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Show 118 TilE DESCENT OF MAN. PART I. is certain, But with savages, as Mr. Herbert Spencer 2 6 has remarked, the greater use of the jaws in chewing coarse, uncooked food, would act in a direct manner on the masticatory muscles and on the bones to which they are attached. In infants lono- before birth the skin on the soles of the feet is thicker than on' any other p~rt .of the body ;27 and it can hardly be doubted tha~ this IS due . to the inherited effects of pressure durmg a long senes of generations. It is familiar to every one that watchmakers and e~gravers are l~able to become short-sighted, whilst sailors ~nd especially savages are generally long-sighted. Sh~rt-s1ght and long-sight certainly tend to be inherited. 28 . The inferiority of Europeans, in comparison. With savages, in eye-sight and in the other senses, IS no doubt the accumulated and transmitted effect of lessened use during many generations. for Rengger29 states that he has repeatedly observed Euro~ eans, ~ho bad been brought up and spent their whole hves With t~e wild Indians, who nevertheless did not equt al trh em m the sharpness of their senses . The same na ura Ist .observes that the cavities in the skull for ~he recep~wn of th.e .several sense-organs are larger in the Amen~n. aborigmes than in Europeans ; and this n? dou_bt mdiCates a corresponding difference in the d1im ensiOns of the organs themselves · Blu men b ac h h as a so remarked on the large size of the nasal cavities :; 'Principles of Biology,' vol. i. p. 455. 28 ~aget, '~ct~res on Surgical Pathology,' vol. i. 1853 209 29 ' Srr:~e Vtahl:IatiOn of Animals under Domestication ' voi ~· p S auge wre von Paraguay' s 8 10 I ' · · · · tunities for observin"' the ext ' d.. ' . have had good oppor- F . o raor mary power of e . ht . h uegmns. See also Lawrence (' Le t . yesig m t e 404) th . c ures on PhysiOlogy ' & 1822 on IS same subject M a· d T ' c., · ' P· ('Revue des Cours Scient.ifi u~s, I:au - eulou has recently collected body of evidence proving thaf th ' 870, r 625) ~ largo and valuable "assidu, de pres.' e cause 0 short-stght, '' C'est le tmrail ·CnAP. IV. MANNER OF DEVELOPMENT. 119 in the skulls of the American aborigines, and connects this fact with their remarkably acute power of smell. The Mongolians of the plains of Northern Asia, according to Pallas, have wonderfully perfect senses; and Prichard believes that the great breadth of their slmlls across the zygomas follows from their highly-developed sense-organs. 30 The Quechua Indians inhabit the lofty plateaux of Peru, and Alcide d'Orbigny states 31 that from continually breathing a highly rarefied atmosphere they have acquired chests and lungs of extraordinary dimensions. The cells, also, of the lungs are larger and more numerous than in Europeans. These observations have been doubted; but Mr. D. Forbes carefully measured many Aymaras, an allied race, living at the heiO"ht of between ten and fifteen thousand feet ; and 0 he informs me 32 that they differ conspicuously from the men of all other races seen by him, in the circumference and length of their bodies. In his table of measurements, the stature of each man is taken at 1000, and the other measurements are reduced to this standard. It is here seen that the extended arms of the Aymaras are shorter than those of Europeans, and much shorter than those of Negroes. The legs are likewise shorter, and they present this remarkable peculiarity, that in every Aymara measured the femur is actually shorter than the tibia. On an average the length of the femur to that of the tibia is as 211 to 252; whilst in two Europeans measured at the same 3o Prichard, 'Phys. Hist. of Mankind,' on the authority of Blumenbach, vol. i. 1851, p. 311; for the statement by Pallas, vol. iv. 1844, p. 407. 31 Quoted by Prichard, ' Researches into the Phys. Hist. of Man-kind,' vol. v. p. 463. 32 Mr. Forbes' valuable paper is now published in the 'Journal of the Ethnological Soc. of London,' new series, vol. ii. 1870, p. 193. |