570 



ANATOMY OF VERTEBRATES 



The range of variety is, however, considerable. From an old 

 and well-filled European graveyard may be selected specimens 

 of ' klinocephalic ' (slope- or saddle-skull), ' conocephalic ' (cone- 

 skull), ' br achy cephalic ' (short-skull), * dolichocephalic ' (long- 



389 



390 



391 



Front. l^i'lf- 



Elliiitical cranium of European. 



skull), * platycephalic ' (flat-skull), ' leptoce})halic ' (slim-skull), 

 and other forms of cranium equally worthy of penta- or hexa- 

 syllabic Greek epithets. There are varieties in the degree of 

 projection of the supranasal and superorbital ridge, but never at- 

 taining that exhibited as a constant and specific character in the 

 Gorilla, fig. 395. There are varieties in the sutures, in the time 

 and degree of their obliteration,' and in* their intercalated ^ wormian' 

 bones, &c. &c. 



' Rokitanski '^ appears first to have conceived, in relation to the skull of a young 

 person in which the lower ends, for rather more than an inch, of the coronal suture 

 were obliterated," that it was the cause of a transverse contraction of the cranium at 

 that part. 



What this skull actually shows is the coincidence of partial confluence of parietals and 

 frontals with a least transverse diameter at the temporal fossa3, a high and rather 

 short ci-anium, with a general inferior capacity of the brain-case. But the relation of 

 cause and eifect in this instance is not reasoned out by the great pathologist. The 

 ultimate or adult size of the cerebrum is due to inherent, or inherited, capacity of 

 brain-developement, with the accident of such culture, or of the absence thereof, through 

 which that developement might be influenced. The growth of the brain governs 

 the capacity of the cranium, and, in a general Avay, is anterior in the order of the 

 phenomena : it influences its bony case, moreover, not by mechanical expansion, 

 but by exciting the modelling action of the absorbents in co-operation with the 

 arterial depositors of the bony matter. The coronal, sagittal, and lambdoid sutures 

 are, as a rule, and in the cranium in question, too intricately interwoven to admit of 

 any forcible drawing asunder. On what facts it is assumed that the obliteration of 



* CXi'. Bd. ii. p. 148: — ' Durch seitliche Synostose der Scheitel- und Stirn-beine, 

 d. h. Verknocherung des seitlichen unteren Theiles der Kranznaht, wird eine quere 

 Verengerung des Schadels bedingt.' 



^ Figured in Lucae, Tafel VIIT. 



