The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1893-02-11
Some Popular Science.

If there is any thing we do enjoy it Is
spreading scientific ideas among the peo-
pie. The reader will therefore under
stand the pleasure it gives us to lay be-
fore him an abstract of a paper by
Alexander Macallister. M. D., F. R. s.,
on THE Study of Man" Professor Mac
allister begins by calling old tin cans
rusty polyhedra." Take notice. please.
that an ancient sardine box is a rusty
polyhedron
Having got thus far with our scientific
education we proceed to the next point.
1t is that the word Celt is difficult to de-
fine because it is used sometimes in an
ethnic, sometimes in a phylogenetic and
again in linguistic sense, and is APP
piled, moreover, both to dolichocephalic
and brachycephalic races. This tends to
bring physical anthropology into con
fusion, especially when the pseudo
morphs of earlier cultures add to the
perplexity Yes, indeed, professor.
Another mighty truth is that the larg
est part of the human skull, when I'M
modified by premature synostosis or
other adventitious conditions, owes its
form to that of the cerebral hemispheres
it contains. Just so. Precious to us
too, is the information that the love-
jaw of the macrodontal races is heavier
than that of mesodontals. or microdont-
ais, and that the average Englishman's
masseters and temporals weigh sixty
grams. We always thought it was more
than that. This does not hinder macro-
donts from being frequently microcepha-
lie all the same. and in this case the jaw
is prognathous and the supraorbital ar
cade must be advanced to meet the
mandibular stroke. We suspected that.
At the period of second dentition there
is an extension of the mucosa of the an
terror ethnoidal cell We are not sur.
prised, therefore, to learn that the skull of
the unacceptable and mesodontal bush
man is orthognathous. while that of the
macrodontal and unacceptable Austria
liam is prognathous. We can even take
it in that metopism is rare among mi
crocephalic races. There is apparently
nothing contrary to Scripture in that
But when we are expected to believe that
the alveolar arch of the macrodont is
hypseloid, and that both the leptorhine
Eskimo and the platyrhine Australian
have a greater nasal index than that of
the leptorhine Englishman, we are in
cined to doubt 1t does not sound or
thodox; it doesn't really.
We turn with pleasure to things all
can accept, as, for instance. that the
orbital cavity Of the microseme Austria
liam and the megaseme Kanaka is larger
than that of the mesoseme Englishman.
All of us can agree cheerfully to the
statement that microdontism and megq-
cephaly have been acquired at some
stage in the ancestral history Of the race
And if there is anything we do believe
with enthusiasm it is the following:
But there is underlying all these no unifyins
hypothesis, so that when we in our sesquipedg
liam jargon describe Australian skull as
unacceptable. ph@nozygous, tapeinO-dolichO-
cephalic, prognathic, platyrhine, hypselopala-
tine leptostaphyline, dOlichuranic. cham2pro-
soplc and micrOseme we are no nearer 10 the
formulation of any philosophc concept Of the
general principles which have led to the as.
sumption Of these characters by the Uranium
In question.