Situated between these extremes—between Canada on one side and Mexico on the other—is it probable that nature to us will be more kind than she has been to them. But evidences of changing natures is already patent among us. Our American men, say intelligent clothiers of our Northern cities, are from two to three inches less around the chest than are the Europeans. This is a significant fact. But he who opens his eyes, and looks upon our slender-waisted and light-muscled American women, and compares them with the heavy-chested and strong-armed women of Europe, will see even a greater change. The European women are the heaviest. Men of science tell us that the Caucasian in America loses a portion of that cellular cushion which underlies the skin, or intervenes between it and what is called the aponeurosis; and that, as a consequence, not only does the chest diminish, but the face loses its fullness, the features sharpen, and the system generally experiences a change. This may be an immediate cause, for few facts are more patent among us than the marked fullness of European, and particularly of Teutonic faces; but for the ultimate cause, there has not yet been given, or, within our knowledge, even an attempted solution. Facts thus patent are strongly suggestive of a decline. But whatever they may be in reality, even appearances were not always so. The American man was not always below the measure of his European progenitors, nor is he now so in all localities and under all conditions of associated life. Our American men of the Revolution “were larger and stronger,” says Mr. Cobbett, an English writer of that period, “than the British troops, and by that superiority made,” he further says, the result of that war “such as an English pen refuses to write.” (_Cobbett’s Advice to Young Men_, §§275, 276 and 277.) This is European authority. But it stands not alone, for we find it fortified in records of proportions, which show our generals of that period, with but one exception, to have been all above the avoirdupois of two hundred pounds. Compare this with the weight of our like officers of the present day, and the superiority, of greater development, will be unhesitatingly accorded to the men of Revolutionary times.