CHAPTER III THE RATE OF GROWTH

with the curve which represents growth in length, or stature, our diagram shows the curve of weight²¹. That this curve is of a very different shape from the former one, is accounted for in the main (though not wholly) by the fact which we have already dealt with, that, whatever be the law of increment in a linear dimension, the law of increase in volume, and therefore in weight, will be that these latter magnitudes tend to vary as the cubes of the linear dimensions. This however does not account for the change of direction, or 〜point of inflection〝 which we observe in the curve of weight at about one or two years old, nor for certain other differences between our two curves which the scale of our diagram does not yet make clear. These differences are due to the fact that the form of the child is altering with growth, that other linear dimensions are varying somewhat differently from length or stature, and that consequently the growth in bulk