Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/485

Rh ultimately put. To show the results which have already been achieved is the task to which we have to address ourselves.

The observations upon which our conclusions for Europe are to rest, cover some ten or more million individuals, the larger fraction being school children, a goodly proportion, however, consisting of conscripts taken from the soil directly to the recruiting commissions of the various European armies. The labor involved in merely collecting, to say nothing of tabulating, this mass of material is almost superhuman; and we can not too highly praise the scientific zeal which has made possible our comfortable work of comparing this accumulated data. As an example of the difficulties which have been encountered, let me quote from a personal letter from Dr. Ammon, one of the pioneers in this work, who measured thousands of recruits in the Black Forest of Germany. "One naturally," he writes, "is reluctant to undertake a four or six weeks' trip with the commission in winter, with snow a metre deep, living in the meanest inns in the little hamlets, and moving about every two to five days. The official inspectors must not be retarded in their work, as the Ministry of War attaches that condition to their permission to view the recruits. Many of those rejected for service are dismissed by the surgeons at a glance, but I must make measurements on all alike. Only when the doctor stops to make an auscultation or to test the vision do I have a moment's respite. They are sent to my room from the medical inspector at the rate of two hundred in three hours, sometimes two hundred and forty; and on all these men I must make many measurements, while rendering instant decision upon the color of the hair and eyes. The mental effort involved in forming so many separate judgments in such quick succession often brings me near fainting at the close of the session."

Of course, where observations are privately made, to obtain the consent of the owner of the characteristics is the main obstacle to be overcome. To make the subject understand what is wanted is impossible, for it would involve a full discussion of the Keltic question or of the origin of the Aryans, which, after the first one hundred cases, becomes tiresome. The color of the hair and eyes, of course, may be noted in passing, and observers may station themselves on crowded thoroughfares and easily collect a large mass of material. I have myself found profit and entertainment on the Fall River boats in running up some columns from my unsuspecting fellow-passengers. But to make head measurements is another matter. Dr. Beddoe adopted an ingenious device which I will describe in his own words: "Whenever a likely little squad of natives was encountered the two archæologists got up a dispute about the relative size and shape of their own heads,