most perpendicular, and is furrowed on the middle, from the division between the nostrils to the edge of the lip; the under lip is erect, thicker and more prominent than that above; both have a smooth red protuberance, surrounding their mouth at their edges. The chin is prominent, blunt, and gibbous. In males, the face is round; the mouth is covered with hair, called the beard, which first appears about puberty, in patches on the chin. The teeth in both jaws may be distinguished into three orders; the fore teeth are erect, parallel, and wedge-like, of the kind named incisors or cutting teeth; they stand close to each other, and are more equal and rounder than in other animals: the tusks, called in man eyeteeth and corner-teeth, of which there is only one on each side of the fore-teeth in each jaw, are a little longer than the fore-teeth, but much less so than in other animals, and they are placed close to the other teeth: the grinders, of which there are five on each side in both jaws, are blunt, and divided on their upper surface into pointed eminences; but these are not so remarkable as in other animals. The ears are placed on the sides of the head, are of an oblong rounded figure, with a semilunar bend on their anterior edges; they lie flat to the head, are naked, arched at the margin, on their upper and posterior edges, and are thicker and soft at the under extremities.

"The trunk of the body consists of the neck, breast, back, and belly. The neck is roundish, and shorter than the head; its vertebra or chine bones are not, as in most animals, connected by a suspensary ligament; the nape is hollowed; the throat immediately below the chin is hollow at its upper part, and protuberant in the middle a little lower down. The breast is somewhat flattened both before and behind; on the fore part there is a decavity or depression where it joins with the neck; the armpits are hollow and hairy; the pit of the stoinach is flat. On the breast are two distant, round, protuberant mamma or dugs, each having a cylindrical, obtuse, wrinkly, projecting nipple, which is surrounded by a darker coloured circle called the areola. The back is flat, having protuberances on each side at the shoulder-blades, with a furrow or depression between them. The abdomen or belly is large and protuberant, with a hollow at the navel; the epigastric regions, or sides of the belly, are protuberant; the groins flattish and hollowed. The pubes is hairy; the pelvis or basin is wider above, and grows narrower below. The male parts are external and loose; the penis cylindrical; the scrotum roundish, lax, and wrinkled, being divided in the middle by a longitudinal ridge or smooth line, which extends along the whole perinæum. The female parts are compressed and protuberant, having labia, nympha, clytoris, and hymus, and, in adults, secreting the catamenia There is no external tail. The limbs consist of arms and hands instead of fore-legs; and of thighs, legs, and feet. The arms are placed

at a distance from each other; they are round, and about a foot in lengta from the joint of the shoulder to the elbow; the fore-arm, or cubit, contains two bones, and is obtusely prominent; the ulna, which forms the principal thickness of the member, is round and somewhat flattened on the inside. The hands are broad, flat, and rounded; convex on the outside or back of the hand, and concave on the inside or palm. Each hand has five fingers, one of which, named the thumb, is shorter and thicker than the rest, and is placed at some distance from them; the others are near each other, and placed parallel, the outer or little finger being the smallest; the second, named index or forefinger, and the fourth called the ring-finger, are next in length and in size; and the third or middle-finger is the longest; the point of this last, when the arm and hand hang down, reaches to the middle of the thigh. The nails are rounded and oval, being flatly arched or convex upwards, and each has a semilunar whitish mark at the root or lower extremity.

"The lower limbs are placed close together, having brawny muscular haunches and swelling fleshy hips; the knees are obtuse, bend forwards, and have hollow hams behind. The legs, which are nearly of the same length with the thighs, are of a muscular make behind, where they swell out into what is called the calf; they are lean, and free of flesh on the shins or fore-parts, and taper downwards to the ankle, which have hard hemispherical projections on each side, named the anklebones or malleola. The heel is thick, prominent, and gibbous, being longer and broader than in other animals, for giving a firm support to the body; it joins immediately with the sole of the foot. The feet are oblong, convex above, and flattened on the soles, which have a transverse hollow about the middle. Each foot has five toes, somewhat bent downwards, and gibbous or swelled underneath at their extremities: they are all placed close together, the inner or great-toe being thicker and somewhat shorter than the rest; the second and third are nearly of equal length; and the fourth and fifth are shorter than the others, the last mentioned or little toe being the shortest and smallest. The toenails resemble those on the fingers.

"Thus man differs from other animals in his erect posture and naked skin, having a hairy scalp, being furnished with hair on the eyebrows and eye-lashes; and having, when ar rived at puberty, the pubes, breast, armpits, and the chin of the inale, covered with hair.

"His brain is larger than that of any other animal, even the most enormous; he is provided with an uvula, and has organs of speech. His face is placed in the same parallel line with his body: he has a projecting compressed nose, and a prominent chin. His feet, in walking, rest on the heel. He has no tail; and lastly the species is distinguished from other animals by some peculiarities of the female constitution which have been noticed already.”

In the earlier editions of his system Linnéus arranged the Troglodytes as another variety of the genus Homo; but he afterwards, and certainly with propriety, transferred them to the genus SIMIA, which see: though there have not been wanting of late, nor are wanting even at present, some physiologists who affect to regard this species of the Simia as the common stock from which all the different varieties of man have arisen: or rather who affect to believe that both man and ape descend from the monkey; the tail having been progressively lost from inusitation, or some accidental circumstance in the animal constitution. Lord Monboddo was one of the warmest and most sturdy adherents to this opinion. From its own absurdity, however, it is now daily losing ground, and will probably be soon totally forgotten.

A still farther variety of the genus Homo has been supposed to exist in the white and colourless individuals denominated Albinos; a name first applied by the Portuguese to Moors who were born white, with every other characteristic of the race from which they descended, and who, on account of this hue, were looked upon by the negroes as monsters. In these persons, however, there were other peculiarities besides the hue of their skin; for their hair, wherever it made its appearance, was equally white, the iris of the eye white, and the pupil rose-coloured.

It has since been pretty fully established that this appearance, instead of indicating a distinct variety of the genus, only indicates a morbid habit of a particular kind: and a habit which is by no means confined to the Moors of Africa, or to negroes of any country; for the very same symptoms, so far as they are capable of applying, have since been ascertained to exist in various parts of Europe: two (both boys) by Saussures, in the regions of Chamouni, where he found them exhibited as a public spectacle by their parents, with lips somewhat thick, light hair, and rose-coloured eyes; four (males also) who were inhabitants of Milan; another male described by Maupertuis; another by Helvetius; and several of still later date in our own country, of whom a few have been females.

Now it is a clear proof that the persons thus denominated Albinos do not form a distinct variety of inan, since, although they are stated to be occasionally propagated in Guinea, Java, and Panama, from cohabitation of males and females equally affected with this disease, yet that the instances now adduced sprung, in every example, from parents of coloured hair, common complexion, and eyes of an usual appearance; and hence that when Albinos have been propagated, they can only have been propagated as possessing an hereditary

disease.

The proximate cause of this disease is obviously a deficiency in the secretion of that Fete mucosum, or general colouring matter under the cuticle, which varies the complexion, the colour of the hair, and of the eyes; VOL. V.

and the absence of which reduces the whole to the same whitish or colourless appearance. Of the remote cause, we are totally ignorant to the present moment. The physical strength we usually find impaired; but the mental faculties seem to sustain no injury.

Another observation we have to make is that the disease, be its remote origin what it may, appears to be more common among males than among females. It seems to have been the opinion of Saussures and Barri that it was altogether confined to males, but this is unquestionably a mistake; for several female Albinas or Albinesses, as they have been called, have been publickly exhibited in this metropolis within the course of the last twenty years, and one if not two of them indigenous to the united kingdom.

Some physiologists, indeed, have on this account gone so far as to imagine that the disease is as common among females as among males, but that from the greater modesty of the former, they have more frequently shunned to make public spectacles of themselves. This however is mere opinion, and that not a very plausible opinion; while it is opposed by almost all the few facts we are able to advance upon this curious subject. In proof of this we will venture to select the following statement of a gentleman whose authority is of no small weight, to which we might add several other instances of a similar kind, if we could allow ourselves space. We select the following, however, because the account is accurately drawn up, and because, if we mistake not, it constitutes the latest account of the kind that has yet been presented to the public. It is given in a letter from Dr. T. S. Traill of Liverpool, to Mr. Nicholson, and was published in his Journal of Natural Philosophy for February 7, 1808.

"Robert Edmond and his wifeAnne are both natives of Anglesey in North Wales. He has blue eyes and hair almost black; her eyes are blue, and her hair of a light brown. Neither of them have remarkably fair skins. They have been married fourteen years. Their first child, a girl, had blue eyes and brown hair. The second, a boy, (now before me) has the characteristics of an albino: viz. very fair skin, flaxen hair, and rose-coloured eyes. The third and fourth children were twins, and both boys; one of them has blue eyes and dark brown hair; the other was an albino. The former is still alive: the albino lived nine months, though a very puny child. The fifth child, a girl, had blue eyes and brown hair. The sixth, and last now here, is a perfect albino.

"The oldest of these albinoes is now nine years of age, of a delicate constitution, slender, but well formed both in person and in features; his appetite has always been bad: he frequently complains of a dull pain in his forehead; his skin is exceedingly fair; his hair flaxen and soft; his cheeks have very little of the rose in them. The iris and pupil of his eyes are of a bright rose-red colour, reflecting

SS

solid contents are homologous or proportional to the cubes of the same.

HOMONYMOUS. a. (oμμ.) Denominating different things; equivocal.

HOMONYMY. s. (quora.) Equivocation; ambiguity.

HOMOPHONOUS, a term in music, applied to such strings or voices as were in uni

son.

HOMOPLATÆ OS. (omplata, wuxiala, from ωμος, the shoulder, and lɑ, the blade). See SCAPULA.

HOMOTONOUS. a. (qμotov✪.) Equable: said of such distempers as keep a constant tenour of rise, state, and declension (Quincy).