SKELETON OF BIMANA, d6Z 



iiioutli is shut. Some of the ordinary cranial sutures of the adult 

 become obliterated. 



The observed range of ethnic variety in the configuration of the 

 Human skull and proportions of its parts is much more limited 

 than in domesticated breeds of lower Mammals, e. g. the canine 

 races. There is no osteological or dental difference of specific 

 value. Assuming the skull of the Australian, figs. 368 — 370,^ 

 to be the lowest known form, the extent of variation will be 

 exemplified by comparing the figures given with corresponding 

 ones of the European skull, figs. 389 — 391. Besides the in- 

 creased capacity of cranium concomitant with increased size of 

 the intellectual organ in the educated Man, the orbital rim is 

 more sharply defined, though thinned and less protuberant ; the 

 malars are less prominent ; the nasals more prominent and longer : 

 the alveolar parts of both jaws are more vertical anteriorly, and 

 their entire extent is less, owing to the relatively smaller size 

 and less complex implantation of the molar series of teeth ; the 

 ascending ramus of the mandible is deeper, and the angle less 

 everted or squared. The profile \aews, figs. 369 and 390, show, 

 in the Australian, the greater longitudinal and less vertical ex- 

 tent of the face, the produced jaws and receding forehead, the 

 deep depression between the superorbital ridge and the shorter 

 nasals: the base views, figs. 370 and 391, wdiilst exhibiting the 

 same position of condyles and great foramen in relation to the 

 erect posture, alike differentiating both extremes of Humanity 

 from the nearest allied Ape, fig. 359, show the vacuities resulting 

 from the stronger zygomatic arches and the narrower inter- 

 temporal part of the cranium in the Australian. The vertical 

 longitudinal section, fig. 396, also shows, as compared with fig. 373, 

 the thicker cranial walls of the Australian and the absence of 

 frontal sinuses. But, whilst the characters brought out by this 

 comparison are pretty constant in the Australian race, they are 

 far from being so in the European : and this difference depends 

 on the comparatively uniform low intelligence and sameness in the 

 mode of life of the savage as compared with the state of civilized 

 man. The cranium of the Australian may vary somewhat in the 

 degree of compression, of shehdng of the roof from the mid-line of 

 the vertex, of the convexity of the arch from before backward ; and 

 in the presence or absence of the suture between alisphenoid and 

 parietal : but besides the narrow cranium, with its contracted 

 and retreating forehead and the prognathic jaws common to the 

 Melanian races, the Australian skull is characterized by the thick 



' XLiv. p. 823, no. 5;?04. 

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