402 ON A DOLICHOCEPHALIC SKULL, 



I must especially remark, that the skull is a normal one, i.e., does 

 not present even the slightest indications of being deformed. 



It is a very fair specimen of the so-called type of Roof-shaped 

 skulls. 



The index of height of the skull (from the Basion* to the 

 Bregmaf 131 mm.), on account of the great length of the same, 

 falls below the average index of height of the Australian race, 

 which is (according to the ninth edition of Quain's Anatomy 

 (Yol. I., p. 82), 71. — In our case it is 64.8. 



In reference to my statement, that the present skull is the most 

 dolichocephalic than has been hitherto described, I will offer a few 

 remarks. As far back as 1867, Prof. Huxley in a paper " on two 

 widely contrasted forms of the human cranium," (Journal of 

 Anatomy and Physiology, Vol. 1, 1867, p. 60), records a very low 

 breadth index of a skull of unknown origin. In a paper read 

 by me before the Koninglijke Natuurkundige Vereeniging of 

 Batavia, in 1874, and published in the Natuurkundig Tijdschrift 

 of the same year. (Yol. xxxiv., p. 345), under the title, " Ueber 

 firachycephalie bei den Papuas von. New Guinea." % I mention 

 a skull of a native (Papuan) from the Island Namatote, near 

 the Coast of Papua-Koviay, which breadth-index was calculated 

 being 62.0. 



Prof. W. H. Flower in a paper, " On the Cranial Characters 

 of the Natives oj the Fiji Islands " (Journal of the Anthropological 

 Institute, November 1880), gives some very low cephalic indices 

 of some skulls of the Kai-Colos, or Mountaineers of the interior of 

 VitiLevu; the lowest of these indices was 62.9, calculated on 

 the Ophrio-occipital length, and 61.9 on the Glabello-occipital 

 length. 



The index of the skull before me is 58.9, and is therefore the 

 narrowest skull ever measured.* 



*£asion — Middle of the anterior margin of the foramen magnum. 



t Bregma— Point of junction of the coronal and sagittal sutures. 



JThis paper was the result of a great number of measurements, the careful examination 

 and comparison of which, led me to the conclusion, that the cephalic index of skulls of 

 Natives of New Guinea varies from 62 to 84.3. 



