SPANISH ANTHROPOLOGY. 101 



observers are many ; and even the maximum error here 

 recorded would not transpose a head from the dolicho- 

 to the brachykephalic category. But Oloriz's experience 

 furnishes a new caution as to the importance of the personal 

 equation. 



The mean index for Spain in general is ascertained to 

 be 78*18, or, with correction for the different relation of the 

 numbers observed to the population of the several provinces 

 respectively, may be put at 78*23, which may be taken as 

 the standard index of the country. 



De Aranzadi and De Hoyos-Sainz nowhere state their 

 mean cranial index for the whole country, but their figures 

 indicate that it should be somewhere between 76 and 76*5. 

 And this is probably a trifle too high, because their material, 

 as already stated, has been drawn in greater proportion from 

 the north, centre and south-west than from elsewhere ; and 

 the north, as we shall presently see, is decidedly more 

 brachykephalic than the east, or indeed than most other 

 parts of Spain. 



Some light is thus thrown on the vexed and important 

 question of the relation of the breadth indices in the dry 

 skull and in the living head respectively ; and the practice 

 of those who are accustomed to subtract 2 from the 

 kephalic to form the cranial index receives some support. 

 Oloriz himself, too, comparing 116 modern skulls found in 

 certain known localities in Spain with 1 5 1 heads of modern 

 inhabitants of the same, brings out indices of 76*4 and 78*8 

 respectively, thus showing a^difference exceeding 2. Cer- 

 tain (95) ancient skulls, from the same or neighbouring 

 localities, yielded an index of 75*57, distinctly lower than 

 that of the moderns in five cases out of six ; on the other 

 hand, De Hoyos-Sainz affirms that the modern Asturians 

 have heads narrower by three degrees of the index than 

 their ancestors of the sixteenth century ! I say ancestors, 

 because I do not believe that any considerable immigration 

 has occurred which may have modified the breed. On the 

 whole, therefore, there is not much to support the doctrine 

 of the general increase of brachykephaly. 



As for the opinion of Amnion and De Laponge, that cities 



