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.

    37/74 (page 23)
    and dark hair, the mixed or neutral eyes are eliminated, and the dark hair is separated from the former, and the light hair from the latter class. The combinations of blue eyes and light red hair, and of brown eyes and dark red hair, are given in separate columns, but the result is not satisfactory, as many cases of light red have doubtless been returned as fair hair, and of dark red as dark brown hair. 46. In the instructions issued by the Committee observers were re¬ quested to return the colours of eyes as grey, light blue, blue, dark blue, light brown, brown, dark brown, green, and black; and the colour of the hair as very fair, fair, golden, red, red brown, light brown, brown, dark brown, black brown, and black, and some chromo-lithographic sheets as tests 1 for the colour of the hair were at first issued; but the system was found to be too complicated for ordinary observers to follow, and they were left to record the colours of both hair and eyes according to the popular meaning of the above terms. An examination of the returns shows that in many cases wide limits have been given to such words as fair, golden, and brown at one end of the scale, and of dark brown and black at the other, which has necessitated the concen- trgJtion of the data to eliminate errors of observation, and what may be called the 1 personal equation ’ of the colour-sense in different observers. In the Report of the Committee for 1880 a table is given of the colour of eyes and hair according to the above scale, of boys and men of the pro¬ fessional classes from ten to fifty years of age, but, apart from its including too wide a range of ages, it is not so well adapted for showing the relative prevalence of complexions as the one now given. 47. The following grouping of the counties according to the prevalence of fair complexion, or, what is the same thing, according to the degree of nigrescence, shows that certain large districts—much larger than the county boundaries—are occupied by inhabitants of similar racial origin, or who have been subject to conditions of life which have reduced them to similar shades of complexion. The division of the percentages into five degrees is, of course, quite arbitrary, and sometimes two counties, only divided from each other by a decimal, and belonging therefore to the same group, may be represented by a different number. The exact per¬ centages are given in Table III. 48. In this classification the men with dark eyes and light hair are combined with those having neutral eyes (green) and light or dark hair, because they are few in number, and because this peculiar complexion is probably due to crossing of the light and dark stocks, and the persistence of one feature of the parent in the eyes and of the other in the hair. The fact that men with dark eyes and light hair are more frequently found in the south-western counties of England, where the light and dark races meet and overlap each other, supports this view of their mixed origin. This complexion,.moreover, is common in childhood, but dis¬ appears as age advances. According to Table XI. it diminishes in males from 13 per cent., during the first five years of life to 1 per cent., at forty- five years of age, and in females from 16'4 per cent, to 2 per cent, during the same period. 1 These test-sheets proved not to be well suited for the purpose for which they were intended. The colours were not well graduated, and did not possess the sheen or gloss of the natural hair, on which so much of the variation of the colour depends. On the subject of colour-scales, see the Bulletins of the Society of Anthropology of Paris, 3rd S. vi. pp. 91, 92.