Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/289

Rh the systematic examination of the height, weight, and other physical characters of the inhabitants of the British Isles," and, in performing its work, took all sorts of measurements of people of all classes, of all ages, and of both sexes, living in all parts of Great Britain, and, to a small extent, of persons living in Ireland. The measurements or observations covered twelve points by which man is externally distinguished from man, and were made upon thousands of people. We notice a few of the more striking results: In average height, the Scotch stand first (68·61 inches), the Irish second, the English third, and the Welsh fourth, while in weight, the Scotch still leading with 165·3 pounds, the Welsh are second, the English third, and the Irish fourth. In the light of these two results, the London "Times" observes that the Scot will look upon the discovery made by the committee "as simply giving the hall-mark of science to his own instinctive conviction that he is a much better man in all respects than the 'fausse southron.'" As between the sexes in England, the average stature of adult males is 67·36 inches, and that of adult females 62·65 inches, while the average Englishman weighs 155 pounds, and the Englishwoman 122·8 pounds. In strength, the Englishman can draw a bow with a power of 77 pounds, while the woman brings to bear a force 35 pounds less, or a little more than half as much. In complexion, the lighter shades rule over the country as a whole, but a large percentage of dark complexions stretch in a band across the center of England and Wales. The inhabitants of the more elevated districts appear to possess a greater stature than those of the alluvial plains, and those of the northern and colder districts than those of the southern and warmer parts of the island; those of the northeastern and drier regions are taller than those of southwestern and damper climates. A comparison with American army statistics does not show that the Anglo-Saxon race reaches a higher stature here than in England, as some have claimed, but that a close correspondence prevails between the two groups. Compared with other nationalities in stature, except as to a few extraordinarily tall Polynesians, the English professional class head the list, and the Anglo-Saxon race takes the chief place among civilized communities, though it might stand second to the Scandinavian countries if a fair sample of their population could be obtained. Other general facts deduced from the examinations, as true in the British Isles at least, are that an open-air country life is more favorable to height and weight than a sedentary town life; that favorable hygienic and sanitary conditions have a marked influence on growth and weight; that lunatics show a deficiency of weight and stature, and criminals a greater one, indicating a lack of physical as well as mental stamina in both these classes; that athletes appear a little taller than the general population, and not as heavy; that growth diminishes, as we descend in the social scale, to a difference of five inches between the average stature of the best and most nurtured classes of children of corresponding ages, and of three and a half inches in adults. The population of the manufacturing towns do not appear to be degenerating, but exhibit a slight but uniform increase in stature, and a large increase in weight.

Darwinism in the Talmud.—Dr. B. Placzek, of Brünn, has collected citations from the Talmud to show that the old Jewish writers were keen observers of Nature, and had ideas akin to Darwinism. Joseph Albo, in the fifteenth century, suggested the thought of compensation, or interchange of relations, in an hypothesis that cattle are defective in teeth because so much of the tooth-stuff goes to horn, and that they make up for the resultant deficiency in their powers of mastication by the faculty of chewing the cud. Other writers noticed that the integrity of the comb of the cock had much to do with its masculine potency, and that other birds suffer in spirit and vigor when deprived of their ornamental appendages. A writer in the "Agada" affirmed, in justification of Solomon's selection of the ant as an example of wise industry, that it builds its houses in three stories, and stores its provisions, not in the upper compartment, where they may be rained on, nor in the lower, where they will gather dampness, but in the middle one, the safest place, and that it gathers all it can. The ant is also