MANKIND BECOMING SMALLER.

North Otago Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7908, 26 February 1894, Page 4

MANKIND BECOMING SMALLER.

A Frenoh statistician baa been Studying the Average heights of men nt different periods of the world'a history ■nd hti reiched some alarming conclaiiom. The recorded facts extend over nearly three centuries. Ib is found tbab in 1610 the average height of men in Europe was nearly 5 feet C inohes. Id 1790 ib was 5 feet G inchep. In 1820 it was 5 feet 5 inches and a fraction! At the present time it is 5 feet 3£ Inches. It ia easy to deduce from these Genres a r«te of >-egaUr *n<\ gradual decline in human Btature, and they apply, working backwards and forwards, to tho past and to the future. By this calculation it is determined that the stature of the first men attained the surprising average of 1G feet 0 lDches. The race bad already deteriorated in the day of Og, nnd Goliath wai quite a degenerate offspring of the giants. Coming down to later time, we find that at tho beginning of our era the average height of man was nine feet, and in the time of Charlemagne it was 8 feet 8 inches. But tho most astonishing results of this man sbudy comes from the application of the tame law of diminution. It is conclusively uhown that in 4000 a.i>. the height of the average man will be but 15 inches, and in a few thousand years more the end of the world wil? come, for men will geb so Bhort that there will be nothiog left of them.