ZOOLOGY. 357 



AMERICAN CRANIA. 



AT the Boston Natural History Society, April 17, the President, 

 Dr. Warren, exhibited a number of American crania, and pointed 

 out the difference between those of races quite distinct in geograph- 

 ical position. He compared a Mexican head of primitive race with 

 one of a North American Indian, showing as great a similarity be- 

 tween them as is usually seen between the crania of Indians of the 

 same tribe. A cranium of one of the second of the Mexican races, 

 the Toltec, was shown, in comparison with the crania of three Mound 

 Indians and an Inca Peruvian, to resemble them all very closely, giv- 

 ing probability to the opinion that they were all originally of the same 

 stock, the Mound Indians by migration having founded the Toltec 

 race, and they, in turn, the Inca. He also exhibited one of the elon- 

 gated crania of the Peruvian race which preceded the Incas ; also an 

 Aztec cranium belonging to the race which followed the Toltecan in 

 Mexico, remarkable for its antero-posterior compression, and a deep 

 perpendicular depression behind, extending up over the vertex, divid- 

 ing the head into two lateral lobes. A cranium of a Natchez Indian 

 was shown to resemble this last very closely, particularly in the flat- 

 tening from before backwards. Proceedings of the Natural History 

 Society. 



PECULIARITIES OF AFRICAN CRANIA. 



DR. NEIL mentions two peculiarities more or less completely char- 

 acteristic of the African skull. One is the division of the articulating 

 surface of the occipital condyle into two faces by a transverse ridge or 

 groove. The two faces are sufficiently rounded off in some cases to 

 give the outline of the figure 8, instead of an oval. An examination 

 of the skulls in the extensive collection of Dr. Morton, of Philadel- 

 phia, showed that this mark existed in 30 out of 81 African crania, 

 in only 4 pure Egyptian heads, and in 3 out of 105 heads of aborigi- 

 nal Americans, but in none out of 129 skulls of other nations. The 

 occasional existence of this mark has been previously noticed, but Dr. 

 Neil has first pointed out its rarity in other than African crania. He 

 suggests that this transverse mark represents the fissure which in the 

 foetus separates the basi-occipital bone from the next piece of the occi- 

 put on each side. This fact, if it holds generally, may be considered 

 an illustration of the law thus propounded by Agassiz : "In the dif- 

 ferent formations through which animals pass, from the first formation 

 in the embryo up to the full-grown condition, may be found a natural 

 scale, by which to measure and estimate the position to ascribe to any 

 animals." Thus, the persistence of a fetal stage of formation would 

 mark the race to which it was peculiar as a lower variety of the spe- 

 cies. Another fetal peculiarity persistent in the African head is the 

 absence of a sharp edge at the lower boundary of the anterior nares, 

 running from the anterior edge of the nasal process to the anterior 

 nasal spine. American Journal of Medical Sciences, Jan- 



