CORPOREAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. 431 



. f mouth j it shows merely the projection of the forehead, while the 

 cranium and brain may vary greatly in size in other parts j 

 three-fourths of quadrupeds, whose crania differ extremely in 

 other respects, have the same facial angle ; great amplitude of 

 the frontal sinuses, as in the owl and hog, without any increase 

 of brain, may diminish it, and for this reason Cuvier draws the 

 facial line from the internal table of the frontal bone. 



In proportion as the face is elongated, the occipital foramen 

 lies more posteriorly ; in man consequently it is most forward. 

 While in man it is nearly in the centre of the base of the cra- 

 nium, and horizontal, and has even sometimes its anterior mar- 

 gin elevated ; in most quadrupeds it is situated at the extremity 

 of the cranium obliquely, with its posterior parts turned up- 

 wards,, and is in some completely vertical. On this difference 

 of situation, Daubenton founded his occipital angle.* He drew 

 one line from the posterior edge of the foramen to the lower edge 

 of the orbit, and another, in the direction of the foramen, passing 

 between the condyles and intersecting the former. According to 

 the angle formed, he established the similarity and diversity of 

 crania. The information derived from it in this respect is very 

 imperfect, because it shows the differences of the occiput merely. 

 Blumenbach remarks that its variations are included between 

 80 and 90 in most quadrupeds which differ very essentially in 

 other points. 



The want of the os intermaxillare has been thought peculiar 

 to mankind. Quadrupeds, and nearly all the ape tribe, have 

 two bones between the superior maxillary, containing the dentes 

 incisores when these are present, and termed ossa intermaxillaria, 

 incisoria, or labialia. But it does not exist universally in them.f 



* Mciiuiires de V Academic des Sciences de Paris. 1764. 



-f In the chimpans^ that lately died at Exeter Change, the statement of 

 Tyson ^nd Daubenton has been verified, that this black ape has no intermax- 

 illary bone. The red-haired variety (Simia Satyrus) has it, and is destitute 

 of nails on the hind thumbs and liguuu'utiun teres at the head of the os femoris, 

 both which structure's this chimpansc possessed. 'The Satyrus is therefore 

 not so near the human subject as the Troplotydes. 



