166 ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 



well as two others found in the same locality. To the same category he 

 also refers the skulls disinterred, together with stone implements, near 

 Meudon and Marly, in the year 1845, by M. Serres. Eetzius, also, inhi3 

 memoir on the form of the cranium of the northern populations, states 

 that the supraorbital eminences are strongly developed in the existing 

 Swedes, Slaves, and Finns ; Huech says the same with respect to the 

 Esthonians. In the Lapps this prominence is absent, or very slightly 

 marked, as is the case also with the natives of Greenland. In the latest 

 catalogue of the collection formerly belonging to Dr. Morton,*' the fol- 

 lowing skulls are enumerated as presenting a remarkably developed 

 supraorbital region : — No. 21, that of an English soldier of Celtic 

 type ; No. 1200, of a Norwegian; and No. 1537, of a Finn, both from 

 casts by Hetzius ; lastly, No. 1512, the skull of an aboriginal American, 

 found by Davis and Squier in the valley of Scioto, Ohio, in a rude 

 stone sepulchre ; this cranium is of a rounded form, with high vertex ;f 

 No. 1533, the skull of a Calmuc; and No. 1558, that of an Esquimaux. 



Now, when it is found from these numerous examples, that a 

 marked prominence of the supraorbital region, traces of which can be 

 perceived even at the present time, occurs most frequently in the crania 

 of barbarous, and especially of northern races, to some of which a high 

 antiquity must be assigned, it may fairly be supposed that a conforma- 

 tion of this kind represents the faint vestiges of a primitive type, which 

 is manifested in the most remarkable manner in the Neanderthal cra- 

 nium, and which must have given the human visage an unusually 

 savage aspect. This aspect might be termed brutal, inasmuch as the 

 prominent supraorbital border is also characteristic of the facial con- 

 formation of the large apes, although in these animals the prominence 

 in question is not caused by any expansion of the frontal sinuses. These 

 sinuses have been found by Owen to be wholly wanting, as well in the 

 Gorilla, as in two Tasmanian and an Australian skull, J a circumstance 

 which is in accordance with the weak bodily constitutions of these 

 savages. 



The reports which have reached us from Latin and Greek writers 

 respecting the bodily constitution and manners of the barbarous popula- 

 tions of ancient Europe, receive an unexpected light from the discovery 

 of crania of this kind. Even of the Germans, Caesar remarks that the 

 Roman soldiers were unable to withstand their aspect and the flashing 

 of their eyes, and that a sudden panic seized his army.§ Of the Gauls, 



* Aitken Meigs, Catalogue of Human Crania in the Collection of the Acad, of Nat. 

 Sc. of Philadelphia. 1857. 



f [The cranium of a Red Indian figured by us. PI. V., figs. 1 and 2, appears to be- 

 long to the same type.] 



% In the Gorilla the frontal sinuses are of large size, although they do not altogether 

 cons' itute the large supraorbital eminences. 



§ Csesar, in the passage cited, does not say that his troops were actually frightened 

 by the aspect of the Germani. All that he states is that, while delayed for a few days at 



