The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-02-08
BECOMING INDIANS.
CLAIM THAT AMERICANS ARE DEvEL-
OPlNG ON THAT LINE.
Increasing Resemblance In Faces to the
Aboriginal Type - study Of Heads,
with Especial Attention to the Resi-
dents of Pennsylvania.

dents of Pennsylvania.
1t is an extraordinary question in an
thropological science which has been
propounded popularity Of late The in
fluence of environment upon the race
resident in the United States must in
the course of four centuries produce GER
| tain marked and undeniable physical
results. 1t is not generally acknowledge
ed by American anthropologists that
there is tendency of reversion to the
| type indigenous to the soil. But foreign |
students of race, with more perspective, |
have offered interesting food for refiec-
ton. A writer in the Chicago Times
Herald, commenting ON the assertion OF |
the French authors that on this CONT
nent the American white man has varied
toward the Indian type, offers support
ing study which is curiously fascinating
possibly vastly important
First, the familiar faces of the carica-
turists' creation are called in as wit
nesses The Y ankee and the southron-
large and loose limbed-of these pictures
are types, even as the stout, full faced
John Bull is type found i'll another
environment. Both American favorites
of the cartoonist have high cheek bones
and usually excellent straight noses.
These witnesses are not, of course, scien-
tifically admissible. The faces given us
by the caricature makers are impress
sions, not testimony.
Scientific, however, is the study Of
fered of the Pennsylvania Germans--a
happy, thrifty, frugal people, who have
been subjected to American conditions
for nearly two centuries, with very lit
tie intermingling with other races,
much less than the English people III
New England or III Virginia.
IL is true that the pervasive and be-
quilting Irish have intermarried some
what with these old Pennsylvania set
tiers, but in the main it is a very eXclu-
} sive, pure blooded Palatinate stock.
Data have been secured relative to a
, large number of school children and to
/ adult males from 20 TO 90 years of age,
e and many copies of portraits of original
8 settlers. 1t appears that stature in
creases and that other important gener-
4 alizations may be made, tentatively OF
course. The increase of finger reach Is
D marked ard the head measures are I'M
{ portant.
+ "The anthropologist places consider
il able value upon certain proportions OF
. relations between measures, says the
+ student of the subject. "Thus the length
g of the head and the breadth of the head,
Y when compared, give numerical expires
:. sion, which is called the cephalic index
{ To find it the length is divided into the
f breadth and the result multiplied by
e 100. A head one-half as wide as 1T Il
It long would have an index OF 90; ont
% three-fourths as wide as long woul'
n have an index of 10; one as wide as
e was long would have an index OF 100
"a There is no race whose head is normall
n so wide as to have an index of 100 or s
,s narrow as to have one of 80. The highe
% the index, of course, the broader an
sounder the head; the lower the index
the longer and narrower the head. Gel
mans generally are notably round head
Of ed. Topinard gives for some people {
is Lorraine the index of So 3. The averag
Is index of 100 Pennsylvania Germans
fl 81.9, which is notably less and nal
III rover. The heads of our northern an
le eastern Indians are still longer and nal
ld rover We cannot at present make
ut further comparison with profit. WhS
IS we have already said may prove err'
G. neous when we learn the actual Palat
in nate type. We assume now that IL
Palatinate Germans were of medium
81 stature, light haired, blue or light eyet
round headed, with finger reach {
ly 1.O43. We find that the Pennsylvani
German children are dark in hair al
*. eyes, that the men are probably OF Il
of creased stature, that heads appear to
N. lengthening, that arm reach appears
sr- be increasing. In all these respects Il
St Pennsylvania German varies from Il
:" assumed Palatinate type and in the d
rection of the Indian. if our assumptl6
proves valid, we may claim that OF
NC evidence shows change, which, II Co
ess tinued, may form an Indian type no
Tia the German.
FOR All this, it must be noted, is abs
to lutely distinct from any Of the reaso
es for discussing the tendency OF America
all to revert to original types from the
me filtration of the red Indian blood itse
ad- in the veins of the white race. From G
nd DAYS of the old French and Indian wa
fireside tales of New England interim
ture of that sort have been comm
nts enough. A recent novel has express
uld the country knowledge in New Englal
.,,i, that there is an occasional "streai
-uit from ancestry that approached Nc
viii England from the west as well as th
: rs is which approached it from the east acre
s srv the Atlantic. In the western states a
=. territories the great numbers OF hi
breeds whose descendants find their W
into the life of cities brings to beal
curious and unreckoned force in the
lay velopment of the fiber and sinew OF
nil race in North America. Boston Ira
vas script.
GU Salt n Luxury In Africa.
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