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. But 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, which might have
belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless
brains of a savage." Of the cave men of Les Eyzies, who were undoubtedly
contemporary with the reindeer in the South of France, Professor Paul
Broca says (in a paper read before the Congress of Pre-historic
Archaeology in 1868)--"The great capacity of the brain, the development
of the frontal region, the fine elliptical form of the anterior part of
the profile of the skull, are incontestible characteristics of
superiority, such as we are accustomed to meet with in civilised races;"
yet the great breadth of the face, the enormous development of the
ascending ramus of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the
surfaces for the attachment of the muscles, especially of the
masticators, and the extraordinary development of the ridge of the
femur, indicate enormous muscular power, and the habits of a savage and
brutal race.

These facts might almost make us doubt whether the size of the brain is
in any direct way an index of mental power, had we not the most
conclusive