The Descent of Man

portions and dimensions of the various parts of
the body; the length of the legs being one of the
most variable points. (1. 'Investigations in Military
and Anthropological Statistics of American
Soldiers,' by B.A. Gould, 1869, p. 256.) Although
in some quarters of the world an elongated
skull, and in other quarters a short skull
prevails, yet there is great diversity of shape
even within the limits of the same race, as with
the aborigines of America and South Australia—the
latter a race "probably as pure and homogeneous
in blood, customs, and language as
any in existence"—and even with the inhabitants
of so confined an area as the Sandwich
Islands. (2. With respect to the "Cranial forms
of the American aborigines," see Dr. Aitken
Meigs in 'Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci.' Philadelphia,
May 1868. On the Australians, see Huxley, in
Lyell's 'Antiquity of Man,' 1863, p. 87. On the
Sandwich Islanders, Prof. J. Wyman, 'Observations
on Crania,' Boston, 1868, p. 18.) An eminent
dentist assures me that there is nearly as