PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS, ETC. 355 



capacities of the Bengawan, Neanderthal and Spy in- 

 dividuals as representative of Quaternary man. 1 



Thirteen hundred cubic centimetres contained in the 

 short, narrow and hio-h cranial chambers of modern 

 Europeans are no better than, as far as we know, an 

 equal number contained in the elongated, wide and 

 depressed skulls of fossil men. The fact remains, how- 

 ever, that, since Quaternary times, the prevalent form of 

 brain chamber has changed. The lengths of Bengawan, 

 Neanderthal and Spy cranial chambers are 155, 169, 

 168, 170 m.m. ; the greatest breadths, 120, 135, T30, 140 

 m.m. ; basi-bregmatic heights, no (?), 125 (?), 128, 132 

 m.m. In these diameters they resemble a considerable 

 proportion of Australian crania, except that the fossil skulls 

 are relatively broader than their existing counterparts. In 

 the majority of modern Europeans the length and breadth, 

 as compared with fossil skulls, have been sacrificed for an 

 addition to the height of the cranial chamber; but occasionally 

 forms occur with diameters that approximate to those of 

 the Australian and fossil crania. In this we see how 

 gradually the type changes. The squat, low-browed crania 

 were evidently the prevailing forms in Quaternary times ; 

 they have come straggling down to the present in ever- 

 diminishing numbers, until they are now almost ousted by 

 the prevalent high-foreheaded types of modern times. 



In this connection the Engis skull is interesting ; it 

 has every claim to geological antiquity possessed by the 

 Neanderthal calvaria, but it is strictly of the modern type. 

 It is now the recipient of "scant attention, but there is no 

 reason why it may not be regarded as representative of a 

 minority of the Neanderthal (Canstadt) race, just as the 

 fossil types represent a minority of to-day. There never 

 was, nor ever will be, a race that manifests more than a 

 proportion of crania of a similar type. It is no explanation 

 to say that divergences of cranial form are due to a mixture 



1 Turner {Jour. Aiiat. and Physiology April, 1895) refers to a 

 Quaternary skull described by Testut {Bulletin de la Soc. d ' Anthrop. de 

 Lyon, viii., 1889), the cranial capacity of which is estimated at 1700 c.c. 

 The original communication I have not been able to consult. 



