Professor Owen on Naloo Crania. 389 



and very large Equorea^ a genus new to Britain, also the 

 Arachnactis albida^ a remarkable swimming Actinea, dis- 

 covered by Sars in the Norwegian seas, and now added to the 

 British fauna. EDWARD FOKBES. 



Observations on Three Skulls of Naloo Africam. By Richard 

 Owen, F.R.S., Hunterian Professor of Comparative Ana- 

 tomy in the Royal College of Surgeons.* Communicated 

 by the Ethnological Society. 



These skulls have belonged to mature but not aged indi- 

 viduals : two (A and B) are male ; the third (C) appears to 

 be a female. They shew no trace of disease. According to 

 Camper's method the facial angle of the skull B is 70°, that 

 of C is 67", while that of A does not exceed 65°. All exhibit 

 the prognathic character in its extreme degree, but it is less 

 marked in B, owing to the minor development of the incisive 

 alveoli, to which also the difference in the facial angle is 

 chiefly attributable. 



By the " vertical" or Blumenbachian method of comparison, 

 the oval is long, narrow, much contracted anteriorly ; but in 

 this respect the skull B has the advantage, and shews a 

 greater fulness of the frontal region. 



In the anterior comparison, or by '' Pritchard's method," 

 the two tangential lines carried from the malar prominence 

 upwards meet much sooner in A, than in B or C. The 

 individual differences in this respect being so great, espe- 

 cially in A and C, as to affect the value of this mode of com- 

 parison in its relation to the characteristics of race. 



The comparison, according to the basal method, shews the 

 same degree of posterior position of the foramen occipitale, 

 as compared with the Indo-European or American races 

 which the majority of Ethiopian skulls manifest ; and also 

 the same advanced position of the alveolar area, in rela- 

 tion to the zygomatic arches. The extent to which the 

 latter arches are occupied by the outline of the cranium 

 behind, is rather greater in B than in A and 0, but is in 



* Read before the Ethnological Society, 25th April 1849. 



