CEANIOMETRT AND CBANIOGEAPHT. 359 



meuts. Sucli figures as these can be very readily and accurately 

 made by means of tlie ordinary camera lucida, and a few very 

 simple contrivances, for placing the cranium in the proper positions 

 and at the proper distances for the proportionate size, only are 

 required. 



With respect to the size in which crania should be represented, 

 convenience alone would suggest that one below the natural should 

 be adopted ; and for all possible purposes it would seem that they 

 would be answered by figures half the size of nature, as well as by 

 larger ones, which are not a whit more useful, nor in fact more na- 

 tural, when we consider the usual distances at which a skull and a 

 drawing of it are by most persons respectively viewed. The various 

 views of the cranium we should propose, are :— 



1. The side or profile view {norma lateralis). 



2. Tlie posterior or occipital view {norma occipitalis). 



3. The anterior or frontal view (norma frontalis) . 



4. The vertical view {norma verticalis), and 



5. The base view {norma hasalis). 



In taking these five views, the position of the skull on its sup- 

 port, which should be capable of rotation, only requires to be changed 

 once, that is to say, from that in which the vertical line is perpendi- 

 cular, to that in which it is exactly horizontal and the basal line in 

 turn perpendicular. It is almost needless to observe that in order to 

 ensure accuracy it is necessary that the camera should, as nearly as 

 possible, be opposite the centre of the perspective plane in each posi- 

 tion of the cranium. 



Many other points cormected with craniometry have been left 

 unnoticed for want of space, but which still deserve attention, as 

 much perhaps as those we have so hastily touched upon. Such are^ 

 for instance, the internal capacity and the various modes of ascer- 

 taining it in the unopened cranium ; the form of the nasal opening, 

 with respect to which so much of interest is given in Mr. William- 

 son's very valuaJjle and interesting account of the collection of 

 crania at Fort Pitt ; the shape and position of the orbits ; the various 

 forms of the lower jaw ; the effects of age, or art, or posthumous 

 change in modifying the form of the skuU, &c. — subjects the discus- 

 sion of which would amply occupy as much space as we have already 

 filled. For the same reason we have been compelled to defer any 

 more particular notice of several very ingenious and valuable instru- 

 ments that have been contrived to facilitate the measiu-ing of the 

 cranium. Some of these contrivances have for their object, or are 

 capable of being applied not only to the accurate and minute mea- 

 surement of the skull, but also, by the method of taking a series of 

 abscisses and ordinates, to allow of such a scheme of the various sur- 

 faces being laid down that an outline of the curves can be drawn from 

 it. This appears to be the plan followed — as we gather from an 

 observation by Prof Wagner, in the Gottingen Eeport (p. 86), — • 

 by Dr. Aeby of Basle ; and the same object may very readily be 



