Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays ... By Alfred Russel Wallace ...

336 TE LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION
kind, and their intellectual inferiority. The collections
of Dr. J. B. Davis and Dr. Morton give the following
as the average internal capacity of the cranium in the
chief races:-Teutonic family, 94 cubic inches; Esquimaux, 91 cubic inches; Negroes, 85 cubic inches;
Australians and Tasmanians, 82 cubic inches; Bushmen, 77 cubic inches. These last numbers, however,
are deduced from comparatively few specimens, and
may be below the average, just as a small number of
Finns and Cossacks give 98 cubic inches, or considerably more than that of the German races. It is
evident, therefore, that the absolute bulk of the brain
is not necessarily much less in savage than in civilised
man, for Esquimaux skulls are known with a capacity
of 113 inches or hardly less than the largest among
Europeans. rut what is still more extraordinary, the
few remains yet known of pre-historic man do not
indicate any material diminution in the size of the
brain case. A Swiss skull of the stone age, found
in the lake dwelling of Meilen, corresponded exactly
to that of a Swiss youth of the present day. The
celebrated Neanderthal skull had a larger circumference than the average, and its capacity, indicating
actual mass of brain, is estimated to have been not less
than 75 cubic inches, or nearly the average of existing Australian crania. The Engis skull, perhaps the
oldest known, and which, according to Sir John
Lubbock, " there seems no doubt was really contemporary with the mammoth and the cave bear," is yet,
according to Professor Huxley,'a fair average skull,