608 SUMMARY OF PROGRESS IN ANTHROPOLOGY. 



Index- Catalogue and the Index- Medicus, Wasbiuytou; tlie American 

 Anthropologist, Wasliiiigtoii; Archirfilr Anthiopolo</ie, Braunschweig; 

 Mittheihmgen der Anfhropologischcn Gesellschaft in Wein. 



Dr. Brinton, in «SV/r/ur (February 24), enters a vigorous protest against 

 tbemulti})lieation of jaw-breaking compounds of Greek roots to repre- 

 sent diflereut cranial measurements and indexes. 



Craniologists baAC differed in opinion concerning tlie orientation of 

 the skull for the puri)0ses of measurement. All agree tbat it should be 

 set as in life where the owner is looking straight ahead. To set up 

 the skull after death in the i)osition of the living head gazing at tbe 

 horizon is the problem. Dr. Eugene Hirtz to this end has utilized tbe 

 cadaver as an intermediary between the Hvrug and tbe skeleton, since 

 tbe eye remains fixed in its orbit after death. Tbe paresis of the mus- 

 cular system is then complete — the eyes are imn)obile. Tbe problem is 

 to compare tbe visual axis of tbe cadaver with the plane of tbe cranium 

 as used by the experimenter and with the gaze of the living fixed on 

 the horizon. Tbe conclusion is that tbe ''orbital axis" of Broca is 

 nearly parallel to the plane of the visual axes, or tbe so called horizon- 

 tal plane of tbe living. {BuU. Soe. d'Antkrop. de Paris, 4 s., iv, 386-380.) 



Dr. Manouvrier, who bas devoted years to the study of 'the long bones 

 of the human body, communicated to the Paris Anthropological Society 

 a memoir on the morphological variations of the body of the femur in 

 tbe human species. The conclusion reached is that pUitycnemy, retro- 

 version of tbe bead of tbe tibia, and platymetry, seen in prehistoric 

 remains, in savages, and among modern Europeans, do not represent 

 anatomical survivals through atavism, but are all derived through 

 physiological causes, allied to the kind of life and diflereut external con- 

 ditions susceptible of exaggeration or modification. {Bull. Soc. d''An- 

 throp. de Paris, 4 s., iv, 111-144.) 



MM. Azoulay and Regnault have made a comparison in the compar- 

 ative form of the incisors of apes and the vaiious races of men. In 

 tbe apes the outer enameled surface is wide amd shaped like a hoe, of 

 the uncivilized races the edges are more nearly parallel, and in the 

 civilized races they are quite so. Measures were taken of tbe length 

 of the free border and of the side of tbe enamel and tbe difl'erence 

 noted. The order of succession, as regards the elongation and rectan- 

 gular form of the enamel, is: apes (chimpanzee and gorilla), negroes, 

 New Caledonians, Australians, Polynesians, Javanese, Annamites and 

 Cbiuese, Europeans, Indians, Bengalese. {Bull. iSoc. dWntkrop. de 

 Paris, 4s., iv, 2G7-2C0.) 



Prof. Cope some years since aftirmed that the tubercular forms usual 

 in the cusps of human molars point to a reversion to tbe lemurian 

 dentition. In Anatomischer Anzeiger (No. 24, 1892), Dr. H. F. Osboru, 

 of Columbia College, presents tbe result of his own researches, with 

 a summary of other work, since Cope. The ])iimitive mammalian 

 molar is a single cone, to whicb other cusps have been added, as 



