Evening star., 1936-10-06

Some centuries since q man in his
middle 40s died on one Of the fog Gov
cred, desolate Aleutian Islands, was in
tered with the rituals of his tribe and
quickly was forgotten.
Perhaps there was nothing notable
about his brief episode Of life on earth
spots on the globe amid q primitive
Indian. Presumably he never rose far
out Of the pattern Of his time and place.
But he was . remarkable man-per-
haps the nearest approach to the "su-
perman" Of futuristic fiction that has
yet appeared in the Western Hemi-
sphere. He had the largest brain of
record for any race in North or South
America. His skull, found this Summer
by DR.. Ales Hrdlicka, curator Of physical
anthropology of the National Museum.
had . capacity of approximately zoos
cubic centimeters. The average for the
human male Is about l,450. This man
had . brain capacity nearly IS per cent
greater than the average of his fellows
the world over.
The skull is entirely normal. It shows
none of the deformations which are
associated with the condition known as
hydrocephaly, or water on the brain.
which causes great cranial enlargement
and usually proves fatal in early child
hood. 1t is not thick skull, such rs
would be associated with q glandular
giganticism. The bones where the jaw
muscles were attached are small. Alto
gether, the owner of this skull may be
reconstructed IS man Of normal stature
and no greater than normal musculature.
Now there Is q rough correlation be-
tween brain size relative to stature and
intelligence. In the white race the big
gest brains Of record, except where there
are pathological conditions, have been
those of men Of genius. The biggest Of
all was that Of the Russian poet Tur-
geniev. 1t had capacity Of 1850 cubic
centimeters. The brain of Bismark had
. capacity Of about 1000 cubic cent?
meters. This unknown Aleut, it may be
presumed, was at least potentially one
Of the most intelligent human beings
who ever lived. 1t may well be, of
course, that under the circumstances his
brain served him no good purpose. He
was doomed to . hard life In uninspiring
surroundings. There was little oppor-
tunity for flights Of imagination or
reason.
The great skull Is the choicest item of
the large collection of human bones and
artifacts gathered by DR.. Hrdlicka on
his Aleutian expedition this Summer,
during which he opened up an almost
virgin field Of American archaeology. He
found several other skulls of large size.
but none approaching zoos cubic cent?
meters. 1t is the largest in the Ma
tional Museum skull collection, The
nearest approach Is the skull of Buriat
of Siberia, tribe closely related to the
Aleuts. with capacity Of 1910 cubic
centimeters.
The smallest normal skull in the
museum collection Is that Of prehistoric
Peruvian whose capacity of 010 cubic
centimeters, considerably less than half
that Of the Aleut. Thus approximately
l,l00 cubic centimeters II the variation
range OF the human brain. The out
standing fact In human evolution Is
brain size. This is the chief difYeren-
tiati0n between human and infrahuman.
The largest anthropoid ape skull has q
capacity of about $50 cubic centimeters
There Is thus less Of . gap between the
biggest anthropoid and the
smallest Drained human than between
the average human and this unknown
northern Indian. Mans brain differs
from the ape brain in more than size.
Il y differently constructed and more
richly convo1uted. TherA IL no way Of