"It was not worth while to enter into explanations with them," said
Thorndyke, as the footsteps died away--"nor perhaps with you?"
"On the contrary," I replied, "I am waiting to be fully enlightened."
"Well, then, my inferences in this case were perfectly simple ones,
drawn from well-known anthropological facts. The human race, as you
know, is roughly divided into three groups--the black, the white, and
the yellow races. But apart from the variable quality of colour, these
races have certain fixed characteristics associated especially with the
shape of the skull, of the eye-sockets, and the hair.
"Thus in the black races the skull is long and narrow, the eye-sockets
are long and narrow, and the hair is flat and ribbon-like, and usually
coiled up like a watch-spring. In the white races the skull is oval, the
eye-sockets are oval, and the hair is slightly flattened or oval in
section, and tends to be wavy; while in the yellow or Mongol races, the
skull is short and round, the eye-sockets are short and round, and the
hair is straight and circular in section. So that we have, in the black
races, long skull, long orbits, flat hair; in the white races, oval
skull, oval orbits, oval hair; and in the yellow races, round skull,
round orbits, round hair.
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