in VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULL. 189 



not known to be more common among Negroes 

 or Australians: nor because the brain of the 

 Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to 

 have its convolutions more symmetrically disposed, 

 and to be, so far, more ape-like than that of ordi- 

 nary Europeans, are we justified in concluding a 

 like condition of the brain to prevail universally 

 among the lower races of mankind, however prob- 

 able that conclusion may be. 



We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information 

 respecting the disposition of the soft and de- 

 structible organs of every Eace of Mankind but 

 our own; and even of the skeleton, our Museums 

 are lamentably deficient in every part but the 

 cranium. Skulls enough there are, and since the 

 time when Blumenbach and Camper first called 

 attention to the marked and singular differences 

 which they exhibit, skull collecting and skull meas- 

 uring has been a zealously pursued branch of 

 Natural History, and the results obtained have 

 been arranged and classified by various writers, 

 among whom the late active and able Eetzius must 

 always be the first named. 



Human skulls have been found to differ from 

 one another, not merely in their absolute size and 

 in the absolute capacity of the brain case, but in 

 the proportions which the diameters of the latter 

 bear to one another; in the relative size of the 

 bones of the face (and more particularly of the 

 jaws and teeth) as compared with those of the 



