Z PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.71 



and the Anatomical Department at Cape Town there were found series 

 of valuable specimens, which were measured.* 



The measurements, together with those of the few crania from 

 Australia in the possession of the United States National Museum, 

 are given in this number of the catalogue, with such simple deductions 

 as appear to be most obvious; the main object of this catalogue 

 being not so much to discuss results as to present to anthropological 

 workers anthropometric data obtained carefully, uniformly and by 

 well-tested instruments, so that they may be utilized with due con- 

 fidence for racial and especially variational studies. 



The Australian data have been arranged on a geographical basis, 

 and by the value of the cephalic index. A more detailed geographical 

 subdivision would have been of little value, for some of the localities 

 are hard to find on the maps, and do not represent different tribes; 

 while for a tribal subdivision the information found with the specimens 

 was mostly insufficient. 



The utmost care was given to the identification of the sex, and 

 whenever other parts of the skeleton were present they were consulted, 

 unless the identification of the skull was plain. The sexing of the 

 Australian skull is not always easy, some of the females closely 

 resembling males, and the same applies, though for the opposite 

 reason (some of the males presenting rather female characters), to 

 the South African blacks. It is no wonder that some of the older 

 sex identifications, particularly perhaps with the Tasmanians, were 

 found to be erroneous. 



No immature, deformed, abnormal, or mix-blood (so far as known , 

 or where there was a justified suspicion) specimens were included. 



In Australia considerable difficulty was encountered with the 

 measurements of the face and the nose. There was a widespread 

 habit among the people of that continent to knock out, on the advent 

 of adolesence, from one to four of the front teeth, the result being 

 more or less absorption of the alveolar process and loss of the alveolar- 

 point landmark. With the nose, on the other hand, the difficulty 

 lay in the peculiarity of the lower border of the aperture. In many 

 cases there was found a double inferior border, a higher internal and 

 a lower external one, with a depression (prenasal fossa) between; or 

 there was but the higher border, the lower one being indistinct. The 

 proper measurement of the nasal height, it was determined, is to 

 the level of the upper border, which is also the level of the nasal 

 floor. No other race presents such great difficulties in this region as 

 the Australians (and Tasmanians), and it is practically certain that 

 m some previous records on the Australian skulls the nasal height 

 has been measured so that the results are not comparable with ours. 



* Thanks for kind aid in this task are due to Prof. M. R. Drennan, anatomist of the Cape Town Univer- 

 sity; the authorities of the Cape Town Museum; and to Prof. Raymond A. Dast, anatomist of the Univer- 

 sity of Johannesburg. 



