VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



13:25 



city than the largest Anglo-American. It is 

 obvious, then, that no constant and impass- 

 able line of distinction can be drawn on this 

 basis, between any of the varieties of the 

 human race. 



We have now to inquire if the foregoing 

 types of cranial conformation are sufficiently 

 fixed and definite to furnish specific characters ; 

 that is (1.), whether they are always clearly 

 distinguishable from each other, or are con- 

 nected together by a succession of gradations 

 that renders it impossible to draw a distinct 

 line of demarcation between them : and (2.) 

 whether they are so invariably transmitted 

 from one generation to another, where the 

 purity of the race has been preserved, as to 

 entitle them to be regarded as permanent and 

 unalterable ; or are occasionally seen to vary 

 in a succession of generations, so that a race 

 loses more or less completely its original 

 type, and assumes some other. 



When the cranial conformation of the 

 whole Indo- Atlantic group of nations is care- 

 fully examined, it is perceived that although 

 the' elliptical type prevails among them, it is 

 comparatively seldom seen in its perfection, 

 and that a decided tendency is frequently 

 seen towards one or other of the other types, 

 or towards a mixture of the characters of all. 

 Considerable variation is thus presented, not 

 merely by the different races, but by different 

 individuals of the same race. Thus in every 

 large collection of English skulls, for example, 

 crania would probably be found differing 

 nearly as widely from each other in the 

 proportion of length to breadth, as do the 

 average of Negro and Mongolian crania ; 

 whilst, again, some would exhibit more or 

 less of approximation to the prognathous 

 type, and others to the pyramidal. Of the 

 former we have an example in fig. 818., and 



Fig. 818. 



Fig. 819. 



Bracln/cephalic Cranium of an Englishman. (From 

 a specimen in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons.) 



sions of its cranial portion were alone re- 

 garded, in the " dolichocephalic " division of 

 Professor Retzius, and only wants a little 

 more elongation of the muzzle to be almost 

 as prognathous as many African skulls ; whilst 

 in the second, the breadth and front-flattening 

 of the malar bones, with the inferior breadth 

 of the forehead, show that it is obviously in- 

 termediate in character between the typical 

 oval (Jig. 815) and the typical pyramidal 

 (/g. 811). So, again, if the so-called Mon- 

 golian group be surveyed, it will be found 

 that the peculiarities of the pyramidal skull 

 are often softened down, so as to present an 

 approach to the elliptical form, sometimes 

 through the whole of certain races, occasion- 

 ally only in individuals. Here, too, there is 

 a tendency to an admixture of types ; for we 

 find among the American nations a very 

 gradual transition from the truly pyramidal, 

 such as is seen in the Esquimaux (Jig. 820), 



Fig. 820. 



Dolichocephalic Cranium of European (From a 

 specimen in the Museum of the Royal College oj 

 Surgeons.) 



of the latter in fig. 819.* ; the first of these 

 skulls would certainly be placed, if the dimen- 



* Of these and most of the other figures of crania 

 illustrating this article, the author would remark 

 that, although every pains has been taken by the 

 artist it has been found impossible to express 

 adequately on a small scale some of those nicer 

 features of distinction, which are obvious enough in. 

 the skulls themselves. 



Cranium of Esquimaux. (From a specimen in the 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.) 



to a form in which there is at least as great 

 an admixture of the prognathous (fig. 822) ; 

 whilst among the Chinese and other civilised 

 nations of South-eastern Asia, we find so 

 close an approximation to the oval type, that 

 individuals are not unfrequently met with 

 amongst them, whose skulls might be taken 

 for those of Europeans.* So, again, if we 



* Such was the case, for example, with the 

 Chinese skull, whose measurements are given by 

 Professor Van der Hoeven (op. cit.) ; for in every 

 one of its dimensions it varied less from the aver- 



