distribution of the white and gray 
substances was the same; the cerebral convolutions were collected 
into an equal number of lobes ; and the only special difference was 
that the convolutions were a little less frequently folded, and the 
separating sulci somewhat less marked than in the average European 
brain. But even in this respect the complication was great. The 
actual weight of the brain, according to Professor Calori, was 1,260 
grammes, equivalent to 44-4 cubic inches. The complexity of convo- 
lution, and consequent extension of superficies of the encephalon, ap- 
pears to be an essential element in the development of the brain as the 
organ of highest mental capacity • and to the cerebrum, apparently, 
the true functions of intellectual activity pertain. Professor Wagner 
undertook the measurement of the convex surface of the frontal 
lobe in a series of brains. The heaviest, as a rule, had also the greatest 
*Vogt, “Lectures on Man,” Lect. 11l TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
9 
development of surface. But the two elements were not in uniform 
ratio. Some of the lighter brains presented a much greater degree of 
convolution and consequent extent of convex superficies than others 
which ranked above them in weight. It is thus apparent that in 
estimating the comparative characteristics of brains, various elements 
are necessary for an exhaustive comparison. Besides the functional 
differences of the cerebrum, cerebellum, and pons varolii, they have- 
different specific gravities, so that brains of equal weight may differ 
widely in quality. Dr. Peacock, taking distilled water as 1000, 
gives the values of the subdivisions of the brain thus : cerebrum, 
1034; cerebellum, 1041; pons varolii, 1040. Again, Dr. Sankey 
states the mean specific gravity of the gray matter of the brain in 
either sex as D 0346, and of the white matter as D 0412. The varia- 
tions from these results, as given by Bastian, Thurnam, and others, 
are trifling.' But it is significant to note that recent researches shew 
that where greater specific gravity of brain occurs in the insane, it 
appears to be limited to the gray matter.* Professor G-oodsir main- 
tained that symmetry of brain has more to do with the higher faculties 
than bulk or form. It is, at any rate, apparent that two brains of 
equal weight may differ widely in quality. 
Nevertheless, the popular estimate embodied in such expressions as 
“ a good head,” “ a long-headed fellow,” and “ a poor head,” like 
many other popular inductions, has truth for its basis. Up to a cer- 
tain stage the growth of the brain determines the capacity of the 
skull. Then it seems as though more complex convolutions accom- 
panied the packing of the elaborated cerebral mass within the fixed 
limits of its osseous chamber. 
A comparison of races, based on minute investigation of an 
adequate number of brains of fair typical examples, may be expected 
to yield important results; but in the absence of such direct evidence, 
the chief data available for this purpose are derived from measure- 
ments of the internal capacity of their skulls. Among English ob- 
servers who have devoted themselves to this class of observations, the 
foremost place is due to Dr. J- Barnard Davis, who, in 1867, summed 
up the results of his extensive researches in a contribution to the 
Eoyal Society, entitled, “ Contributions towards determining the 
weight of the brain in different races of man.”t Inferior as such 
* “Journal of Mental Science,” Vol. XII., p. 23. 
t“ Philosophical Transactions,” Vol. CLVIIL, p. 505. j 10 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
evidence must necessarily be, if compared with the examination of 
the brain itself, nevertheless the number of skulls of the different 
races gauged unquestionably furnishes some highly valuable data for 
ethnical comparison. The evidence, moreover, is obtained from a 
source in some respects less variable than the encephalon; and will 
always constitute a corrective element in estimating results based on 
direct examinations of the brain. Dr. Davis, indeed, claims “that 
the examination of a large series of skulls in ascertaining their 
capacities and deducing from those capacities the average volume of 
the brain, affords in some respects more available data for determining 
this relative volume for any particular race than the weighing of the 
brain itself.” The defect is, that its most important results are 
necessarily based on the assumption of a uniform density of brain; 
whereas some notable ethnical differences, hereafter referred to, may 
prove to be due to the fact that certain races derive their special 
characteristics from a prevailing diversity in this very respect. 
But the extensive observations of Dr. Davis, as of Dr. Morton, 
have a special value from the fact that each furnishes results based on 
a uniform system of observation • for the diverse methods and mate- 
rials employed by different observers in gauging the human skull 
have greatly detracted from their practical value. In a communi- 
cation by the late Professor Jeffreys Wyman to the Boston Natural 
History Society, * he presented the results of a series of measure- 
ments of the internal capacity of the same skull with pease, beans, 
rice, flax-seed, shot, and coarse and fine sand. From repeated experi- 
ments he arrived at the conclusion that the apparent capacity varied 
according to the different substances used, so that the same skull 
measured respectively, with pease 1193 centimetres, with shot 1201-8, 
with rice 1220-2, and with fine sand 1313 centimetres. Professor 
Wyman was led to the conclusion that, for exactness, small shot, as 
employed latterly by Dr. Morton, is preferable to sand, were it not 
for its weight, which, in the case of old and fragile skulls, is apt to be 
destructive to them. With a view to avoid the latter evil, Dr. J. 
B. Davis has used fine Calais sand of D 425 specific gravity. The 
diversity in apparent volume, consequent on the employment of differ- 
ent substances in gauging the internal capacity of the skull, neces- 
sarily detracts from the value of comparative results of Morton, Davis, 
and others. But the elaborate measurements of their great collections 
* “Proceedings of the Boston Natural History Society,” Vol. XL. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
11 
of luiman crania furnish reliable series of data, each uniform in 
system, and sufficiently minute to satisfy many requirements of com- 
parative craniometry. 
Without assuming an invariable correspondence in cubical capacity 
and brain-weight, there is a sufficient approximation in the cubical 
capacity of the skull and the average weight of the encephalon to 
render the deductions derived from gauging the capacities of skulls 
of different races an important addition to this department of com- 
parative ethnology. For minute cerebral comparisons, however, it 
is apparent that much more is required; and the special functions 
assigned to the various organs within the cranium have to be kept in 
view. Of these the medulla oblongata, in direct contact with the 
spinal cord, is now recognized as the centre of the vital actions in 
breathing and swallowing ; and is believed also to be the direct source 
of the muscular action employed in speech. Next to it are the sensory 
ganglia, arranged in pairs along the base of the brain. To the cere- 
bellum, which the phrenologist sets apart as the source of the emotions 
and passions embraced in his terminology of amativeness, philo- 
progenitiveness, &c., physiologists now assign the function of con- 
veying to the mind the conditions of tension and relaxation of the 
muscles, and so controlling their voluntary action. But above all 
those is the cerebrum, or brain-proper, consisting of two large lobes 
of nervous substance, which in man are so large that, when viewed 
vertically, they cover and conceal the cerebellum. To this organ is 
specially assigned emotion, volition, and ratiocination. It is the 
assumed seat of the mind; and, m a truer sense than the skull, 
“The dome of thought, the palace of the soul;” 
if indeed it be not, to one class of reasoners, the mind itself. Certain 
it is that no acute disease can affect it without a corresponding dis- 
order of the functions of mind; and with this organ much below the 
average size, intellectual weakness may always be predicated. But at 
the same time, it is significant to note that the human brain, stinted 
in its full proportions, and reduced to a seeming equality with the 
anthropomorpha,, exhibits no corresponding capacities or instincts in 
lieu of the higher mental qualities. Microcephaly is the invariable 
index, not of mere limited intelligence and mental capacity, but of 
actual mental imbecility. If the augmentation of the brain of the 
anthropomorpha from 55 to 115 cubic inches be all that is requisite 
for the transformation of the irrational ape into the reasoning man, 12 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
it would seem to be in no degree illogical to look for the accom- 
paniment of the inversion of the process by an approximation, in 
some instances, to certain capacities and functions of the ape. But 
there are no indications of this. In some examples of microcephaly, 
the so-called animal propensities do indeed manifest themselves to 
excess; but there is no reproduction of the animal nature, instincts, 
or capacities, analogous to the scale of cerebral development of the 
orang or chimpanzee. A microcephalous idiot, who died at the age 
of twenty-two, in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, had a brain 
weighing only IST 25 oz., or 372 grammes. In describing this case, 
Professor Owen remarks : “ Here nature may be said to have per- 
formed for us the experiment of arresting the development of the 
brain almost exactly at the size which it attains in the chimpanzee, 
and where the intellectual faculties were scarcely more developed. 
Yet no anatomist would hesitate in at once referring the cranium to 
the human species.” And so is it with the encephalon. The brain 
of the chimpanzee is a healthy, well-developed organ, adequate to 
the amplest requirements of the animalwhereas the microcephalous 
human brain is inadequate for any efficient, continuous cerebral 
activity: not merely limited in its range of powers. Much, how- 
ever, may yet be learned from a careful attention to the imperfect 
manifestations of activity in certain directions, in cases of microce- 
phalic idiocy, and noting the predominant tendency in each case, 
with a view to subsequent examination of the brain. By this means 
it may be found possible to refer certain forms of mental activity to 
special variations in the structure of the organ, or to distinct mem- 
bers of the encephalon. 
Dr. Laennec recently exhibited to the Anthropological Society of 
Paris a microcephalous idiot of the male sex, aged fourteen years. 
“ This child is entirely unconscious of his own actions, and his intel- 
lectual operations are very few in number, and very rudimentary. 
His language consists of two syllables, oui and la, and he takes an 
evident pleasure in pronouncing them. He takes no heed in what 
direction he walks. He would step off a precipice, or into a fire.” 
Attention was specially directed to the idiot’s hands : “ The thumbs 
are atrophied, and cannot be opposed to the other fingers. The 
palms of the hands have the transverse creases, but not the diagonal 
—the result of the atrophy of the thumbs. Hence the hand resembles 
that of the chimpanzee. The dentition too is defective. Though TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
13 
fourteen years of age, the child has only twelve teeth.” Here it is 
curious to note the analogies in physical structure to the lower 
anthropomorph in other organs besides the brain, for it only renders 
more striking the absence of any corresponding aptitudes. 
Dr. J. Barnard Davis, in his interesting monograph on “Synostotie 
Crania among Aboriginal Races of Man,” produces some remarkable 
illustrations of the effect of premature ossification of the sutures of 
the skull in arresting the full development of the brain, and so 
rendering it unequal to the due performance of its functions. “ I 
have,” he says, “the cranium of a convict who was executed on Nor- 
folk Island, which I owe to the kindness of Admiral H. M. Denham. 
This man was executed there when that beautiful isle was appropri- 
ated to the reception of the most dangerous and irreclaimable convicts 
from the other penal settlements. It is a microcephalic skull, rather 
dolichocephalic, of a man apparently about forty years of age. It exhi- 
bits a perfect ossification of the sagittal and of the greater portion of 
the lambdoidal sutures. The coronal suture is partially obliterated 
at the sides in the temporal regions, and can only be distinguished by 
faint traces in all its middle parts. In this case there has not been 
any compensatory development of moment in other directions. The 
calvarium is not abridged in its length, which is 7T inches, equal to 
179 millimetres; probably it is a little elongated. It is, however, 
very narrow, being only 4-8 inches, or 122 m.m. at its widest part, 
between the temporal bones. So that the result is a very small, 
dwarfed, almost cylindrical calvarium. The internal capacity is only 
59 ounces of sand,* which is equal to 71’4 cubic inches, or 1169 
cubic centimetres.” Here is a skull considerably below the lowest 
mean of the crania of any race in Morton’s enlarged tables, or in the 
more comprehensive ones furnished in Dr. Davis’s “Thesaurus Crani- 
orum.” Another skull nearly approximating to it is that of a Cole, 
one of the savage tribes of Nagpore, in Central India, who are said 
to go entirely naked. It is desciibed in the supplement to the 
u Thesaurus Craniorum” as that of “ Chara,” a Cole farmer, aged fifty, 
* The internal capacity of 59 oz. is given here from the “ Thesaurus Craniorum,” p. 40, 
in correction of that of 50 oz. stated in the memoir in “ Transactions of the Dutch Society of 
Sciences,” Haarlem, p. 21, which may be presumed to he a misprint. Dr. Davis adds,, in the 
“ Thesaurus Craniorum,” “ An early closure of the sutures has occasioned a stunted growth of 
the brain, especially of its convolutions, and thus prevented the development of those struc- 
tures and faculties which might have given a different direction to his lower propensities;” and 
he justly adds his conviction that this was a case rather for timely treatment as a dangerous, 
idiot, than for punishment as a criminal. 14 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
and its internal capacity is stated as 5 9'5 oz. av., equivalent to 71*7 
cub. inches. The Coles appear to be small of stature. The heights 
of three of them, whose skulls are in the same collection, were 
respectively 5 ft. 6 in., 5 ft. 2 in., and 5 ft., and the average internal 
capacity of five male skulls is only 66-6. The small stature in this 
and others of the native races of Central India, has to be taken into 
account in estimating the relative size of the brain. But the Cole 
.skulls are remarkable for their small size, being smaller even than 
the ordinary Hindoos of Bengal. Yet one of them, “ Cootlo,” whose 
skull is among those included in the above mean, commanded a band 
of insurgents in the Porahant rebellion of 1858, and made himself 
a terror to the district. 
The microcephalism of races, as well as of individuals, of small 
stature, must not be confounded with the true microcephaly of a 
dwarfed or imperfectly developed brain, which is invariably accom- 
panied with mental imbecility. Tim Mincopies of the Andaman 
Islands are spoken of by Professor Owen as “perhaps the most 
primitive, or lowest in the scale of civilization, of the human race.”* 
Mr. G. E. Dobson, in describing his first visit to one of their 
“homes,” says : “Although none of the tribe exceeded 64 inches in 
height, so that on first seeing them we thought the shed contained 
none but boys and girls, I was especially struck by the remarkable 
contrast between the size of the males and females.”! Dr. J. B. 
Davis has given, in the supplement to “ Thesaurus Craniorum,” the 
dimensions of a male Mincopie skeleton in his collection. The age he 
assumes to have been about thirty-five. The internal capacity of the 
.skull is 62 oz. (Calais sand), equivalent to 75-5 cubic inches, and the 
entire height of the skeleton is 587 inches. It belongs, says Dr. 
Davis, to a pigmy race, is small in all its dimensions, and is particu- 
larly small in the dimensions of the pelvis. Of their skulls, moreover, 
he adds, “it is somewhat difficult to determine the sex with confi- 
dence. They are all small (but this is a character of the race), they 
are delicate in development, and they have that fullness of the 
occipital region, and smallness of the mastoid processes, which are 
marks of feminism.” 
Mr. Alfred R. Wallace connects the Mincopies with the Negritos 
.and Semangs of the Malay peninsula, a dark woolly-haired race, 
* “ Report of British Association,” 1861. 
f“ Journal Anthrop. Inst.,” VoL IV, p. 464. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
15 
dwarfs in stature. Dr. Davis says of the six Mincopie skulls in his 
collection, four male and two female, as well as of others which he 
has seen : “They are all remarkably and strikingly alike, not merely 
in size but in form also. They are all small, round, brachycephalic 
crania of beautiful form.” Moreover, though classed as “ lowest in 
the scale of civilization,” the Mincopies betray no deficiency of intel- 
lect. The admirable photographs which illustrate Mr. Dobson’s 
narrative show in the majority of them good frontal development. 
The brain is not, indeed, relatively small. Their canoes are made 
of the trunk of a tree, hollowed out; and Mr. Dobson remarks : 
“The construction of their peculiar arrows and fish spears with 
movable heads exhibits much ingenuity, and the use of no small 
reasoning power in adapting means to an end.” 
We are indeed too apt to apply our own artificial standards as the 
sole test of intellectual vigour; whereas it is probable that in the 
amount of acquired knowledge and acuteness of reasoning many 
savage races surpass the majority of the illiterate peasantry in the 
most civilized countries of Europe. Mr. Wallace, in viewing the 
subject in one special light, remarks; “ The brain of the lowest 
savages, and, as far as we yet know, of the prehistoric races, is little 
inferior in size to that of the higher types of man, and is immensely 
superior to that of the higher animals; while it is universally 
admitted that quantity of brain is one of the most important, and 
probably the most essential of the elements which determine mental 
power. Yet the mental requirements of savages, and the faculties 
actually exercised by them are very little above those of animals. 
The higher feelings of pure morality and refined emotion, and the 
power of abstract reasoning and ideal conception, are useless to them; 
are rarely, if ever, manifested; and have no important relations to 
their habits, wants, desires, and well-being. They possess a mental 
organ beyond their needs.”* 
Here, however, it may be well to guard against the confusion of two 
very distinct elements. The higher feelings of pure morality and re- 
fined emotion are not manifestations of intellectual vigour in the same 
sense as is the power of abstract reasoning and ideal conception. It 
is not rare to find an English or Scottish peasant with little intellec- 
tual culture or capacity for abstract reasoning, but with an acutely 
instinctive moral sense. On the other hand, among the criminal 
* “ Limits of Natural Selection, as Applied to Man.” 16 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
class, it is by no means rare to find examples of wonderfully vigorous 
intellectual power applied to the planning and accomplishing of 
schemes which involve as much foresight and skill as many a triumph 
of diplomacy; but which at the same time seem to be nearly incom- 
patible with any moral sense. Moreover, it is needless to say that 
intellectual vigour and high moral principle are by no means invari- 
able concomitants in any class of society; nor can they be traced to 
a common source. Mr. Wallace recognizes that “a superior intelli- 
gence has guided the development of man in a definite direction, and 
for a special purpose;” and such guidance involves much more than 
the mere evolution of a higher animal organization. But, appreci- 
ating as he does the difficulties involved in any acceptance of a 
theory of evolution which assumes man to be the mere latest out- 
growth of a development from lower forms of animal life, Mr. 
Wallace points out that “natural selection could only have endowed 
savage man with a brain a little superior to that of an ape, whereas 
he actually possesses one very little inferior to that of a philo- 
sopher.” 
Yet neither Mr. Wallace, nor Professor Huxley when controvert- 
ing this argument, withholds a due recognition of the activity of the 
intellect of the savage. Ho one indeed can have much intercourse 
with savage races wholly dependent on their own resources, without 
recognizing that, within a certain range, their faculties are kept in 
constant activity. The savage hunter has not merely an intimate 
familiarity with all the capabilities and resources of many regions 
traversed by him in pursuit of his game; his geographical infor- 
mation includes much useful knowledge of the topography of ranges 
of country which he has never visited. I found, on one occasion, 
when exploring the Nepigon River, on Lake Superior, that my 
Chippewa guides, though fully five hundred miles from their own 
country, and visiting the region for the first time, were nevertheless 
on the look-out for a metamorphic rock underlying the sienite which 
abounds there; and they made their way by well-recognized land, 
marks to this favourite “pipe-stone rock.” While moreover the 
Indian, like other savages, is devoid of much of what we style “ use- 
ful knowledge,” but which would be very useless to him, he is fully 
informed on many subjects embraced within the range of the natural 
sciences; and has a very practical knowledge of meteorology, 
zoology, botany, and much else which constitutes useful know- TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OP RACES. 
17 
ledge to Mm. He is familiar with the habits of animals, and the 
medicinal virtues of many plants; will find his way through the 
forest by noting the special side of the trunks on which certain 
lichens grow; and follow the tracks of his game, or discover the nests 
of birds, by indications which would escape the most observant 
naturalist. The Australian savage, stimulated apparently to an 
unwonted ingenuity by the privations of an arid climate, is the 
inventor of two wonderfully ingenious implements, the wommera or 
throwing stick, and the bomerang, which, when employed by the 
native expert, accomplish feats entirely beyond any efforts of European 
skill. Moreover, as Professor Huxley remarks, he “can make 
excellent baskets and nets, and neatly fitted and beautifully balanced 
spears; he learns to use these so as to be able to transfix a quar- 
tern loaf at sixty yards; and very often, as in the case of the 
American Indians, the language of a savage exhibits complexities 
which a well-trained European finds it difficult to master.” Again 
he goes on to say : “ Consider that every time a savage tracks his 
game he employs a minuteness of observation, and an accuracy of 
inductive and deductive reasoning which, applied to other matters, 
would assure some reputation to a naan of science, and I think we 
need ask no further why he possesses such a fair supply of brains. 
In complexity and difficulty, I should say that the intellectual labour 
of a good hunter or warrior considerably exceeds that of an ordinary 
Englishman.” Plence Professor Huxley is not prepared to admit that 
the American or Australian savage possesses in his bra,in a mental 
organ which he fails to turn to fnll account. But without entering 
on the questions of evolution and natural selection in all their com- 
prehensive bearings, it is still apparent that the brain of the savage 
is an instrument of great capacity, employed within narrow limits. 
In estimating the comparative size of the brain, it is seen to be 
necessary to discriminate between individuals or races of small stature 
and cases of true microcephaly- On the other hand, it is not to be 
overlooked that examples of idiocy are not rare where the head is of 
a fair average size, and where the mental imbecility is regarded as 
congenital. But in this as in other researches of the physiologist, he 
is limited in his observations mainly to the chance opportunities 
which offer for study; and not the prejudices of affection 
arrest the hand of the student, and prevent a post mortem examination 18 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
in cases where science lias much, to hope for from freedom of investi- 
gation. Hence the data thus far accumulated in evidence of the actual 
structure, size and weight of the human brain fall far short of what is 
requisite for a solution of many questions in reference to the relations 
between cerebration and mental activity. From time to time men of 
science have sought by example, as well as by precept, to lessen such 
impediments to scientific research. Dr. Dalton left instructions for 
a post mortem examination, in order to test the peculiarity of his 
vision, which he had assumed to be due to a colouring of the vitreous 
humour; Jeremy Bentham bequeathed his body to his friend Dr. 
Southwood Smith, for the purposes of anatomical science; and the 
Will of Harriet Martineau, who died during the present year, con- 
tains this provision ; “ It is my desire, from an interest in the progress 
of scientific investigation, that my skull should be given to Henry 
George Atkinson, of Upper Gloucester Place, London, and also my 
brain, if my death should take place within such distance of his then 
present abode as to enable him to have it for purposes of scientific 
investigation.” The Willis dated March 10th, 1864; but by a 
codicil, dated October 5, 1871, this direction is revoked, with the 
explanation which follows in these words: “ I wish to leave it on 
record that this alteration in my testamentary directions is not caused 
by any change of opinion as to the importance of scientific observa- 
tion on such subjects, but is made in consequence merely of a change 
of circumstances in my individual case.” The natural repugnance of 
surviving relatives to any mutilation of the body must always tend 
to throw impediments in the way of such researches; though it may 
be anticipated that, with the increasing diffusion of knowledge, such 
obstacles to its pursuit will be diminished. Thus far, however, 
notwithstanding the persevering labours of Welcker, Bergmann, 
Parchappe, Broca, Boyd, Skae, Owen, Thurnam, and other physiolo- 
gists, their observations have been necessarily limited almost exclu- 
sively to certain exceptional sources of evidence, embracing to a large 
extent only the pauper and the insane classes; and in the case of the 
latter especially, the functional disorder or chronic disease of the 
organ under consideration renders it peculiarly desirable that such 
results should be brought, as far as possible, into comparison with a 
corresponding number of observations on healthy brains of a class 
fairly representing the social and intellectual status of a civilized 
community. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
19 
The average brain-weight of the human adult, as determined by a 
numerous series of observations, ranges for man from 40 oz. to 52£ 
oz., and for woman from 35 oz. to 47|- oz. But some indications 
among ancient crania tend to suggest a doubt as to whether this 
difference in cerebral capacity was a uniformly marked sexual distinc- 
tion among early races; due allowance being made for difference 
in stature. Dr. Thurnam made the race of the British Long Bar- 
rows a special subject of study; and Dr. Rolleston has followed up 
his researches with valuable results. Amongst other points, he notes 
that the males appeared to have averaged 5 feet 6 inches, and the 
females 4 feet 10 inches in height. But while the difference of 
stature between the male and the female exceeds what is observable 
in most modern races, the variation in the size and internal capacity 
of their skulls appears to be less than among civilized races. The like 
characteristics are noticeable in the larger race of Europe’s palseo- 
technic era. Nothing is more striking in the discovery of those 
ancient remains of European man than the remarkable development 
of the skulls, and the good brain capacity of the race of the palseo- 
technic dawn, where man is proved, by his works of art and all the 
traces of his hearth and home, to have been still a rude hunter and 
cave-dweller. Whatever other changes, therefore, may have affected 
the brain as the organ of human thought and reasoning, it does not 
thus far appear that the average mass of brain has increased since 
the advent of European man. Important exceptions have indeed 
been noted. Professor Broca’s observations on the cerebral capacity 
of the Parisian population at different periods, based on nearly 400 
skulls derived from vaults and cemeteries of various dates from the 
11th or 12th to the 19th century, appear to him to show a progres- 
sive cerebral development in that remarkable centre of European 
civilization. * But though the assumption is not inconsistent with 
other results of civilization, and is the necessary corollary of the 
postulate that intellectual activity tends to permanent development 
of brain; the fact that the crania presented a still greater diversity 
in type than in size reminds us of the intermixture of races on the 
banks of the Seine, and the consequent necessity for much more 
extended observations before so important a deduction can be received 
as an established truth. 
Taking the average brain-weight of the human adult as already 
stated, all male brains falling much below 40 oz. or 1130 grammes, 
* “ Bull, de la Soc. d’Antbropologie de Paris.” 1861, ii., p. 501; 1862, iii., p. 102. 20 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
and female brains below 35 oz. or 990 grammes, may be classed as 
microcephalous; and all above tbe maxima of the medium male and 
female brain, viz., 52J oz. or 1480 grammes, and 47| oz. or 1345 
grammes, may be ranked as megalocephalous, or great brains. 
Professor Welcker, wbo devoted special attention to the whole sub- 
ject under review, assumes another and simpler test, when he says 
that skulls of more than 540 to 550 millemetres, or 21-26 to 21-65 
inches in circumference—the weight of brain belonging to which is 
1490 to 1560 grammes (52-5—55 oz. avoir.),—are to be regarded 
as exceptionally large. But while an excess of horizontal circum- 
ference may be accepted as indicating good cerebral capacity, it must 
not be overlooked that the adoption of it as the key to any definite 
or even approximate brain-weight ignores the important elements of 
variation involved in the difference between acrocephalic and platyce- 
phalic head-forms. The volume of brain in Scott, and probably in 
Shakespeare, appears to have depended more on its elevation than its 
horizontal expansion. The same was also the case with Byron. The 
intermastoid arch, measured across the vertex of the skull from the 
tip of one mastoid process to the other, furnishes an accurate gauge 
of this development. Of thirteen selected male English skulls in Dr. 
Davis’s collection, the mean of this measurement is 15"1; and of thirty- 
nine male and female English skulls, it is only 14-4. Of the whole 
number of eighty-one English skulls described in the “ Thesaurus 
Oaniorum,” three exceptionally large ones are—No. 123, that of an 
ancient British chief, of fully 6 ft. 2 in. in stature, from the Grims- 
thorpe Barrow, Yorkshire ; No. 905, a calvarium of great magnitude, 
very brachycephalic, and with the elevation across the middle of the 
parietals apparently exaggerated by compression in infancy, from 
Hythe, Kent; and No. 1029, another male skull, remarkable alike for 
its size and weight, and with a peculiarity of conformation ascribed 
by Dr. Davis to synostosis of the coronal suture. The intermastoid 
arch in those exceptionally large skulls measures respectively 16-0, 
16"2 and 16-9 ; whereas the same measurement derived from the cast 
of Scott’s head taken after death, yields the extraordinary dimensions 
of 19 inches.* This last measurement is over the hairy scalp. But 
after making ample allowance for this, the vertical measurement of 
the skull and consequently of the brain is remarkable. 
* I am indebted to Dr. J. A. Smith P.S.A., Scot., for this and other measurements of casts 
of The Bruce, Bums, Scott, &e., not accessible to me. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
21 
Full value lias been assigned at all periods to the well-developed 
forehead. It is characteristic of man. The physiognomist and the 
phrenologist have each given significance to it in their respective 
systems; and it has received no less prominent recognition from the 
poets. A fully developed forehead is assumed as distinctive of the 
male skull. But Juliet, in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” when 
depreciating her rival, exclaims, “ Ay, but her forehead’s lowand 
the jealous Queen of Egypt, in “Antony and Cleopatra,” is told of 
Octavia that “ her forehead is as low as she would wish it.” “ The 
fair large front ” of Milton’s perfect man is the external index of an 
ample cerebrum ; the organ to which the seat of consciousness, intel- 
ligence, and will is assigned. If is therefore consistent with this 
that a low, retreating forehead is popularly assumed to be the char- 
acteristic index of the savage, and of the unintellectual among 
civilized races. But the cerebral characteristics of both ancient and 
modern civilized races have still to be studied in detail; and the 
influence of race and sex on the form of the head and the mass and 
weight of the brain, involves some curious questions in relation to the 
oldest illustrations of the physical characteristics of man, and to the 
effect of civilization on the relative development of the sexes. 
Early observations led Dr. Pruner-Bey and other ethnologists of 
France to recognize in certain ancient Gaulish skulls of a brachyce- 
phalic type the evidences of a primitive race, assumed to represent 
the inhabitants of France and of Central Europe during its reindeer 
period, and which appeared to be assigned with reasonable probability 
to a Mongol origin. But in the Cro-Magnon cavern, and in other 
caves more recently explored, the remains of a race of men have been 
brought to light markedly dolichocephalic, and no less striking in 
cranial capacity. Dr. Broca speaks of these ancient cave-dwellers 
of the valley of the Vezere as characterized by “ sure signs of a 
powerful cerebral organization. The skulls are large. Their dia- 
meters, their curves, their capacity, attain, and even surpass, our 
medium skulls of the present day. The forehead is wide, by no means 
receding, but describing a fine curve. The amplitude of the frontal 
tuberosities denotes a large development of the anterior cerebral lobes, 
which are the seat of the most noble intellectual faculties.” Along- 
side of the remains of this ancient race, and in the underlying de- 
posits, lay those of the mammoth, cave-lion and bear, fossil horse, and 
reindeer. In neighbouring caves of the same valley, and especially 22 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
in that of La Madelaine, numerous specimens of primitive art have 
been found: tools and weapons of flint, carved lances and harpoons 
of bone; and ingenious engravings and carvings of the mammoth, 
reindeer, and of man himself, on pieces of horn and ivory tablets. 
The evidences of primitive skill and intellectual vigour are remark- 
able. Dr, Broca, after a review of their ingenious arts, says : “ They 
had advanced to the very threshold of civilization;” and Dr. Pruner- 
Bey thus comments on their characteristics ; “If we consider that its 
three individuals had a cranial capacity much superior to the average 
at the present day; that one of them was a female, and that female 
crania are generally below the average of male crania in size; and 
that nevertheless the cranial capacity of the Cro-Magnon woman sur- 
passes the average capacity of male skulls of to-day, we are led to 
regard the great size of the brain as one of the more remarkable 
characters of the Cro-Magnon race. This cerebral volume seems to 
me even to exceed that with which at the present day a stature equal 
to that of our cave-folks would be associated : whilst the skulls from 
the Belgium caves are small, not only absolutely, but even relatively 
in the rather small stature of the inhabitants of those caves.”* 
The remarkable cranial capacity of the skulls thus seemingly per- 
taining to the most primitive of European races—the troglodytes 
of the mammoth and reindeer periods of Central Europe,—is the 
more significant from its bearing on the evidence of progressive 
cerebral development adduced by Dr. Broca from skulls recovered 
from ancient and modern cemeteries of Paris. It appears indeed 
to conflict with any theory of a progressive development from the 
Troglodyte of the post-glacial age to the civilized Frenchman of 
modern times. Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins has accordingly been at 
some pains in his “ Cave Hunting,” t° show that the conclusions 
formed by previous observers as to the epoch of their burial are not 
supported by the facts of the case; and he sums up his review of the 
whole evidence by expressing a conviction that he 11 should feel 
inclined to assign the interments to the neolithic age, in which cave- 
burial was so common. The facts,” he adds, “do not warrant the 
human skeletons being taken as proving the physique of the palaeo- 
lithic hunters of the Dordogne, or as a basis for an inquiry into the 
ethnology of the palaeolithic races.” Mr. Boyd Dawkins also pro- 
nounces the same doubts in reference to the equally characteristic 
* “Reliquiae Aquitanicse.” TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
23 
male skeleton found in a cave at Mentone, and to others obtained in 
the Lombrive and other caves. Nor was this caution without reason, 
for the remains of man differ from other animal remains found in 
such series of deposits as mark a succession of periods, in so far as 
they pertain to the only animal habitually given to the practice of 
interment; so that human skeletons found under such circumstances 
may have been artificially intruded long subsequent to the accumu- 
lation of the breccia in which they lay. Happily, however, any 
doubts as to the contemporaneity of the human remains with the 
other cave-relics has since been removed by the discovery of skeletons, 
similar in type, in other caverns in the same valley—and especially 
in that of Laugerie Basse,—in positions which seem to leave no room 
for questioning their being of the same age as the works of art found 
along with them. 
Other examples of the ancient man of Europe show him in like 
manner endoAved with a cerebi’al development far in advance of the 
rudest races of modern times. The skull found by Dr. Schmerling 
in the Engis Cave, near Liege, along with remains of six or seven 
human skeletons, was embedded in the same matrix Avith bones of 
the fossil elephant, rhinoceros, hyaena, and other extinct quadrupeds. 
It is a fairly proportioned, well developed dolichocephalic skull; and, 
like others of the seemingly most ancient human skulls yet found, 
has signally disappointed the expectations of those Avho count upon 
invariably finding a lower type the older the formation in Avhich it 
occurs. “ Assuredly,” says Professor Huxley, “ there is no mark of 
degradation about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, a fair 
average human skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, 
or might have contained the thoughtless brain of a savage.” Even 
the famous Neanderthal skull, of doubtful geological antiquity, but 
pronounced to be “ the most brutal of all human skulls,” acquires its 
exceptional character chiefly from the abnormal development of the 
superciliary region. 
It is a universally accepted fact that the size of the male head and 
the weight of the brain are greater than those of the female. The 
average weight of the male brain is found to exceed that of the 
female by about ten per cent.; or, as it is stated by Professor 
Welcker, the brain-weight of man is to that of woman as 100 : 90. 
But the difference of stature betAveen the two sexes has to be taken BBAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
into account. The average, based on various series of observations 
to determine the mean stature for man and for woman, shows the 
latter to be about eight per cent, less than the former; or, as Dr. 
Thurnam has stated it more precisely : 
RATIO OF STATURE AND BRAIN-WEIGHT IN THE TWO SEXES. 
Male. Female. 
Stature 100' ...... 92- 
Weight of Brain 100' 90'3 
Here again, however, it becomes important to take into consider- 
ation other elements of difference besides weight j for, as Tennyson 
insists, “ Woman is not undevelopt man, but diverse.” The results 
of Wagner’s observations on the superficial measurements of the 
convolutions of the brain point to the conclusion that in the female 
the lesser brain-weight may be compensated by a larger superficies. 
Banked in the order of their relative weights in grammes, six average 
brains of men and women were found to stand thus : 
1 Male (a) 1340 
2 “ (6) 1330 
3 “ (c) 1273 
4 Female (d) 1254 
5 “ (c) 1223 
6 “ (/) 1185 
Bat the same brains, when tested by the degrees of convolution of 
the frontal lobe, measured in squares ot sixteen square millimetres, 
irrespective of the question of relative size, ranked as follows, 
advancing the female (d) from the fourth to the first place, and 
reducing the male (c) from the third to the sixth place: 
1 Female (d) 2498 
2 Male (a) 2451 
3 Male (b) 2309 
4 Female (/) 2300 
5 Female (e) 2272 
6 Male (c) 2117 
But, as already indicated, some modern disclosures tend to raise the 
question whether the difference between the sexes, in so far as rela- 
tive volume of brain is concerned, has not been increased as a result 
of civilization. The disparity in size between the Cro-Magnon male 
and female skeletons is quite as great as that of modern times, but 
the capacity of the female skull is relatively good; and M. Broca, in 
his paper on the “ Caverne de I’Homme Mort,” says : “ One of the 
most remarkable traits of the series is the great relative capacity of 
the female skulls.” TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
25 
Other observations, such as those of Professor Bolleston “ On 
the People of the Long Barrow Period,” seem to indicate a nearer 
approximation in actual cranial capacity of the two sexes in pre- 
historic times than among modern civilized races. On the assumption 
that intellectual activity tends to permanent development of brain, 
it is consistent with the conditions of savage life that it should bring 
the mental energies of both sexes into nearly equal play. They have 
equally to encounter the struggle for existence, and have their facul- 
ties stimulated in a corresponding degree. As nations rise above the 
purely savage condition of the hunter stage, this relative co-operation 
of the sexes is subjected to great variations. The laws of Solon with 
reference to the right of sale of a daughter or sister, and the penalties 
for the violation of a free woman, show the position of the weaker 
sex among the Greeks at that early stage to have been a degrading 
one. But the change was great at a later stage; and much of our 
higher civilization is traceable to the early establishment of the 
European woman’s rights, which Christianity subsequently tended 
to enlarge. The position of woman among the ancient Britons 
appears to have been one of perfect equality with man. Among the 
Arabians and other Mohammedan nations, including the modern 
Turks, the opposite is the case; and the whole tendency of the creed 
of the Koran, and the social life among Mohammedan nations, must 
be towards the intellectual atrophy of woman. Hence it is consistent 
with the diverse conditions of life that, in so far as cerebral develop- 
ment is the result of mental activity, a much closer approximation is 
to be looked for in the mass and weight of brain in the two sexes 
among savage races, than among nations where woman systematically 
occupies a condition of servile degradation, or of passive inertness. 
Some interesting results of the actual brain-weights of Negroes and 
other typical representatives of inferior savage races have been pub- 
lished, including examples of both sexes ; and although the observa- 
tions are as yet too few for the deduction of any absolute or very 
comprehensive conclusions, they furnish a valuable contribution 
towards this department of ethnical comparison. In 1865, Dr. 
Peacock published the results of observations on the brains of four 
Negroes and two Negresses; and to those he subsequently added a 
seventh example. Other examples are included in the following 
table. But I have excluded some extremes of variation, such as the 
two given by Mascagni, one of which weighed 1458 grammes, or 26 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
51-5 oz. av., and the other only 738 grammes, or 26T oz. av. In 
addition to such actual brain-weights, Morton, Tiedemann, Davis, 
Wyman, and others, have gauged the skulls of Negroes, American 
Indians, Mincopies, Tasmanians, Australians, and other savage races, 
as well as those of many civilized and semi-civilized nations, and 
thereby contributed valuable data towards determining their relative 
cranial capacity. In his “Crania kEgyptiaca,” Dr. Morton, when dis- 
cussing the traces of a Negro element in the ancient Egyptian popu- 
lation, says: “I have in my possession seventy-nine crania of 
Negroes born in Africa, for which I am indebted to Drs. Goheen 
and McDowell, lately attached to the medical department of the 
colony of Liberia, in western Africa; and especially to Don Jose 
Rodriguez Cisneros, M.D., of Havana, in the island of Cuba. Of 
the whole number, fifty-eight are adult, or sixteen years of age and 
upwards, and give eighty-five cubic inches for the average size of the 
brain. The largest head measures ninety-nine cubic inches; the 
smallest but sixty-five. The latter, which is that of a middle-aged 
woman, is the smallest adult head that has hitherto come under my 
TABLE I. 
negro brain-weight. 
Race. 
Authority. 
Weight. 
M 
African, Mozambique. 
Peacock 
43-80 
M 
6 6 
6 6 
45-80 
M 
“ Buenos Ayres 
6 6 
44 00 
M 
“ Congo 
6 6 
4-0-25 
M 
6 6 
6 6 
42-80 
M 
6 6 
Soemmering 
45-40 
M 
6 6 
Tiedemann .... 
35-20 
M 
“ Congo .... 
0. Luigi Calori... 
44-40 
M 
“ 
Barkow 
50-80 
M 
“ 
45-90 
M 
6 6 
66 
38-90 
M 
6 6 
Sir A. Cooper 
49 00 
E 
Hottentot Venus 
Marshall 
31 -00 
F 
Bushwoman 
66 
30-75 
F 
6 6 
6 6 
3L50 
F 
6 6 
6 6 
31-00 
F 
“ 
Flower & Murie 
38 00 
F 
African 
Peacock 
46-00 
F 
.66 
4L00 
notice.”* 
* “ Crania iEgyptiaca,” p. 21. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
27 
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, doli- 
chocephalic, platycephalic, acrocephalic, &c.—are now well recognized, 
though their relation to cerebral development still requires much 
research for its elucidation. The ancient Roman forehead, as illus- 
trated 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 char- 
acteristics of the parents, including modifications of head-form, is a 
familiar fact. The English head-form appears to be an insular pro- 
duct of intermingled Briton, Teuton and Scandinavian elements, 
which has no continental analogue• and its sub-divisions, 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.* 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 
* Vide “Physical Characteristics of the Ancient and Modern Celt.” Canadian Journal, VoL 
VII., p. 369. 28 
BRAIN-WEIGHT ANI> SIZE IN RELATION 
Dr. Broca, on the male French skull, yield a mean capacity of 1502 
cubic centimetres, or 91 cubic in., 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 in.; while Dr. J. 
B. Davis arrives at a capacity of only 909 cubic in., from the 
examination of thirty-two skulls, male and female; and for the 
Scottish and Irish, each of 91 -2 cubic in., from an examination of 
thirty-five skulls. But unfortunately the Davis collection, so rich in 
other respects, derived its chief English specimens from a phreno- 
logical collection; and, along with a few large skulls, contains “many 
small and poor English examples.”'''' 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 English- 
men, as given by him, is 5028 oz., that of thirteen women is 43T3 
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 Dr. 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 in., while that 
of the Anglo-American is only 90 cubic in. 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, Ac., 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 no 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 sub- 
*“ Thesaurus Craniorum;” App., p. 347.. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
29 
sequently published, including results deduced from Dr. J. B. Davis’s 
minute reports of his own extensive collections, and taking Tiede- 
mann’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. 
Tiedemann 
too- 
Davis 
943 
ii 
93- 
American. 
Tiedemann . .. 
95- 
Davis 
94-7 
Morton .. 
87- 
Oceanic 
Davis 
96 9 
Davis 
99-8 
Morton 
94- 
ft 
Tiedemann . 
93‘ 
Davis 
89-4 
Tiedemann . 
89‘ 
Morton 
91- 
Davis 
98-8 
Morton 
88-5 
Negro 
Tiedemann 
91- 
te 
Peacock 
88- 
Hottentot 
Morton 
86‘ 
Javan 
Davis 
94-8 
ft 
88‘ 
Morton 
88‘ 
ii 
Davis 
87-9 
Wyman 
81-2 
it 
Morton 
81-2 
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 cub. in. for the combined Teutonic family, the 
Finns yield the higher mean capacity of 96-3 cub. in. 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 30 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
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 48T49 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 47T 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 deter- 
mined by so numerous a series that they might be accepted as 
altogether reliable, wore 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 con- 
siderable 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 differ- 
ences 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 dig- TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OP RACES. 
31 
crepancy 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 compara- 
tive mental power. 
Were it possible to select from among the great intellects of all 
ages an adequate series of representative men, and ascertain their 
brain-weights, or even the cubical capacity of their skulls, one import- 
ant step would be gained towards the determination of the relation 
between size of brain and power of intellect. But we have little other 
data than such hints as the busts of kEschylus, Pericles, Socrates, 
Plato, Aristotle, and other leaders of thought may supply. Malcolm 
Canmore—Malcolm of the great head, as his name implied,—stands 
forth with marked individuality from out the shadowy roll of names 
which figure in early Scottish history. Charlemagne, we should 
fancy, merited a similar designation. But the portraits of his 
modern imperial successor, Charles V., show no such loftiness of 
forehead. Judging from the portraits and busts of Chaucer, Shake- 
speare, Milton, Cromwell, Napoleon, and Scott, their brains must 
have considerably exceeded the ordinary size. In the report of the 
post mortem examination of Scott, the physicians state that “ the 
brain was not large.” But this, no doubt, means relatively to the 
internal capacity of the skull in its then diseased condition. The 
intermastoid arch, as already noted, shows a remarkably exceptional 
magnitude of 19 inches, whereas the average of fifty-eight 
ancient and modern European skulls, as given in the “ Thesaurus 
Craniorum,” is only 14-60. The portraits of Wordsworth and Byron 
show an ample forehead; and the popular recognition of the “ fair 
large front ” of Milton’s typical man as the index of superior intellect 
is an induction universally accepted. But, on the other hand, examples 
of intellectual greatness undoubtedly occur with the brain little, if 
at all, in excess of the average size. On the discovery of Dante’s 
remains at Ravenna in 1865, the skull was pronounced to be ample, 
and exquisite in form. But its actual cubical capacity and esti- 
mated brain-weight fall considerably below those of the heaviest 
ascertained brain-weights of distinguished men. Again, looking at 
the casts of the skulls of Robert the Bruce and the poet Burns, the 
first impression is the comparatively small size of head, and the 
moderate frontal development in each. Mr. Robert Liston, the 32 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
eminent surgeon, remarked of the former : “ The division of the 
cranium behind the meatus auditorius is large in proportion to that 
situated before it. The skull is also remarkably wide and capacious 
in that part, whereas the forehead is rather depressed.” * Other 
characteristics so markedly indicate the elements of physical rather 
than intellectual vigour, that Mr. Liston expressly pointed out the 
analogy to “ the heads of carnivorous animals.” The Bruce was 
indeed pre-eminently distinguished for courage and deeds of personal 
prowess; but it was no less by statesmanlike qualities, calm, x*eso- 
lute perseverance, and wise prudence, that he achieved the independ- 
ence of his country. 
Mr. George Combe, the phrenologist, to whom the original cast of 
Burns’ skull was first submitted, thus states the case in reference to 
the frontal development of the poet; “An unskilful observer look- 
ing at the forehead, might suppose ifc to be moderate in size; but 
when the dimensions of the anterior lobe, in both length and breadth, 
are attended to, the intellectual organs Avill be recognised to have 
been large. The anterior lobe projects so much that it gives an 
appearance of narrowness to the forehead which is not real.”f The 
actual dimensions of the skull are, longitudinal diameter, 8 inches; 
parietal diameter, 5.95 ; and horizontal circumference, 22-25. 
In the year 1865 the bones of Italy’s greatest poet, Dante, were 
submitted to a minute examination under the direction of commis- 
sioners appointed by the Italian Government to verify the discovery; 
and careful measurements were taken of the skull. Dr. H. C. 
Barlow, describing it from personal observation, says : “ The head 
was finely formed, and the cranium showed, by its ample and exqui- 
site form, that it had held the brain of do ordinary man. It was the 
most intellectually developed head that I ever remember to have 
seen. The occipital region was prominently marked, but the frontal 
was also amply and broadly expanded, and the anterior part of the 
frontal bone had a vertical direction in relation to the bones of the 
face.” (Athenceum, September 9, 1865). But however intellectually 
developed and exquisite in form the poet’s skull may have appeared, 
the actual measurements fall short of the amplitude here assigned to 
it. The dimensions were as follows:—lnternal capacity, determined 
by filling the calvarium with grains of rice, 3-1321 lb. avoird., or a 
* “ Archseologia Scotica,” Vol. 11., p. 450. 
f “ Phrenological Development of Robert Burns,” by George Combe, p. 7. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
33 
little over 50 oz. ; circumference, 52 cent. 5 mill; occipito-frontal 
diameter, 31 cent. 7 mill.; transverse diameter, taken between tbe 
ears, 31 cent. 8 mill.; height, 14 cent. If the internal capacity is 
accepted without any correction, it would yield 57 oz., but if allow- 
ance be made, as in the actual weighing of the brain, for the 
abstraction of the dura mater and fluids, of say 8 per cent., this 
would reduce it to about 52-5, or nearly the same weight as that of 
the mathematician, Gauss. Professor Welcher deducts from 11’6 to 
14 per cent., according to the size of the skull; Dr. J. B. Davis 
recommends a uniform deduction of 10 per cent. If we apply the 
latter rule, it will reduce the estimated weight of Dante’s brain to 
5D3 oz.* 
Another interesting example of the skull of an Italian poet is that 
of Ugo Foscolo, a cast of which was taken on the transfer of his 
remains to the Church of Santa Croce at Florence. Though only 
fifty years old at the time of his death, the skull was marked by 
“the entire ossification of the coronal, sagittal, and lambdoidal 
sutures, and that atrophy of the outer table, manifested by a depres- 
sion on each side in the posterior half of each parietal, leaving an 
elevated ridge in the middle, in the position of the sagittal, which is 
but rarely observed except in extremely advanced age.”t Sir Henry 
Holland, who knew the poet intimately, describes him as resembling 
in temperament the painter Fuseli, “passionately eccentric in social 
life.” Full of genius and original thought, as the writings of Foscolo 
show him to have been, he “ was fiery and impulsive, almost to the 
verge of madness.” J He died in England in obscurity and neglect; 
but a regenerated Italy recalled the memory of her lost poet, and 
transferred his remains to Santa Croce’s consecrated soil. The 
estimated size of his brain is given as 142G cub. cent., equivalent to 
87 cub. in. internal capacity, which corresponds to a weight of brain 
* The use of different standards of weights and measures, and of diverse materials for 
■determining the capacity of the skull in different countries, greatly complicates the researches 
of the craniologist. Some pains have been taken here to bring the various weights and mea- 
surements to a common standard. In attempting to do so in reference to the weight of brain 
of Italy’s great poet, the following process was adopted: It was ascertained by experiment 
that 912'5 grs. of rice, well shaken down, occupied the space of 1000 grs. of water. Hence 
3U321 lbs. rice=3'4324 water. Multiplying this by 1 "04, the s.g. of brain, the result is the 
capacity of the skull, viz., 3'5697 lbs., or 67 oz., as given above. In this and other investi- 
gations embodied in the present paper, I have been indebted to the valuable co-operation of 
my friend and colleague, Prof. H. H. Croft. 
t Dr. J. B. Davis, Supp. “ Thesaurus Craniorum,” p. 7. 
J Sir H. Holland’s “Recollections of Past Life,” p. 254. 34 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
of 48-44 oz. The longitudinal diameter is 6-90 ; the parietal diameter 
5-70; the intermastoid arch 15‘Oj and the horizontal circumference 
520 m.m., or 20-5 in. The brain capacity of the poet was thus little 
more than the European mean deduced by Morton from the miscel- 
laneous examples in his collection. 
Dr. J. C. Gustav Lucae, in his “ Zur Organischen Formenlehre,” 
furnishes views and measurements of two other skulls of men of 
known intellectual capacity. One of these is Johan Jacob Wilhelm 
Heinse, the author of “ Ardinghello,” a work of high character in the 
elements of aesthetic criticism, though as a romance fit to rank with 
“ Don Juan” in subjective significance and morality. He wrote 
another romance entitled “ Hildegard j” in addition to numerous 
articles and translations of Petronius, Tasso, &c., which won for him 
the high commendation of Goethe, and the more guarded admiration 
of Wieland. His skull, as figured by Dr. Lucae, shows the frontal 
suture still open at the age of 53, at which he died. The internal 
capacity of the skull is stated as 41’4 oz., equivalent to 1173 grins., 
In this, as in other examples hereafter referred to, Dr. Lucae has 
gauged the capacity of the skull with peas, and gives the weight in 
“ unzen.” In the results deduced from them here the unzen are 
assumed to be Prussian ounces, the lb. of 12 oz. equal to 350-78348 
grms. Professor Croft has made a series of experiments for me with 
a view to correct the error necessarily resulting from the fact that 
peas do not entirely fill the cavity. The results show that 82-5 
grms. of ordinary sized peas occupy the space of 100 grms. of water. 
Deducting 10 per cent, for membranes and fluids, the estimated 
brain-weight of Heinse is 1379 grms. or 48-7 oz. av. The dimensions 
of the skull are given thus ; 
Height. Length. Breadth. 
Forepart 49 4.0 4-10 
Middle part 4'lo 3'll 5 3 
Hind part 3'9 3 6 41 
The other example produced by Dr. Lucae is that of Dr. Christian 
Heinrich B linger, Professor of Anatomy in the University of TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OP RACES. 
35 
Marburg. In this skull the frontal suture is still more strongly 
defined at the age of 60 than in that of Heinse. The internal 
capacity of the skull is stated as 42-8 oz., equivalent to 1213 grins., 
which, dealt with as above stated, yields 1410 grins, or 49-8 oz. av. 
Other dimensions of the skull are given as follows : 
Height. Length. Breadth. 
Forepart 4‘B 4‘l 4-20 
Middle part 4-9 41 5 0 
Hind part 3'7 3.10 41 
Professor Welcker assigns a standard, which was accepted by Dr. 
Thurnam, thus : “ Skulls of more than 540 to 550 millemetres in 
horizontal circumference (the weight of brain belonging to which is 
1490 to 1560 grms., or 52-5-55 oz. avoirdupois), are to be regarded 
as exceptionally large. The designation of kephalones, proposed by 
Yirchow, 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 grammes, or 65-8 oz.; but this M. Broca corrects 
to 1829-96 grammes. 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. J. B. Davis selects as presenting 
the most striking analogy to the Neanderthal skull—“ the most ape- 
like skull 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 distin- 
guished men.* Its capacity is 94 oz. of sand, or 113 cubic inches., 
‘Memoirs of Authrop. Hoc., Loncl.,” Vol. 1., p. 289. “Thesaurus Craniorum,”p, 49, 36 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
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 : 
TABLE HI. 
CRANIAL CAPACITY OP DISTINGUISHED MEN. 
Length. 
Breadth. 
Circumference 
Estimated 
AIN-W EIGH T. 
Dante 
6-25 
51-3 
Robert the Bruce.... 
7-70 
22 25 
Burns 
8-00 
5-95 
22-25 
Scott (head) 
9- 
6A0 
23-10 
• .... 
Heinse 
5-30 
48-7 
Biinger 
5-00 
49-8 
Ugo Foscolo 
6-90 
5-70 
20-50 
48-4 
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 develop- 
ment. The following table exhibits recorded examples of a series 
of actual brain-weights of distinguished men. It seems to lend con- 
firmation to the idea that great manifestation of mental endowment 
is correlated, in the majority 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 fol- 
lowing brain-weights, including that of Tiedemann, are furnished by 
Wagner, in the “Yorstudien des Menschlichen Gehirns;” but in 
an elaborate table of brain-weights given in the “ Morphologic und 
physiologie des Menschlichen gehirns als Seelenorgan,” the brain of 
Byron is classed above all except Cuvier ; while Yogt 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 contri- 
bution to the Journal of Mental Science “On the Weight of the 
Brain.” Bor that of Webster he refers to “the unsatisfactory 
article on the brain of Daniel Webster, Edin. Med. Surg. Journ., 
vol. Ixxix., p. 355.” Dr. J. C. Nott, in his “Comparative Anatomy 37 
TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
of Races ” (“ Types of Mankind,” p. 453), says; “ Dr. Wyman, in his 
post-mortem examination 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 23-| inches in circumference; and the Doctor states 
that it is well-known there are several heads in Boston larger than 
Webster’s. 1 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 5 3 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. 
table IV. 
BRAIN-WEIGHTS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 
Age, 
Oz. 
Gems. 
1 
03 
64-5 
1880 
2 
Byron 
36 
63-5 ? 
1799 
3 
Abercrombie 
Philosopher, Physician.. 
64 
63- 
1785 
4 
Schiller 
46 
63' ? 
1785 
5 
Goodsir 
53 
57 ’55 
1629 
6 
Spurzheim 
Phrenologist, Physician.. 
56 
55-06 
1559 
7 
Simpson 
Physician, Archaeologist.. 
59 
54- 
1530 
8 
Dirichlet 
Mathematician 
54 
53-6 
1520 
9 
De Morny.... 
Statesman 
50 
63-6 
1520 
10 
Daniel Webster... 
Statesman 
70 
53 5 
1516 
11 
Campbell 
T,ord Chancellor 
80 
53-5 
1516 
12 
Agassiz 
60 
53 -4 
1512 
13 
Chalmers 
Author, Preacher 
67 
53- 
1502 
14 
Euchs 
Pathologist 
52 
52-9 
1499 
15 
Gauss 
Mathematician 
78 
52 6 
1492 
10 
Dupuvtren.... 
Surgeon 
58 
50-7 
1436 
17 
Whewell .. 
Philosopher 
71 
49‘ 
1390 
18 
Philologist 
51 
47-9 
1358 
19 
Physiologist 
80 
44-2 
1254 
20 
Hausmann 
Mineralogist . 
77 
43 2 
1226 
3 38 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
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 intelli- 
gence and he adds his conviction that if the examination of the 
brain in the upper ranks of society, and in men whose mental endow- 
ments are well known, were more generally available, further confir- 
mation would be given to this conclusion. The converse, at least, is 
certain, that no great intelligence or unwonted mental power is pos- 
sible with a brain much below the average in mass and weight. But 
there are unquestionable indications that a large, healthy brain may 
exist without the manifestation of great mental power ; while brains 
inferior both in size and weight have been the organs of unwonted 
intelligence and mental activity. 
In the “Philosophical Transactions” of 1861, Dr. Boyd published 
an elaborate series of researches illustrative of the weight of various 
organs of the human body, including the weights of 2,000 brains. 
Most of the healthy brains are those of patients in the St. Maryle- 
bone 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 Boyal 
Infirmary, in like manner, though including the better class of arti- 
zans and others from country districts, we might still look for a con- 
firmation 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 distin- 
guished 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. 39 
TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
TABLE V. 
MAXIMUM BKAIN-WEIGHTS—ST. MAE.YBEBONE. 
Age. 
Male. 
Female. 
Oz. 
Grms. 
Gz. 
Grms. 
7—14 
57-25 
1622 
52* 
1473 
14—20 
58-5 
1658 
62- 
1473 
20—30 
57- 
1615 
55-25 
1565 
30—40 
60-75 
1721 
53- 
1502 
40—50 
60- 
1700 
52-5 
1488 
50—60 
59- 
1672 
52-5 
1488 
60—70 
59-5 
1686 
54- 
1530 
70—80 
55-25 
1565 
49-5 
1403 
80- 
All Ages. 
53 75 
1523 
48- 
1360 
7—80 
60 75 
1721 
/ 
55-25 
1565 
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 notice- 
able in the cases of Lord Jeffrey, Lord Macaulay, Sir James Y. 
Simpson, and very markedly so in that of De Quincey. The philo- 
sopher Kant was also of small stature; and Dr. Thurnam refers to the 
observation of Cams that he had a head not absolutely large, though, 
in proportion to the small and pnny 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 recognized as the concomitants of 
exceptionally great mental capacity and intellectual vigour. Unless, 
therefore, we are contented to accept the poet’s dictum, “ Their lot. 
forbad,”* and assume that “chill penury repressed their noble rage, and 
* Gray’s “Elegy.” 40 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE. IN RELATION 
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 grins.) was that of an uneducated butcher, 
who was just able to read, and who died suddenly of epilepsy, com- 
bined with mania, after about a year's illness. The head was large, 
but well-formed j the brain of normal consistence; the puncta vascu- 
losa numerous.” In cases like this, of weighty brain with no corre- 
sponding manifestation of intellectual power, something else was 
wanting besides a less circumscribed 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, and others of the like 
type of self-made men, are not rare. Among those 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 perma- 
nent 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 
exchanged the 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 TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
41 
seemed to account for his triumph over the depressing influences of 
his limited sphere, the fact that his hrain appears to have been rather 
below than above 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 Soemmering 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 ageand 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 increas- 
ing in size and weight to a much later period of life, but that, 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 two thousand 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 twenty years 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 forty-seven 
male brains from ten to twenty years of age, giving an average of 42 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
49-6 oz., or 1405 grms.; and of one hundred and twelve 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 shewn in 
the following table : 
AVERAGE WEIGHT 
TABLE VI. 
OE THE BRAIN AT DIFFERENT AGES. 
Male. 
Female. 
0z. At. 
Grins. 
Oz. At. 
Grms. 
From 10—20 
47-5 
1346 
43 1 
1221 
20- 30 
49-5 
1404 
441 
1251 
30—40 
49-5 
1404 
44-8 
1272 
40—50 
48 6 
1379 
43 5 
1234 
50—60 
481 
1365 
43 5 
1234 
60—70 
461 
1306 
42-8 
1213 
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 increas- 
ing age; but in the male examples, sixty-five cases between sixty 
and seventy years of age yield an average brain-weight of 46 T 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 equili- 
brium between the brain and the other organs while in process of 
development. The observations of Dr. Boyd, including the results 
of 2,614 post mortem examinations 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 develop- 
ment of the brain. Again, when it is shown from numerous cases TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OP RACES. 
43 
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 exam- 
ples 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 unfavoui’able 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 the British Medical Journal for 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 excep- 
tional case of a healthy brain, at the age of thirteen, exceeding in 
weight all but two of the greatest ascertained brain-weights of dis- 
tinguished men. 
From the evidence already adduced of relative cubical capacity of 
the skulls of different races, it appears, as was to be expected, that 
there is a greater prevalence of the amply-developed brain among the 
higher and more civilized 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 intel- 
lectual scale of progression. The results of Dr. J. B. Davis’s investi- 
gations, 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 Yogt, 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 enquiry to note that, 
as exceptionally large and heavy brains occur among the most civilized 
races, in some cases—and in some only,—accompanied with corres- 
ponding manifestations of unusual intellectual power; so also it 44 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
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’s “ Thesaurus 
Craniorum,” with an internal capacity above 100 cubic inches, they 
will rank in order as follows : 
Chinese Ill'S 
Maduran 110.6 
Marquesan 110.6 
Kanaka 108 ■ 8 
Javan 107’ 
Negro 105-8 
Australian... 104-5 
Kafir 104-5 
Bakele 103 3 
Tidorese 103 3 
Bhotia 102-7 
Bodo 100-9 
Hindoo 100 "9 
Sumatran.. 100'9 
Among the European series the largest is an Irish cranium of 
121-6 cubic in., and next to it comes an Italian, 114-3, and an 
Englishman, 112-4; an ancient Briton from a Yorkshire Long Bar- 
row, 109'4: an ancient Roman, 106-4; J Lapp, 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 ex- 
amples 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 civilized 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, TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OP RACES. 
and the Brachycephali of the Round Barrows of England.* 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; hut 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 : 
table VII. 
Skulls of Men. 
No. 
Weight 
of Sand. 
Cubic 
Inches. 
Capacity. 
Centimetres. 
Brain-weight 
oz. av. 
Ancient Britons, L. Barrows .. 
18 
82 
99 
1622 
54. 
“ B. Barrows.. 
18 
801 
98 
1605 
53.5 
Modern English, Morton .... 
28 
77 
94 
1540 
52.2 
“ French, Broca 
357 
74 
91 
1502 
50.6 
“ German, Welcker .... 
30 
72 
88 
1450 
49. 
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 14-17 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. 
Eor 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 go 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. Thur- 
nam does indeed suggest that the Barrows may have been the sepul- 
chres 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. Rather may we conclude from this, as 
* “Mem. Anthropol. Soc., 80nd.,” Vol. 1., \\ 465 46 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
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 indica- 
tions 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 
determined at 1255 grammes, or 44-3 oz. The actual weight of brain 
of the Negro of Guinea described by Professor Galori, was 1260 
grammes. Other examples vary considerably from the average. 
Mascagni gives 1458 grammes as the weight of one Negro brain 
weighed by him; equivalent to an actual brain-weight of 5T5 oz., 
which is greater than that of Dupuytren, Whewell, Hermann, or 
Tiedemann. 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. But the same process, 
when applied to determine the comparative cranial capacities of 
the native American races, discloses results of a wholly 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 sufficiently recent 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 indefati- 
gable labours of Dr. Morton, alike in the formation of his great 
collection of human crania, and in the published results embodied in 
the “ Crania Americana,” the chief 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. 47 
Morton subdivides the American races into the Toltecan Race, em- 
bracing the semi-civilized communities of Mexico, Bogota, and Peng 
and the barbarous tribes scattered over the continent from the Arctic 
Circle to Tierra del Fuego. His latest views are embodied in a con- 
tribution to Schoolcraft’s “ History of the Indian Tribes of the United 
States,” entitled “The Physical Type of the American Indians.” In 
ti'eating of the volume of brain, he draws special attention to the 
Peruvian skulls, 201 in number, obtained for him from the ceme- 
teries of Pisco, Pachacamac, and Arica. “ Herera informs us that 
Pachacamac was sacred to priests, nobles, and other persons of dis- 
tinction ; 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: “Itis 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 Peru- 
vian nation; for in Peru learning of every kind was an exclusive 
privilege of the ruling caste.” In reality, however, the latest addi- 
tions 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 Pranks 
of Gaul or the Normans of England, though more aptly to be com- 
pared to the Brahmins of India ; and a more numerous class, constitut- 
ing the labouring and industrial orders of the community, abundantly 
represented in the Pacific Coast tribes of Peru, the cemeteries of 
which have furnished the larger number of crania to European and 
American collections. 
TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
To such a patrician order or cast 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 metal- 
lurgy 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 inge- 
nuity 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 48 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
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 civilization, their tombs and temples, mountain roads and 
monolithic gateways, together with their knowledge of certain orna- 
mental arts, it is surprising to find that they possessed a brain no 
larger than the Hottentot and Hew 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 mem- 
branes and fluids, to a brain of 40'1 oz. av. in weight,] for the aver- 
age 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, viz., 
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 
civilization among the native races of the American continent. In 
1866, Mr. E. G-. Bquier presented to the Peabody Museum of American 
Archaeology 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 repre- 
sent 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.”* 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 
* “ Peabody Museum Annual Report, 1868,” p. 7, TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OP RACES, 
49 
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 Cajarnaquilla, 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 Peru- 
vian head. They are quite symmetrical. The occiput, instead of 
being flattened or vertical, as in the distorted crania, has the ordi- 
nary 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 capa- 
city falling below the Peruvian average. But they are all small. 
The largest of them is only 1260 cub. cent., or less than 74 cub. in.; 
and the average capacity of ten of them is 1129 cub. cent., or 69 
cub. in. 
The collection, as a whole, differs from that of Mr. Squier, in having BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
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 measure- 
ments,” including those of Morton and Meigs, and his own results 
from the Squier collection. 
Another collection of one hundred and fifty 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 Mr. Squier, of having been carefully selected from different 
localities, including Santos, lea, Ancon, Passamayo, and Cerro del Oro; 
and the same may be said of those enumerated in the “Thesaurus 
Craniorum” of Dr. J. B. Davis. We have thus unusually ample 
materials for determining the cranial characteristics of this remark- 
able people, and the results in every case are tire same. After a 
careful examination of the Peruvian skulls, in the London anthro- 
pological collection, Professor Busk states 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.” * 
Dr. J. B. Davis has added to the valuable data included in his 
“ Thesaurus Craniorum,” a series of measurements of skeletons. Un- 
fortunately 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 vertebrae; and conse- 
quently the length of the vertebral column essential for comparison 
with the skeletons of other races, is wanting; but the other measure- 
ments 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. J. B. Davis, is 73, whereas 
this is 78-5. That the ancient Peruvian skulls are, with rare excep- 
tions, 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 
* “Journal of Anthropol. Inst.,” Vol. 111., p. 92, TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
51 
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 Yega 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 de- 
stroyed 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, Yol. 1., p. 688); and Yon Tchudi 
divides the wild Indians of Peru into the Iscuchanos, the natives of 
the highlands, a tall, slim, vigorous race, with the head proportion- 
ally large and the forehead low; and those of the 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 civilization 
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 solution of the diffi- 
culty is where, as he draws his work to a close, he indicates the 
recognition 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 five and a half cubic 
inches, than the Toltecans ; while, on the other hand, the Toltecans 52 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
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 denai-civilized tribes.”* 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 fso that he seemed to recognize something equiva- 
lent 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. In summing up his investiga- 
tions “ On the internal capacity of the cranium in the different races 
of men,” he thus concludes“ 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, viz.: 
mu „ "XTo-H And $ Peruvians, collectively... 75 cub. inches. 
Toltecan Nations j Mex. « ...79“ “ 
Barbarous Tribes 82 “ “ 
The enlarged tables given in the catalogue of Dr. J. Aitken Meigs, 
increase this inverse ratio of cerebral capacity, thus : 
Peruvians 75-3 
Mexicans 81 • 7 
Barbarous Tribes • 84 "0 
“The great American group,” he says, “is, in several respects, well 
represented in the collection. It includes 490 crania and 13 casts, 
making a total of 503 from nearly 70 different nations and tribes. 
Of this large number 256 belong to the Toltecan race [embracing the 
semi-civilized communities of Mexico, Bogota and Peru,] and 247 to 
the barbarous tribes scattered over the continent. Of 164 measure- 
ments of crania of the barbarous tribes, the largest is 104 cubic 
inches; the smallest 69 ; and the mean of all 84. One hundred and 
fifty-two Peruvian skulls give 101 cubic inches for the largest internal 
capacity, 58 for the smallest, and 75‘3 for the average of all.”§ 
*“ Crania Americana,” p. 260. 
t “ Crania Americana,” p. 132. 
J “ Crania Americana,” p. 261. 
§ “ Introductorj' Note, Catalogue,” p. 10. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OP RACES. 
53 
The results which Professor Jeffreys Wyman arrived at from a 
careful comparative measurement of the Squier collection, were con- 
firmed by his subsequent study of that of Professor Agassiz, and 
may be quoted as applying to both; for he sums up his later investi- 
gations with the remark: “ These results agree with all previous 
conclusions with regard to the diminutive size of the ancient 
Peruvian brain.”* Of the Squier collection he says: “The average 
capacity of the fifty-six crania measured agrees very closely with 
that indicated by Morton and Meigs, viz., 1230 centimetres, or 
75 cub. inches, which is considerably less than that of the barbarous 
tribes of America, and almost exactly that of the Australians 
and Hottentots as given by Morton and Meigs, and smaller than 
that derived from a larger number of measurements by Davis. 
Thus we have, in this particular, a race which has established a 
complex civil and religious polity, and made great progress in the 
useful and fine arts—as its pottery, textile fabrics, wrought metals, 
highways and aqueducts, colossal architectural structures and court 
of almost imperial splendour prove,—on the same level, as regards the 
quantity of brain, with a race whose social and religious conditions 
are among the most degraded exhibited by the human race. All 
this goes to show, and cannot be too much insisted upon, that the 
relative capacity of the skull is to be considered merely as an anato- 
tomical and not as a physiological characteristic; and unless the 
quality of the brain can be represented at the same time as the 
quantity, brain measurement cannot be assumed as an indication of 
the intellectual position of races any more than of individuals.”! 
The only definite attempt which Dr. Morton made to solve the 
difficulty thus presented to us, curiously evades its true point. 
“ Something,” he says, “ may be attributed to a primitive difference 
of stock; but more, perhaps, to the contrasted activity of the two 
races.” Here, however, it is not a case of intellectual activity 
accompanied by, and seemingly begetting an increased volume of 
brain; but only the assumption of greater activity in the small- 
brained race to account for its triumph over larger-brained barbarous 
tribes in the attainment of numerous elements of a native-born 
civilization. The question is, how to account for this intellectual 
activity, with all its marvellous results, attained by a race with an 
* “ Peabody Museum Report, 1874,” p. 10. 
t “Peabody Museum Report, 1871," p. 11. 54 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
average brain of no greater volume than that of the Bushman, the 
Australian, or other lowest types of humanity. 
The Nilotic Egyptian race, of composite ethnical character, presents 
striking elements of comparison, in the ingenious arts and construc- 
tive skill of the ancient dwellers in the Nile valley; but whether we 
take the Egyptian of the Catacombs, the Copt, or the Fellah, we 
seek in vain for like microcephalous characteristics. Among modern 
races the Chinese exhibit many analogies in arts and social life to the 
ancient Peruvians. But their cerebral capacity presents no corre- 
spondence to that of the American race. Dr. Morton gives a mean 
capacity for the Chinese skull of 85, as compared with the Peruvian 
75-3, while Dr. Davis derives from nineteen skulls a mean internal 
capacity of 76*7 oz. av., or 93 cubic in. 
But another Asiatic race, that of the Hindoos—also associated 
with a remarkable ancient civilization, and a social and religious 
organization not without suggestive analogies both to ancient Egypt 
and Peru,—is noticeable for like microcephalous characteristics. In 
completing the anatomical measurements with which Dr. Morton 
closes his great work, he places the Ethiopian lowest in the scale 
of internal capacity of cranium; but, while including the Hindoo in 
his Caucasian group, he adds: “It is proper to mention that but 
three Hindoos are admitted in the whole number, because the skulls 
of these people are probably smaller than those of any other existing 
nation. For example, seventeen Hindoo heads give a mean of but 
75 cubic inches.”* The Yedahs of Ceylon, the Mincopies, the 
Negritos, and the Bushmen, appear to vie with the Hindoos in 
smallness of skull; but all of them are races of diminutive stature. 
This element, therefore, which has been referred to as important in 
individual comparisons, is no less necessary to be borne in view in 
determining such comparative results as those which distinguish the 
Peruvians from other American races. Certain races are unques- 
tionably distinguished from others by difference of stature. Barrow 
determined the mean height of the Bushman, from measurements of 
a whole tribe, to be 4 ft. 3| in. D’Orbigny, from nearly similar 
evidence, states that of the Patagonians to be 5 ft. 8 in. The 
internal capacity of the Peruvian skull, as derived from eighteen 
male and six female Quichua skulls in Dr. Davis’s collection, is 70, 
while he states that of the Patagonian skull as 67 and of the Bush- 
* “Crania Americana,” p. 261. TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
55 
man as 65 ; but it is manifest that the latter figures, if taken with- 
out reference to relative stature, furnish a very partial index of the 
comparative volume of brain. 
Professor Goodsir, as already noted, held that symmetry of brain 
has more to do with the higher faculties than mere bulk. In the 
case of the Peruvians the systematic distortion of the skull precludes 
the application of this test. But in the small Hindoo skull the fine 
proportions have been repeatedly noted. Dr. Davis, in describing 
one of a Hindoo of unmixed blood, born in Sumatra, says : “ His 
pretty, diminutive skull is singularly contrasted with those of the 
races by whom, alive, he was surrounded and he adds ; “ The 
great agreement of the elegant skulls of Hindoos in their types and 
proportions, although not in dimensions, with those of European 
races, has alforded some support to that wide-spread and learned 
illusion, ‘ the Indo-European hypothesis.’ The Hindoo skulls are 
generally beautiful models of form in miniature.” 
Mr. Alfred 11. Wallace, in his “ Malay Archipelago,” discusses the 
value of cranial measurements for ethnological purposes; and, employ- 
ing those furnished by Dr. J. B. Davis in his “ Thesaurus Craniorum ” 
as a “ means of determining whether the forms and dimensions of the 
crania of the eastern races would in any way support or refute his 
classification of them,” he finally selected as the best tests for his 
purpose—l. The capacity of the cranium; 2. The proportion of the 
width to the length taken as 100; 3. The proportion of the 
height to the length taken as 100. But here again, unfortunately, 
the systematic distortion of the Peruvian skulls limits us to the first 
of those tests. There are, indeed, the eleven normal Peruvian crania 
selected as such from the numerous Ancon skulls brought by Professor 
Agassiz from Peru. But those are stated by Professor Wyman to 
be on an average less by six inches than the ordinary skull. Some 
partial results embodied in the following table admit of comparison 
with those based on the more ample data of Table IX. Dr. Lucae, 
in his “ Zur Organischen Formenlehre,” already referred to, gives 
the cranial capacity of single skulls of different races, selected as 
examples of each. In these, as in others already referred to, the 
capacity was determined with peas; and the results—assumed to be 
given in Prussian ounces,—are dealt with here, as in the skulls of 
Heinse and Biinger. The experiments carried on for the purpose of 
* “ Thesaurus Craniorum,” p, 148. 56 
BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION 
testing the process fully confirmed tlie results stated by Professor 
Wyman as to the differences in apparent cubical capacity according 
to tlie material employed. Taking a sound Huron Indian skull, a 
mean internal capacity of 1490 grins, was obtained by repeatedly 
gauging it witli peas, and of 1439"5 with rice. The position of the 
Negro, beading the list, serves to show tbe exceptional nature of the 
evidence j though this is rather due to the inferiority of other exam- 
ples, such as the Chinese and Greenlander, than to its greatly 
exceeding the Negro mean. In the first column the unzen, as Prus- 
sian ounces, are rendered in grammes. The second column gives the 
nearer approximation to the true specific gravity, according to the 
standard referred to, based on a series of experiments undertaken for 
me by Professor Croft, and assuming 82-5 grms. of peas to occupy 
the space of 100 grms. of water. The third and fourth columns 
represent the estimated brain-weight, after the requisite deductions, 
on the basis of s.g. of brain as 1 -0408. 
TABLE VIII. 
COMPARATIVE CAPACITY OP RACES : 
LUCAE. 
Internal Capacity. 
Grms. 
X. C. Corrected. 
Grms. 
Brain-weight. 
Grms. 
Brain-weight. 
Oz. Av. 
Negro 
1169-28 
1424-12 
1281-71 
45-2 
Chinese 
1081-58 
1364-48 
1228-04 
43-4 
Nubian 
1041-24 
131354 
1182-19 
41-7 
Floris 
1033-93 
1304-38 
1173-94 
41-4 
Papuan 
1030-42 
1299-95 
1169-96 
41-3 
Greenlander 
1023-12 
1290-74 
1161-67 
410 
Javanese 
995 06 
1254 54 
1129-91 
39-8 
In the following table the examples are derived from Dr. J. B, 
Davis’s tables, with the exception of the Peruvians. For these I 
have availed myself of Dr. Jeffreys Wyman’s careful observations 
on the large collection in the Peabody Museum, the results of which 
confirm Dr. Morton’s earlier data. One further fact, however, may 
be noted as a result of my own study of Peruvian crania, amply con- 
firmed by the published observations of others, viz., that while the 
Peruvian head unquestionably ranks among those of the microce- 
phalous races, the range of variation among the Coast tribes appears 
to be less than that even of the Australian. Of this there is good 
evidence, based on the comparison of several hundred crania. But TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 
57 
exceptional examples of unusually large skulls may be looked for in 
all races; and a few of such abnormal Peruvian or other skulls 
would modify the mean capacities and weights in the following 
table. Nevertheless the average results, as a whole, are probably a 
close approximation to the truth: 
table IX. 
COMPARATIVE CEREBRAL CAPACITY OF RACES. 
Capacity. 
Brain-Weight. 
Race. 
Number. 
Cub. Inches. 
Oz. Av. 
European 
299 
92-3 
47-12 
English 
21 
93 1 
47-50 
Asiatic 
124 
87-1 
44-44 
Chinese 
25 
921 
47-00 
Hindoos 
35 
82-5 
42 T1 
Negroes 
16 
86-4 
44-08 
Negro Tribes 
69 
85-2 
43-47 
American Indians 
52 
87-5 
44-64 
Mexicans 
25 
8L7 
41-74 
Peruvians 
56 
75-0 
38-25 
Esquimaux 
13 
91-2 
46-56 
Oceanic 
210 
89-4 
45-63 
Javans 
30 
87-5 
44-64 
Australians .. 
24 
81T 
41-38 
Looking for some definite results from the various data here pro- 
duced, the deductions to which they seem to point may be thus 
stated. While Professor Wyman justly remarks that the relative 
capacity of the skull, and consequently of the encephalon, is to be 
considered as an anatomical and not as a physiological characteristic : 
relative largeness of the brain is nevertheless one of the most distin- 
guishing attributes of man. Ample cerebral development is the 
general accompaniment of intellectual capacity, alike in individuals 
and races; and microcephaly, when it passes below well defined 
limits, is no longer compatible with rational intelligence; though it 
amply suffices for the requirements of the highest anthropomorpha. 
Wagner thus definitely refers the special characteristics which sepa- 
rate man from the irrational creation to one member of the ence- 
phalon: “The relation of the lobes of the cerebrum to intelligence 
may, perhaps, be expressed thus: there is a certain development of 
the mass of the cerebrum, especially of the convolutions, requisite in 58 
BKAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE, ETC. 
order to such a development of intelligence as divides man from other 
animals.” 
The important data accumulated by Morton, Meigs, Davis, Tiede- 
mann, Primer Bey, Broca, and others, by the process of gauging the 
skulls of different races, proceeds on the assumption of brain of a 
uniform density. But it seems by no means improbable that certain 
marked distinctions in races may be traceable to the very fact of a 
prevailing difference in the specific gravity of the brain, or of cer- 
tain of its constituent portions; to the greater or less complexity of 
its convolutions; and to the relative characteristics of the two 
hemispheres. Moreover, it may be that some of those sources of 
difference in races may not lie wholly out of our reach, or even 
beyond our control. The diversity of food, for example, of the 
Peruvians and of the American Indian hunter-tribes was little less 
than that which distinguishes the Esquimaux from the Hindoo, or the 
nomad Tartar from the Chinese. The remarkable cerebral capacity 
characteristic of the Oceanic races is the accompaniment of well 
defined peculiarities in food, climate, and other physical conditions; 
and Australia is even more distinct in its physical specialties than in 
its variety of race. 
Looking then to the unwonted persistency of the Peruvian cranium 
within such narrow limits, so far at least as the physical character- 
istics of the predominant population of Peru are illustrated by means 
of the great coast cemeteries; and to the striking discrepancy be- 
tween the volume of brain and the intellectual activity of the race : 
I am led to the conclusion that, in the remarkable exceptional char- 
acteristics thus established by the study of this class of Peruvian 
crania, we have as marked an indication of a distinctive race- 
character as anything hitherto noted in anthropology.