44 PROCEEDINGS OP THE ACADEMY OF 



count of being equally expanded in breadth. It forms a skull of considerable 

 capacity, and is well exhibited in the cranium from the Western Hill Barrow, 

 No. 6, although not very apparent in the lithograph of the profile. 



IV. These are the chief aberrant forms. It is probable there may be another 

 distinguished by the extreme elevation of the vertex, to which the name of 

 aero-cephalic is applicable. It is not unlikely that the skull from the Barrow at 

 Kennet, near the famous avenue and megalithic circle of Avebury in Wiltshire, 

 in the lithograph No. 9, is an instance. Its extraordinary facial form we fear 

 is partly to be attributed to some distortion arising from an imperfect restora- 

 tion from the fragments to which it was reduced when found. 



From the remarks now made, it will be seen that our investigations are far 

 from giving countenance to a doctrine, announced by a very respectable 

 authority, that in primeval times the skulls of mankind were much more alike 

 than in the present day, that they were, as it may be said, "stereotyped" in 

 one mould. So far from this we believe it may be proved in this field, as in all 

 others, that diversity within certain definite limits has been the beautiful law of 

 nature from the first. 



In stature we have reason to know the ancient Britons varied a good deal. A 

 famous skeleton of a British chieftain, discovered in a coffin made out of the 

 trunk of a tree, in 1834, at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, and now preserved 

 in the Museum of that town, measured 6 feet 2 inches in height. Another 

 skeleton, also from the North Riding of Yorkshire, in the rich Museum of British 

 antiquities of Mr. Bateman, of Youlgrave, in Derbyshire, measures only 5 feet 

 3 inches in height. Whilst that of a British woman in the same Museum, from 

 a Derbyshire Barrow called " Wagon Lowe," near Buxton, measures 5 feet 5| 

 inches in height. 



No one has labored so earnestly, so diligently, and with so much pains and 

 care as the late Professor Morton to bring the test of the measurement of crania 

 of various races to tlie elucidation of different obscure problems of anthropo- 

 logical science. It becomes us, therefore, to explain what little information we 

 have been able to collect upon this subject. At present it is but little, still in 

 the course of another year or two we trust to make it much more complete. In 

 bringing our present imperfect evidence before the Academy, we hope to be ex- 

 cused for remarking, that we are not inclined to expect quite so much or quite 

 such conclusive information from the determination of the capacities of crania 

 as Morton did. And we are satisfied that a much more extended observation, 

 upon a more defined basis than he adopted, is requisite to develope data of a 

 reliable character as to the relative capacities of difi'erent series of skulls. One 

 great source of error will require to be eliminated, arising from taking any series 

 of crania above a certain age, provided they are not idiots, indiscriminately^ and 

 without regard to the relative numbers of the different sexes. For instance, from the 

 remarkable and well known difference in the size of the skulls of men and of 

 women of the same race, if we have an equal number of crania of two races to 

 compare together, the one series containing a greater number of those of women 

 than the other, the whole calculation will be vitiated. But without dwelling 

 further upon tlaese questions at present, we will give, in a tabular form, the in- 

 ternal capacities of a few ancient British crania, merely explaining that they are 

 all those of men, and are taken with dry sand by weight. In order, however, 

 to render them as far as possible available for comparison witli Morton's great 

 table laid before the Academy in the year 1849, and published in the "Pro- 

 ceedings" for that year, we have converted them into the denomination of cubic 

 inches employed by him, and arranged the figures exactly as he did. 



Number of Ancient British skulls of men 11. 



Largest internal capacity 110-15 cubic inches. 



Smallest do. 87-7 " 



Mean do. 98-6 " 



These results do not admit a strict comparison with the table of Morton, on 

 the ground already stated, that the British skulls have belonged to men exclu- 

 sively. Still we shall be safe in comparing Morton's largest internal ca])acity 



[Feb. 



