292 [Nov., 1S45. 



Dr. Joseph Leidy stated, as the result of his observation by 

 the microscope, of a portion of a vertebra of the fossil Zeuglo- 

 don of Alabama, that it presented all the characters, well 

 denned, of recent bone. 



Dr. Morton made the following remarks on the skulls of 

 two natives of New Holland, deposited by him this evening. 



After many fruitless attempts to obtain some of the crania of 

 these singular people, I am at length indebted to Dr. Charles 

 Nicholson, an intelligent naturalist of Sydney, for two remarkably 

 well characterised skulls, male and female, respecting which I 

 submit the following notes. 



Both these heads have several characters in common ; they 

 are thick, ponderous, long and narrow, the forehead being low, 

 and the occipital region remarkably full. The orbits are deep 

 and quadrangular, the bones of the nose short and compressed, 

 and the nasal meatus wide and arched at the sides. 



The sutures are throughout remarkable for their simplicity, and 

 in the woman the coronal and spheno-temporal sutures are con- 

 tinuous; an arrangement that is not unfrequent in the negro. 

 In the female head, also, the coronal region is very low. In the 

 man it is higher, and the area of the temporal muscle is particu- 

 larly conspicuous. This cranium is also marked by several cica- 

 trised depressions of the external table, of which the two largest 

 are on the frontal and parietal bones. These wounds are readily 

 accounted for in the irascible and pugnacious character of the 

 Australian savages. 



The preceding characteristics are, in general, analogous to those 

 of the African negro ; but a striking osteological difference be- 

 tween the two races, consists in the far greater prominence of the 

 face in the Negro than in the Australian. In the former the 

 facial angle was established by Prof. Camper at 75°, and this has 

 been confirmed by nearly one hundred measurements by my 

 own hands. Yet in the two Australians before us, the angle in 

 the man measures 84°, in the woman 81°, or more than the Cau- 

 casian mean. This, however, does not result, as we have seen, 

 from a well-formed cranium, but from a fulness of the supra- 

 orbitar region, and the small and non-projecting character of the 

 face. These features of the facial structure are remarkably ex- 



