INSTRUMENTS USED

We took with us ‘The Traveller’s Anthropometer’, a very compact and useful instrument designed by Dr J. G. Garson and manufactured by Messrs. Aston & Mander, 25 Old Compton Street, London. This instrument is described in Notes and Queries on Anthropology, Second Edition (1892), published by the Anthropological Institute. It is possible to take all the requisite measurements with this instrument, except the cranial circumference, but we preferred to use other instruments for the head measurements.

We also had with us Flower’s Craniometer (made by Stanley, Great Turnstile, Holborn, London), which is a very convenient instrument for this class of measurements; a compass d’epaisseur and a compass glissiere (both made by Mathieu, 113 Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris. The former is very useful for face measurements as the rounded points of the callipers reduce any danger from accidents to a minimum. The sole objection to our instrument is that it is graduated in two millimetres, and not in single millimetres. The compass glissiere is a very handy and delicate little instrument, but it can be dispensed with when a Flower’s Craniometer is used.

A sliding rule, such as was first used in Galton’s Anthropometrical Laboratory, for measuring the span, was usually carried with our other apparatus. It is a little more convenient than adapting Garson’s Anthropometer. Chesterman’s steel tape was used for taking the horizontal circumference of the head.

Lastly, we measured the cranial height and auriculo-nasal and alveolar radii with Dr Cunningham’s modification of Busk’s Craniometer, made by Robinson, Grafton Street, Dublin, an instrument which has been used in our Laboratory since its inception. All measurements were taken in millimetres.

GENERAL REMARKS
ON THE METHODS EMPLOYED

The height of the head would best be taken from the ear-hole to the bregma, but in the vast majority of living subjects it is impossible to determine this spot. The measurement we took is convenient, and sufficiently definite.

The horizontal circumference was not taken round the eyebrows, but above them; it is very difficult to take a satisfactory measurement by the former method, owing to the tape slipping, and the variable development of the eyebrows. The auricular radii were found to be readily taken in fieldwork; and none of the subjects measured absolutely objected to having the plugs of the instrument inserted into their ear-holes, although some demurred at first. Of 293 persons who have been measured in the Dublin Anthropometric Laboratory, none have objected to the instrument being used. We thus already have a large series of the three measurements for which this instrument is employed. It is necessary in using this instrument to feel that it is actually pressing against the bony wall of the external auditory meatus.

The internal bi-ocular breadth we consider to be a valuable measurement, as giving the distance between the eyes. The external bi-ocular breadth was taken so as to give some idea as to the size of the eyes, but we did not find this of much practical value, and we consider it preferable to measure from the middle of the outer border of the one orbit to the corresponding point of the other.