MAN GETTING SMALLER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18333, 24 February 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAN GETTING SMALLER.

FROM GIANTS TO DWARFS.

A French statistician has been studying the average heights of men at different periods of the world's history, and has reached some alavming conclusions The recorded facts extend oVer nearly three centuries. It is found : that in 1610 She average height of men in Europe was nearly sft. 6in. In 1790 it was sft. 6in. In 1820 it was sft. sin. and a fraction. At the present time it is sft. s Jin. It is easy to deduce from these figures a rate of regular and gradual decline in human stature. By this calculation it is determined that the stature of the first men attained the surprising average of 16ft 9in. The race had already deteriorated in the days of og, and Goliath was quite a degenerate offspring of the giants. Coming down to later time, we find that at the beginning of our era the average height of man was 9ft., and in the time of Charlemagne it was Bft. Bin. But the most astonishing result of this man study comes from the application of the same law of diminution. It is conclusively shown that in 4000 A.D. the height of the average man will be but) 15 inches, and in a few thousand years more the end of the world will come, for men will get so short that there will be nothing left of them.