Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/80

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

numbered. The number, together with a description and history of the specimen, a carefully made pen-and-ink drawing, and references to literature, are all entered upon a large card. These cards are afterward arranged and cared for as usual in card catalogues. We can hardly refer even to some of the more interesting specimens. Magnificent series from the South seas, from Australia, and New Guinea are here. Many objects are of especial interest as having been collected in Captain Cook's voyages. These are not simply interesting as mementoes of the great traveler, but because they present us results of the native industries unaffected by white contact. It is curious to notice how widely scattered Cook's specimens are. Many are here at London, others are at Berlin, Bern, Florence, Leyden, Oxford, and Australia! Of American objects the British Museum has some of extraordinary interest: Prof. E. B. Tylor. seven of the Mexican mosaics; choice things from Peru; a good Central American and Antillean series, and a fine lot of old Eskimo objects. The anthropological material at the Royal College of Surgeons is extensive and very valuable.

In one of the buildings of the South Kensington Museum is Mr. Francis Galton's anthropometric laboratory. Mr. Gait on is President of the British Anthropological Society, and the author of various important works upon Heredity, African Peoples, and Human Faculty. He is extremely ingenious in devising apparatus and experiments for determining the degree of development of various faculties. In this laboratory any visitor may be examined and measured free of charge. The examination includes, besides the regular anthropological measurements, tests of eyesight, hearing, color-sense, quickness of muscular blow, etc. The results of the examination are fully recorded on blanks prepared for the purpose, a copy of the record being given to the subject. Many thousands of persons have been measured in this laboratory, and the public has thus been made acquainted with the subject of anthropometry. Mr. Galton is