NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 273 



and continuously applied to the occipital region during growth. Formerly the 

 custom of distorting the head was supposed to be confined to the American abo- 

 rigines. It is now known to have prevailed in various parts of the old world as 

 well as in the new. The Jerusalem skull is a strongly marked, perhaps I may 

 say, an exaggerated example of the Tste deprimee par de'rridre, of Dr. Gosse, of 

 Geneva. This excellent craniographer divides all artificially deformed skulls 

 into sixteen classes. In the fifteenth he places occipitally flattened crania. 

 Besides the Peruvian and other aboriginal Americans, the Tahitians, accord- 

 ing to Ellis,* and the natives of the Nicobar Isles, according to Nicolas Fon- 

 tana,f were in the habit of flattening the heads of their children in this 

 manner. Insfeld, cited by Soemmering, t says of the Kalmucks, "quadratum 

 formam appetunt. " We learn from Vesalius that occipital deformation was 

 practiced in his time by certain German tribes. " Germani, " he writes, ' ' vero 

 compresso plerumque occipite et lato capite spectantur, quod pueri in cunis 

 dorso semper incumbant, ac manibus fere citra fasciarum usum, cunarum 

 lateribus utrinque alliguntur." Hence, the term tete carree applied to. the 

 Germans. Vesalius also writes of the Tnrks : "Turcarum capite globi fere 

 iniaginem exprimunt, ad hanc quoque obstetricibus nonnunquam magna ma- 

 trum sollicitudine opem ferentibus." The Tahitian and Nicobarian crania 

 being dolichokephalic, we may, on this account, as well as for obvious geo- 

 graphical reasons, set them aside, as we have already the Turks, in our at- 

 tempts to determine the nationality of the Jerusalem skull. We thus limit 

 ourselves to a choice between the Mongols, Germans, Peruvians, and, for rea- 

 sons presently to be stated, the Sclavonians, and a certain brachykephalic 

 race, cranial specimens of which have been found in the Catacombs of Paris, 

 by the late Dr. Harlan, and placed in the Academy's collection by his son. 

 One of the latter, No. 664, bears much resemblance to the Barclay skull. The 

 two, however, are by no means, identical in form. For the forehead in No. 

 664 is broader in proportion to the bind-head than in the Jerusalem skull ; the 

 crown in the former is consequently less triangular, and the occiput, though 

 flattened in the same way, is not so decidedly and broadly flattened. The 

 crown of our Jerusalem fragment more closely resembles that of a Sclavonian 

 head from Olmutz, No. 1251 of the collection. The calvaria in both is trian- 

 gular in shape, but more elevated at the junction of the sagittal and coronal 

 sutures in the Sclavonian than in the skull from Palestine. The occipital region 

 in the latter is globular, and has not been subjected to the flattening process. 

 Nevertheless, if it had been vertically flattened by art, we can weli imagine 

 that it would have strikingly resembled the Jerusalem skull. The Sclavic 

 skull from Morlack, in Dalmatia, exhibits an oblong coronal region. The 

 shape of the crown in the short-headed German type (such as seen in Nos. 37 

 and 1063) is a rounded square. In the German head, No. 706, the crown is 

 triangular, but that part at the junction of the sagittal and coronal su- 

 tures, is very much arched, and in this respect is unlike the Jerusalem frag- 

 ment. In the long-headed Germans the crown forms a broad oval. The Jeru- 

 salem skull very closely resembles the cast of a Burat Mongol head, No. 1355 

 of the collection. It also resembles the Kalmuck skull, No.1553, though less 

 decidedly. In the brachykephalic Burat head there is the same triangular 

 crown, narrow ' at the forehead and broad between the parietal bosses ; the 

 same moderate fulness of the centre of the dome, and the same symmetry. 

 Had the occiput been flattened the forms of the two crania would have been 

 identical. As it is, the occipital region projects but a short distance behind 

 the foramen magnum, so that very little compression would be necessary to 



* Polynesian Researches, London, 1831, vol. 1, p. SO. 



t Asiatic Researches, London, 1799. vol. 3, p. 151. 



tDe Corp. Human. Fab. Traject ad Mosnum, 1794, ], 62. 



1859.] 



