THE CRANIOLOGY OK MAN AND ANTHROPOID APES. 433 



or more of the sutures of tlie skull, l^rofcssor Virchow states that 

 ''in the too early ossitieation of a suture of the skull the develop- 

 nieut of the cranium is arrested in the diameter perpendicular to that 

 center/' Since Hunter's day various authorities have devoted much 

 time to the subject of the abnormal closure of the cranial sutures in 

 man. Prominent among' them are the names of the chief of England's 

 craniolog-ists, Drs. Thurnam, Beddoe, and Barnard Davis (the splendid 

 collection of prehistoric and other skulls made by the latter g'entleman 

 is now in the possession of our college), and we have come to learn 

 that the size and shape of the skull depend,- to a large extent, on the 

 growth of the bones of which it is formed along the lines of the 

 various cranial sutures, a subject to which I have referred at some 

 length in my book on The Origin and Character of the British 

 People. 



]t is well known that the frontal bone, which forms the vault of the 

 anterior part of the cranium in the 3'oung of man and apes, is divided 

 by a suture, and so long as this line of growth, together with the cor- 

 onal and other sutures l>y which the frontal is separated from sur- 

 rounding bones, remains open, the fore part of the skull, and with it 

 the anterior fosste which it incloses, c;ui expand. But if the frontal 

 and the other anterior sutures of the cranium consolidate early in life 

 the fore part of the skull can not increase in capacity l)eyond the size it 

 had reached in infancy. Professor Deneker" in his woi-k on the embry- 

 ology and development of anthropoid apes has shown that in conse- 

 quence of the early closure of the anterior siitures of the skull of these 

 animals the foi'c i)art of their brain does not increase beyond the size 

 it had attained at the end of the tirst year of life; but in man these 

 sutures do not consolidate until a nmdi later period, so that the ante- 

 rior lobes of his brain are enabled to expand, and actually become far 

 more perfectly developed than the corresponding lobes among anthro- 

 poid apes. 



Among these apes, in consequence of the great size of their frontal 

 sinuses and the roofs of the or))its rising more oblicjuely into the 

 cranial cavity, the anterior and the inferior walls of the anterior fossre 

 of their skulls intrude upon and lessen the capacity of this space, and 

 therefore of the anterior lobes of the brain which are contained in 

 these fossa'.'' Virchow states that ''of all parts of the ape's head, it 

 is the brain that grows least;" even "the largest ape keeps its baby 

 brain." Although we have not sufficient data to tix the absolute 

 duration of the life of anthi-opoid apes, it is doubtfid if they, as a 

 rule, attain the age at which man arrives at his full growth. It is, 



" Archive.s de Zoologie exiieriiiientale et generale, tome troisiome, annee 18.S5. 

 ''See Prof. D. J. Cunningham's work on Surface Anatomy of Cerebral Hemi- 

 spheres, p. 28(>. 



m 1902 28 



