536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Among the first if not the first specimen that came into my 

 possession was the skull of an adult male Navajo, and, after a 

 careful study of it, it was presented to the craniological section of 

 the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh, where 

 it now is. This was early in 1886 ; and in the April number of that 

 year of the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology of London, the 

 writer published his observations upon that skull, the paper being 

 illustrated by a fine lithographic plate presenting the four princi- 

 pal views of the same. 



In the same number of the Journal which I have named above, 

 Prof. Sir William Turner contributed an additional note upon 

 the same skull, wherein he says that it " presented a well-marked 

 parieto-occipital flattening, obviously due to artificial pressure, 

 which had been applied so as to cause the suprasquamous part 

 of the occipital bone and the posterior three fourths of the parietal 

 to slope upward and forward." 



" The frontal region did not exhibit any flattening, so that in 

 this individual, and it may be in his tribe of Indians, the pressure 

 applied in infancy was apparently limited to the back of the head. 

 Owing to this artificial distortion, the longitudinal diameter of 

 the head was diminished, and the cephalic index, 94*6, computed 

 from Dr. Shufeldt's measurements of the length and breadth, was 

 therefore higher than it would have been in an undef ormed skull. 

 The cranium was hyperbrachycephalic." 



This, and much more, was set forth in Dr. Turner's valuable 

 " note " upon my specimen ; but it was hard for me to see how a 

 baby could have pressure applied to the back of its skull of suf- 

 ficient amount to produce the flattening found, unless there was 

 a counter-pressure applied at the opposite aspect of the skull, 

 which naturally would produce there perhaps a similar flattening 

 or some other distortion, and this latter deformity is never seen 

 to exist in the skulls of the Navajos. As I say, at the time I read 

 Dr. Turner's note, I was in a position to examine this question 

 quite thoroughly, as these Indians were living all about me, and 

 I saw the Navajo women daily with their infants strapped in their 

 cradles. 



It will be seen in the sequel that my subsequent observations 

 in the premises compelled me to hold a different opinion from the 

 one advanced above by so eminent an authority as is Sir William 

 Turner. 



Another skull which soon fell into my hands was a fine speci- 

 men from a young Navajo girl of some six or seven years of age, 

 and it showed this peculiar flattening to a very marked degree. 

 By the aid of my camera I am enabled to present herewith two 

 figures of the skull of this individual, showing the flattening from 

 two views. 



