Final report of the Anthropometric Committee / F. Galton, Chairman.

Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Final report of the Anthropometric Committee / F. Galton, Chairman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/74 (page 14)
    Cimbro-British districts of Galloway; in the Anglo-Danish ones of North and East Yorkshire, Westmoreland and Lincolnshire, and in Cumberland, whose people are ethnologieally intermediate between the two. Lothian and Berwickshire are mainly Anglian, while the Perth¬ shire Highlanders are the most clearly identified as the descendants of the Caledonii. The high position of Norfolk in the list is due to a large admixture of Danish blood on the coast. There is a fringe of moderately high stature all round the coast from Norfolk to Cornwall, while the inland people, retaining more of the ancient British blood, yield lower averages. Middlesex and Hertfordshire, which stand very low, were later and less perfectly colonised by the Anglo-Saxon than the surround¬ ing counties, and nearly the same may be said of the counties around the Severn estuary and the Welsh border. Cornwall stands higher than the surrounding counties, and this is probably due to its having become the refuge of the military class of Southern Britain, in the main of Belgic origin. Flint and Denbigh owe their superiority to the other Welsh counties to the immigration of the Cumbrian and Strathclyde Britons.’ -—Dr. Beddoe. 30. According to the Committee’s returns, the western provinces of Ireland possess a high stature, similar to the Scotch Highlands, with which they may have a common racial origin, while the lower stature of the eastern provinces is probably traceable to the comparatively recent Scotch and English immigrations. The Irish returns are, however, too few to be relied on (although the closeness of the averages for all the provinces would suggest the absence of any errors of observation), and any conclusions drawn from theiii must be received with great reserve until they are confirmed by more extended inquiries. In some of the returns the county origin and birthplace was not recorded, which ac¬ counts for the difference between the totals for the whole of Ireland and those living in each province. 31. The racial elements of the British population are best demon¬ strated by separating a few of the counties where there has been the least admixture of foreign blood, and comparing these together, thus :— Race District Stature Weight Early British . Saxon Anglian . Scandinavian . Cardigan, Radnor, and Brecon . Sussex, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire . Lotliians, Northumberland, and Norfolk /Shetland, Caithness, North and East York-) 1 shire, and Lincolnshire. J 66- 59 67- 22 68- 73 68-32 169-3 155-8 166-7 162-7 32. Geographical distribution.—The inhabitants of the more elevated districts possess a greater stature than those of alluvial plains. The counties forming the river valle}^s of the Severn and Wye, the Thames, the Dee and Mersey, the Clyde, the Trent, and the fen district of Cam¬ bridge and Huntingdon, show a lower stature than the surrounding counties inhabited by persons of a similar racial origin. 33. With respect to latitude arffl climate, the inhabitants of the northern and colder districts possess greater stature than those of the southern and warmer parts of the island ; those of the north-eastern and drier regions are taller than those of the south-western and damper climates. A similar disposition of stature has been found to exist in France and Italy, the