1897.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 527 



cated the adoption of a uniform method of describing its form and 

 parts. In general theory, he followed Dr. James Aitken Meigs in 

 his classification, and pointed out that the quite recent plan of Pro- 

 fessor Giuseppe Sergi is little more than a return to Meigs' meth- 

 ods. 



He was the first (in 1891) to suggest the term " pedomorphism " 

 as signifying the retention of infantile and adolescent traits in the 

 adult skull, and extended the connotation of the term to the whole 

 skeleton. He gave this characteristic a more exact value, by show- 

 ing that it is present in greater or lesser degree in every skull, and 

 he urged that such traits should form a part of the description of 

 every specimen. 



The chief results of his studies in craniology are included in two 

 remarkable memoirs. The earlier was published in the Journal of 

 this Academy for 1896, entitled Crania from the Mounds of the 

 St. Johns River, Florida : a Study made in connection with Crania 

 from other parts of North America. 



The reception which this memoir received among craniologists 

 was most favorable. Professor Emil Schmidt, of Leipzig, one of 

 the most competent judges in Europe, said of it at the- close of a 

 review in the Centralblatt fur Anthropologic: "This is the most 

 important contribution to craniological science which American 

 scientific literature has offered for a long series of years." 



It would be quite impossible to do it justice in a few words, and 

 and it would be inappropriate here to enter into its technical details. 

 It may be sufficient to say that it advances a new and more com- 

 plete terminology than that now generally in use ; that various 

 novel and ingenious instruments for measurement are described ; 

 and that the comparisons instituted are of the most thoroughgoing 

 kind. 



These lines of thought and others of an allied nature were con- 

 tinued in a memoir, not yet published, but which will soon appear 

 in the Transactions of the Wagner Free Institute of Science. Its 

 subject is a series of skulls from the Hawaiian Islands, some from 

 caves, others from shore burials. 



As this memoir was completed by Dr. Allen but a few weeks be- 

 fore his death, it may be considered to embody his maturest opin- 

 ions, and I shall give it, therefore, a somewhat full examination. 



The same terminology is adopted in it, as in the previous memoir 

 referred to, and the methods of investigation are the same or anal- 



