CKANIOMETEY AJSD CRANIOGEAPHY. 351 



tions to each other of its various parts, either absolutely, or iu com- 

 parison with other crania. The measure of the cranium proper, or 

 brain case, may be taken either on the exterior or the interior. For 

 general piu'poses the former may be held sufficient, but in cases where 

 the question turns upon the actual size and corlfiguration of the 

 brain, the latter is indispensable. In this point of view it cannot 

 be too strongly recommended to the possessors and ciu'ators of cra- 

 niological collections, that a certain proportion, at any rate, if not all 

 the crania should be bisected in the median plane. 



Before stating our own views with respect to cranial measure- 

 ments, we will now briefly extract from the Gottingeu Report the 

 substance of the system proposed by Prof. v. Baer, in the hope that 

 with some modifications perhaps, the scheme proposed by him, and 

 which appears to have been weU received by his associates at the 

 meeting, will eventually be generally adopted. 



The principles by which Prof. v. Baer was guided in proposing 

 his measurements, were — 1. To determine the points between which 

 the measures are taken as precisely as possible, so that two persons 

 measuring a cranium at dilFerent times, should find their measures 

 closely in accord. 2. To select such points, as would afford measures 

 from wliich the form of the skull could be appropriately estimated. 

 The points, therefore, would not by any means be always homologous 

 for any particular measure, as for instance, the greatest breadth 

 of a cranium would be measured between the points on either side 

 at which it really existed, whether the points in question were situated 

 higher or lower — the precise situation of the points, however, being 

 noted. 3. To avoid as much as possible the projecting ridges, which 

 vary much in different individuals according to their muscular de- 

 velopment. 4. To select, as respects the proper cranium, those 

 points where the outer surface is nearest to the inner, so as to 

 obtain a nearer approximation to the actual form of the brain. 

 In the case of the glabella, however, he has been obliged to depart 

 from this rule. Any accurate measurement of the brain in its 

 various dimensions, can, in the absence of the recent brain, only be 

 obtained from casts of the cerebral cavity. 



To the measm*ements formerly given by Prof. v. Baer in his Crania 

 Selecia, p. 4, et 5, he has since added several others of the cerebral 

 cavity taken in skulls that have been divided in the way just recom- 

 mended ; together with several of the face. In these measurements 

 he has had in view, in as few columns as possible, the expression as it 

 were in numbers of an image, or of dimensious from which the form 

 of the skull might be re-constructed. 



He proposes also the employment of certain definite termini of 

 the nature of those employed in Zoology and Botany, to express 

 mthout periphrasis the various views of the cranium, as seen from 

 above, from behind, &c. 



1. It is well known that Blumenbach placed great importance in 

 what he designated the " norma verticalis," or the view obtained by 



