been assigned to it. In the first place, the large towns, and other more civilized and populous parts of England, have for some time past been receiving constant streams of immigrants from Ireland, Wales, Damnonia, the Highlands, and other Celtic districts, in which dark hair abounds. In the second, I am disposed to think that the xanthous temperament, though probably better adapted to the climate of these islands than the melanous, is less able to endure some of the anti-hygienic agencies which operate on the crowded populations of our great towns; and that thus the law of natural selection operates against its multiplication. And, in the third place, as a large minority of women live and die unmarried and without offspring, it is probable that the physical qualities of the race may be to some small extent moulded by the action of conjugal as well as of natural selection. In order to test the tendency of this hypothetical influence, I have extracted from my note-books particulars of the social condition (viz., whether married or single), and of the colour of the hair, of 737 women, aged between twenty and fifty, who came under my observation at the Bristol Royal Infirmary: these I have thrown into the form of a table, which will, I hope, be sufficiently intelligible.

The indications of the above table may be rendered more clear by the following one, in which I have assumed the number under each colour to be 100, and have reduced to percentages the different conditions in each class.

* Including widows.

These were persons who described themselves by their occupation only: they were probably for the most part either single women or widows.

Lastly, still further to simplify the matter, we may throw together the red, fair, and brown classes under the head of "blonde," and the dark-brown and black under that of "dark," of which two the former will include 367 women, and the latter 369. The results will be as follows:

The deduction I should make from these figures is, that, whether because the mass of the population does not sympathize with the preference which artists and poets have always manifested in favour of fair hair, or from some other cause, fewer of light-haired women than of dark-haired get married in this part of England.* Then if during several generations this should continue to be the case, is it not probable that the relative proportion of the favoured colour would considerably increase, in accordance with the laws of hereditary influence ?

ON THE ABBEVILLE JAW.

BY A. DE QUATREFAGES,

MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE; PRESIDENT OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS; HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

TRANSLATED BY GEORGE FREDERICK ROLPH, Esq.

WHEN I was informed of the discovery which M. de Perthes had made, I speedily proceeded to ascertain the facts of the case as soon as it was possible to leave Paris. At Abbeville I had the good fortune to meet with Dr. Falconer, the eminent English palæontologist, who had arrived there before me. With this competent and highly qualified

* In some young women the hue of the hair continues to darken after they have overpassed the twentieth year, though in others it attains its maximum of darkness within a very few years after puberty. I mention this fact because it may, and probably does, account for a part of the difference between the proportions of the married in the several classes.

judge, who had already studied the question, I visited the place of discovery. The description of inquiry which we carried on together, led both of us to an identical conclusion. We have both accepted as incontestable the facts which M. de Perthes has announced. Nevertheless, we left with the intention of subjecting the specimens themselves to a further examination. It is distinctly understood that I leave the geological question on one side. As I am not qualified to pronounce a personal opinion respecting the discussions which are still raised upon the subject of the diluvial soil of Abbeville, I entirely abstain from alluding to it. Speaking of the jaw found by M. de Perthes, I shall nevertheless employ the term fossil, which at present seems to me consecrated.

But up to the present time it appears to me certain that the jaw found by M. de Perthes rested in the bed he points out, and that it has remained there since the period when the chipped flints termed háches were deposited beside it. Dr. Falconer had already obtained, with his own hands, one of these hâches, and I had found two placed at some centimètres from each other, and at fifty or sixty centimètres beyond the spot where the jaw rested, according to M. de Perthes. I have the honour to submit them to the inspection of the Academy. But it appears to me impossible, according to the state of the quarry, that these flints should have been introduced there recently. They were taken from the soil after I had myself removed some rubbish which covered them; the spot where they were developed, under the pick of the workman, was at the bottom of a cutting so deeply excavated, as to render a fall of the soil imminent; one of them, at the moment when I perceived it, was yet half retained in the earth which the pick had not yet reached; finally, they were incrusted with the coloured matrix which covers the pebbles of the entire bed, and which is found on the jaw. Besides, when we examine microscopically the mode in which the matrix is distributed on the surface of one tooth yet in its place, we see that it adheres to it by fine granulations, exactly as on certain of the polished pebbles of the bed. Finally, Dr. Falconer has extricated a certain amount of the same matrix even from the cavity of the tooth and the alveoli. Such are the reasons which, independently of the precautions taken by M. de Perthes, lead me to regard the Abbeville jaw as authentic.

We understand the great interest which attaches to this human fossil in every point of view, and in particular in its anthropological aspect. As regards this point of inquiry, the only one which I shall here take up, I have not yet made more than a summary examination; but this examination has already led to some interesting results.

The Abbeville jaw is in a remarkable state of preservation. It does not appear to have been rolled. The extremity of the coronoid process is even intact. This fact would induce us to think that it has not come from very far, and inspires a hope that we shall find some other part of the skeleton to which it belongs.

M. de Perthes has requested that the matrix, which still adheres to some parts of the surface, should be treated with great care. He has, nevertheless, washed the extremity of the coronoid process and a part of the head of the condyle. Here we see that the brown tint which the rest of the bone presents has not penetrated deeply; gravel pebbles, carefully washed, have exhibited to me a similar peculiarity. The matrix conceals some details, especially on the internal face; but it nevertheless permits a nearly complete examination.

When we examine this jaw we are immediately struck with two peculiarities. The angle formed by the horizontal ramus and the ascending ramus is extremely open; the fourth molar,* which alone is still in its place, is slightly inclined forwards. These two characters have been even slightly exaggerated in a drawing which was communicated to me at the time, and perhaps to this cause is due the attention which they at once awakened in me.

Can we here discern a race-character? Before commencing this inquiry, let us remark that in anthropology, as in zoology, the comparative osteology of races, as regards detail, is yet very slightly advanced. This is a new investigation, into which palæontologists, as well as anthropologists, will be obliged to enter, even because of the facts which place the history of man and that of animals in contact.

The openness of the angle of which I am speaking is one of those characters which are liable to variation on account of age and other circumstances, apart from individual peculiarities. Amongst the specimens in the Museum gallery, I have found that in an Esquimaux skull the angle was, perhaps, more open than in the Abbeville jaw; while in another head of the same race it was nearly straight. I have found besides, in various races, examples of equally obtuse angles and of analogous variations. A new examination and exact measurements taken on various individuals of different ages and races are here necessary.

Is the inclination of the molar a race character? Can we recognize in it particularly a sign of dentary prognathism? It is very easy to reply to this last question by examining the incisive alveoli yet intact. These denote a vertical implantation. The inclination of these in

M. 2 of English anatomists. ED.

cisors is certainly not different from that which is observed in the most markedly orthognathous races. This is an important fact, because it tends to resolve definitively a controversial point. Some anthropologists, amongst whom are found men whose science and judgment I equally respect, have thought that the negro races, that is to say the essentially prognathic races, ought to have been nearer to the primitive human type, and that the higher races have originated by progressive development, and are, consequently, subsequent to the negro.

But in 1861, in my Museum lectures, I endeavoured to demonstrate that our knowledge of the characters possessed by early man was scanty, vague, and conjectural; but that we could contra-indicate, with precision, some of the attributes which early man did not possess. Resting on the phenomena of atavism, and on philological facts, I believed myself in a position to affirm that the negro race had not been the first to appear; that the white, however high his pedigree might be traced, never numbered the negro amongst his ancestors. The orthognathism of the Abbeville fossil adds another and a more serious argument to those which I had then brought forth. The man to whom this jaw belonged, if the testimony of many eminent geologists is to be relied on, was contemporary with mammoths and rhinoceri, which are extinct. In any case, it remains at present the representative of the most ancient known races, and nothing in the disposition of its teeth reminds us of prognathism, this essential character of all the negro races, and which is perpetuated with so much persistence in the half breeds. I think, therefore, that I am still more authorized to repeat that the negro and the white represent the extreme modifications of a primitive type, which was placed at some distance between the two.

As for the inclination of the molar in the Abbeville fossil, it is certainly not a distinctive character. On the one hand, I have found analogous modification in several skulls of different races comprised in the Museum Collection. On the other hand, the inclination appears to me to have been produced accidentally. The molar which existed in front of that which is yet in place fell out during the life of the individual. The alveolus has been filled up by the process of ossification which in such cases occurs. It can be understood that, before this deposition of bone, the tooth placed behind this cavity could have been forced or diverted easily in the direction where the usual support has been removed. Dr. Falconer, with whom I had the advantage of examining the jaw, has been forcibly struck with the following