Wyman.] . 450 [April 15, 



Those who hnve studied the subject, I think, give to the great pestilence, Mai 

 Akulnu, which raged throngli tlie islands soon after their discovery, the credit 

 of peoj)ling this and other similar graveyards. Infant skulls are sometimes 

 found, and also skulls that appear as if they had been pierced by spears, or frac- 

 tured with clubs. The skulls wliich I collected for you were some of them 

 above, and some below, the surface of the sand. 



Yours truly, 



S. B. Dole. 



The collection is the more valuable, from the fact that the crania 

 were all obtained from the same place, and from an island not com- 

 monly mentioned in the catalogues. Dr. J. Barnard Davis, in his 

 Thesaurus Craniorum, out of one hvmdred and thirty-nine Kanaka 

 skulls, does not mention one from Kauai. They are nearly all adult, 

 No. 13 being the only one belonging to a child. As far as they go, 

 they do not afford evidence of having been killed in battle, as they 

 bear no marks of injuries inflicted by weapons. A few show signs of 

 disease, as if they had been the seat of periosteal inflammation. 



The average internal cajracity, 1397 c. c, is 127 e. c less than that 

 of the average European, 1524 c. c, according to the tables of Mor- 

 ton. The largest is 1671 c. c, or a little less than one hundred and 

 two cubic inches. The average cai^acity of one hundred and twenty- 

 one Kanaka skulls from Hawaii and Oahu, as stated by Dr. Davis in 

 his Thesaurus, is 89.6 cubic inches, or 1466.7 c. c. As the average 

 index of breadth is 80.7, the skulls, as a whole, must be considered 

 as brachycephalic. Nevertheless some of them have the dolichoceph- 

 alic proportions strongly marked ; for while No. 7 has an index of 

 85.0, and No. 3 of 94.0, No. 4 has an index of only 72.0. We have 

 here the same result as that arrived at in the study of other races, 

 especially in the North American Indians, as seen in the extended and 

 careful comparisons of Dr. Meigs, showing the necessity of having as 

 large a number of crania as possible for comparison, and the worth- 

 lessness of observations made on a single skull. As each race exhibits 

 a, wide range of variation in each of its characters, a given race can 

 be rightly defined only when its predominant features, seen in many 

 individuals, have been ascertained. 



The index of the foramen magnum is only 41.2, and this opening is 

 therefore much forther back than in the European races, and, as seen 

 in the table, p. 446, has nearly the position of that of the North Amer- 

 ican Indians. In more than one half of the specimens the portion of 

 the occiput surrounding the foramen is somewhat raised (the skull 

 being inverted), giving it a funnel-shaped appearaace. 



More than one-half of the crania have the peculiarity in the opening 

 of the nostrils, to which attention was first called by Dr. John Neil 

 of Phihwlelphia, as characterizing the skulls of negroes, viz.: the 



