The observations were made in New Zealand,--Dr. Thomson being stationed there with his regiment, and being charged with the duty of vaccinating all natives employed by the government. The islanders thus used for experiment were to some extent picked men, as none but able-bodied persons would have been selected for employ, and as they were, moreover, (he states,) accustomed to lifting burdens, and better-fed than the majority of their countrymen. The New Zealand race, as a whole, is certainly a very favorable type of barbarism, having but just emerged from an utterly savage condition, having been cannibals within one generation, and being the very identical people among whom were recorded those wonderful cures of flesh-wounds to which Emerson has referred. Cook and all other navigators have praised their robust physical aspect, and they undoubtedly, with the Fijians and the Tongans, stand at the head of all island races. They are admitted to surpass our American Indians, as well as the Kaffirs and the Joloffs, probably the finest African races; and a careful comparison between New-Zealanders and Anglo-Saxons will, therefore, approach as near to an _experimentum crucis_ as any single set of observations can. The following tables have been carefully prepared from those of Dr. Thomson, with the addition of some scanty facts from other sources,--scanty, because, as Quetelet indignantly observes, less pains have as yet been taken to measure accurately the physical powers of man than those of any machine he has constructed or any animal he has tamed. TABLE. HEIGHT. _Number measured. Average._ New-Zealanders................... 147 5 feet 6-3/4 inches. Students at Edinburgh............ 800 5 " 7-1/10 " Class of 1860. Cambridge (Mass.). 106 5 " 7-3/5 " Students at Cambridge (Eng.)..... 80 5 " 8-3/5 " WEIGHT. New-Zealanders................... 146 140 pounds. Soldiers 58th Regiment........... 1778 142 " Class of 1860. Cambridge (Mass.). 106 142-1/2 " Students at Cambridge (Eng.)..... 80 143 " Men weighed at Boston (U.S.) Mechanics' Fair, 1860 ......... 4369 146-3/4 " Englishmen (Dr. Thomson)......... 2648 148 " Cambridge, Eng. (a newspaper statement) .................... ---- 151 " Revolutionary officers at West Point, August 10th, 1778, given in "Milledulcia," p. 273.. 11 226 " AREA OF CHEST. New-Zealanders................... 151 35.36 inches. Soldiers 58th Regiment........... 628 36.71 " STRENGTH IN LIFTING. New-Zealanders................... 31 367 pounds. Students fit Edinburgh, aged 25.. ---- 416 " Soldiers 58th Regiment........... 33 422 " NOTE. The range of strength among the New-Zealanders was from 250 pounds to 420 pounds; among the soldiers, from 350 pounds to 504 pounds.