tribes die out, and also races in a certain sense; but the homes or centres of formation of races are, Mr. Burke asserts, maintained.

Mr. E. B. TYLOR said that there is often great difficulty in finding out whether people are cannibals. On the Brass river, within reach of British guns, Mr. Hutchinson and some friends were witnesses of the devouring of a criminal by the friends of the man whom he had aggrieved, although the practice was not previously known to exist in the district. Mr. Tylor also noticed the resemblance between the musical instruments of the Fans and those of the Aztecs and South Americans, and thought that the marimba was imported by the negro into America.

Professor TAGORE stated that the aborigines of India were cannibals, and that the eating of human flesh was a religious ceremony among the present Hindus. The eating of horse flesh as an ordinary article of food was in early ages common in India, but was afterwards elevated into a religious ceremony.

Sir CHARLES NICHOLSON thought it marvellous how people can doubt the existence of cannibalism. He had conversed with many persons who had seen it, and might himself have seen it if he had wished. It appeared generally to be a quasi-religious ceremony. With regard to the extinction of races, Sir Charles Nicholson remarked that the New Zealanders are evidently dying out. War alone was not sufficient to account for the extinction of races; the causes are rather physiological. Among races that are disappearing the men are commonly more numerous than the women, of course causing prostitution and its consequent infertility. Sir Charles thought there was good evidence of the general diffusion in early times, throughout the whole of the southern hemisphere at least, of an ancient negroid race; and that if we ever find a fossil man, he will probably be of that type.

Mr. BOLLAERT mentioned a case of a number of negroes being kidnapped and carried to Easter Island, where they rapidly died out of dysentery and measles.

Mr. BOLLAERT read a paper by Professor RAIMONDI on Indian Tribes of Loreto, Northern Peru." (See p. 33).

A vote of thanks was proposed by the Chairman.

"The

Mr. C. C. BLAKE did not understand how a board with a hole in it, fastened into the forehead of an infant in the manner described by Professor Raimondi, could cause a circular elevation of the frontal bone.

Mr. BOLLAERT suggested that the soft parts might protrude. Dr. DRACHAICHIS was of opinion that the board would be quite capable of producing the effects ascribed to it.

Dr. HUNT regretted the vagueness of Professor Raimondi's statistics, more especially as we have no other information about these tribes of Loreto. He thought the principle of creating necessities one of great importance in dealing with primitive races, and well worthy of the support of the Society.

Sir CHARLES NICHOLSON. It is to be regretted that we have no information on the subject of the language of these people, the rela

tions of languages being of the highest importance in determining the the relations of tribes.

The meeting was then adjourned.

MEETING OF THE 7TH OF APRIL, 1863.

DR. HUNT, PRESIDENT, IN THE CHAIR.

The Honorary Secretary having announced the presents to the Society,

Professor OWEN made some remarks on some human bones discovered under six feet of brick earth at Chatham, and which have been presented to the Society by the Rev. H. F. Rivers. Professor Owen remarked that the bones contain much gelatine, and are therefore probably not contemporaneous with the brick earth in which they are found. The teeth are of the ordinary European type, and so much worn as to be probably characteristic of coarse food. The forehead is low, but whether very unusually low it would be impos sible to say until the fragments of the cranium are put together. From the size and strength of development of the ridges for the attachment of muscles the bones appear to be those of a male.

Mr. MACKIE asked whether there was any trace of disturbance of the brick-earth in which the bones were found, and whether any marsh shells were discovered in the brick-earth. The frontal bone appeared to be like that of the Heathery Burn Cave skull.

The PRESIDENT. Further information as to the finding of the bones will be laid before the Society at some future time; but I may state that a stone implement, weighing about fourteen pounds, was found with the remains.

The HONORARY SECRETARY read a paper by Mr. R. T. GORE on "The Microcephalic Brain of a Female Idiot." (See p. 168).

A vote of thanks having been passed, Professor OWEN said :— The normal organization of the human species is liable, and perhaps more so than that of lower species, to malformation as a consequence of arrest of development; and this is especially the case with the organ the great relative size and complexity of which form the chief characteristic of the human organization, viz., the brain. Instances of this arrest of development are known in different varieties of the human kind, e. g., in the Negro one, as exemplified by the female called by her showman the "Hottentot Venus"; and by the hybrid Spanish and Indian children from San Salvador, called by their showman "Aztecs". But the best recorded cases of such cerebral arrests are those of Europeans, as exemplified by the idiot whose brain is preserved in St. Bartholomew's Hospital; by that whose brain, weighing 1 lb. 4 oz., is described by Dr. Todd (Cycl. of Anat., vol. iii, art. "Nervous Centres"); and by the still smaller and more remarkable instance of the idiot with the brain weighing only 10 oz. 5 grains, avoird., described this evening by Mr. Gore. No physiological phenomena are of greater interest and importance than those

which tend to directly elucidate the relations of the cerebral organ to the mental phenomena in mankind. Such elucidation is given by these cases of variety, in which the brain and cranium fail to be developed to their normal proportional size: and the one which Mr. Gore has communicated to us is, so far as my research has extended, the smallest instance of a brain, otherwise of sound structure, with which the individual has lived in health beyond maturity to middle age. I would first remark that the brain so arrested in development does not offer a close resemblance to, or correspondence with, that of the chimpanzee, orang, or lower forms. It is, at best, only a general resemblance; such, e. g., as may be due to the arrest of the backward growth of the cerebral hemispheres, falling short of, or not extending beyond, the cerebellum, with the concomitant low deve lopment of the included structures, indicated in Dr. Todd's description, in which he remarks, "there could scarcely be said to be any trace of the hippocampus minor." (Cycl. of Anat., vol. iii, p. 719.) The late Dr. Todd has recorded the chief characters of an adult idiot's brain, which he examined in 1844, and which he regarded "as an example of the class of changes which take place in the brains of most idiots." (Art. "Nervous System," Abnormal Anatomy, Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology vol. iii, p. 719.) The weight of the brain was 1 lb. 4 oz., avoirdupois, "after having lain in spirits for some days. The upper surface of both hemispheres was perfectly smooth'; the convolutions were not (there) developed. The Sylvian fissure was well marked" at its posterior extremity there was a slight puckering, indicating a feeble development of the "insula of Reil." A few fissures and imperfectly developed convolutions were found upon the inferior surface of the middle lobe, and upon the lateral and inferior surfaces of the anterior lobe. The corpora mamillaria appeared to be fused together. "The corpus striatum was exceedingly small."-"The hippocampus major was very small;" and there could scarcely be said to be any trace of the hippocampus minor. "The lateral ventricles were large and rather dilated. The fornix was well developed, as was also the corpus callosum."-"The cerebellum was well developed." The pineal gland was large. Sometimes, as in this case, the foetal condition of non-convolution of the surface of the hemispheres persists; more commonly there are convulsions corresponding in size and depth with the normal human ones, but fewer in number, as in the 'St. Bartholomew's brain,' and in that described by Mr. Gore. But all these cases exemplify the principle that the specific character marks the embryo as essentially as the adult, that the embryo does not pass through lower forms of animals. Just as the toes, as soon as they appear in the human embryo characterize the foot, whilst they bud forth, in the ape, in the direction to form the lower hand. We know that the individual idiots supplying the examples described by Dr. Todd, Mr. Gore and myself (in the St. Bartholomew's case) were the abnormal offspring of parents with the proper human brain, of the average weight. Had any of these perished in a cavern at times when idiots were less cared for than at present, the skull, falling into the hands of the Trans

mutationist, might have been described, and exhibited at the Royal Institution, as that of the missing link;' the idiot' Aztec' children were two of a family of six, with normal brains, and the parents exhibited no departure from the ordinary size of cranium and capacity of mind. In the absence of special information, and the presence of skulls of Bosjesmen, Hottentots and Negros, corroborating Tiedemann's and Peacock's evidence of the normal size and weight of the brain in those families of the human race, it is to be inferred, or held to be more probable, that the Hottentot Venus was a case of 'arrest of development,' rather than as manifesting the normal character of a lower race linking on the Ape to Man. It is instructive to notice the close analogy of the psychical phenomena in these cases of arrest of development. The Aztecs' showed lively but abrupt movements, without obvious aim; the features showed movements devoid of intelligible expression, but with the general actions indicative of internal pleasure or gaiety. When I visited the children in their beds early in the morning, a week after my first inspection of them, they recognized ime; I had examined their teeth in the first instance, and the boy pulled down his lip to show them to me, on the second visit. I do not feel justified, however, from this evidence of their recalling an individual to mind, in ascribing to them a good memory. They were fond of beating a little drum and jingling a tambourine. They spoke a few words of English and more of Spanish, but seemed incapable of framing a definite proposition; they were pleased with, and attracted by, any bright object or toy. They had no sense or instinct of shame. The size of the cranium in the female indicated a brain arrested at the stage of that of the Hottentot Venus, figured by M. Gratiolet. The Aztecs were stupidly docile; doing what they were bidden, but not in an intelligent way. Mr. Gore states, in reference to the woman s with the still smaller brain, Her manners were exactly those of a very young child. She could say a few words, and was obedient and affectionate to those about her.' If one were to affirm of such a condition of mind that it was not idiotcy, not even imbecility,' such a statement would not justify the selection of any of those arrests of cerebral development as the figure by which the true relations of the highest form of brute brain and the lowest normal form of human brain would be illustrated: because, such statement does not truly illustrate the functional powers of the brain stopped short in its development; it merely enables the reader to form a fair judgment of the mental constitution of the propounder and adopter of such statement.

Mr. C. C. BLAKE. The case before us is the most striking case of microcephaly on record. The following are the general conclusions arrived at by Dr. Peacock from his investigations on the weight of the brain. "1. The weight of the brain in the adult male averages about forty-nine ounces avoirdupois, and ranges from about forty-two to nearly sixty ounces. In the adult female the weight of the brain averages about forty-three ounces and a half, and ranges from thirtynine to nearly forty-seven ounces. The mean difference is therefore about five ounces and a quarter. In the previous series of observations, which greatly exceeded in number that now published, the male ence

phalon had an average of about fifty ounces; the female of nearly fortyfive ounces, or a difference of nearly five ounces and a quarter; and the range was in both sexes more extensive. The average weight of the encephalon in these calculations corresponds, therefore, sufficiently with the previous results, as well as with those obtained by Dr. Reid, and does not differ greatly from the conclusions of Sir W. Hamilton, Dr. Sims, and Dr. Clendinning. The average weight of the brain, as deduced by these observers, ranges from forty-five ounces and threequarters to fifty ounces and a quarter in males; and from forty-one ounces and a quarter to forty-five ounces in females. The observations of Portal, Tiedemann, M. Leliet, and M. Parchappe, are also similar." The largest brain described by Wagner in his Vorstudien, is that of a female, and weighed 1872 grammes; Cuvier's brain weighed 1861 grammes; Byron's, it is said, 1807 grammes, but probably more. The next in size is that of an insane male individual, and weighed 1783 grammes. The smallest healthy male brain on record weighed 1020, and the smallest healthy female 907 grammes. Thus we have both the greatest and smallest amount of brain in the female. Of idiots' brains, in Theile's case it was as low as 300 grammes, and in that preserved in St. Bartholomew's Hospital 322 grammes; but the brain described by Mr. Gore weighed only 283 grammes. Especially remarkable, in this last-mentioned brain, is the very small extent of cerebellum covered by the cerebrum. The cerebellum itself is also very small, and to this was probably due the tottering gait of the woman. Mr. Gore very properly declines to express any opinion on the correlation of the cerebral convolutions; a subject which, except by Gratiolet and Dareste, has hardly been treated so as to conduce to the progress to which we hope we are all tending. But this much is certain, that the external perpendicular fissure, so constant in the quadrumana, is not found in even the earliest-arrested idiot's brain with which we are acquainted.

Mr. ROBERT DUNN, F.R.C.S., said he had when a boy seen the Hottentot Venus, and certainly was not given to understand that her head was unusually small, or that she was deficient in intelligence.

Mr. C. C. BLAKE considered there was most powerful evidence of the idiotcy of the Hottentot Venus. Her brain, after it had been some time preserved in spirits, was described by Gratiolet. A zoologist has lately argued, from the readiness with which the woman stripped herself, that she was sane; but surely no one else would consider this as an evidence of sanity.

Professor OWEN said he had seen the skeleton of this woman in the Paris Museum, and, having compared it with those of other Hottentots, was convinced of this being a case of arrested development. Dr. DRACHAICHIS questioned whether a very small brain necessarily indicated insanity, as one of the largest brains on record was that of an insane person. He contended that want of use was the

cause of arrest of development.

Professor OWEN had not before considered it necessary to draw the distinction between idiotcy and insanity. Idiotcy is the want of ability to originate or conceive of general propositions; but in insanity