77 



downward elongation. The general shape is quadrangular ; the 

 character of the bone heavy and ivory-like ; the smooth space on 

 each side occupied by the temporal muscle, both in this and the 

 Creek skull, seems more than usually prolonged backwards, indi- 

 cating a corresponding size and power in this muscle, which may 

 possibly be characteristic of the race ; all the muscular attach- 

 ments are uncommonly well marked. 



The Creek skull is one of very fine proportions, and indicates 

 a brain superior to that of ordinary individuals. The forehead 

 is broad and high, the vertex prominent, and the occiput flat; in 

 other respects it comes near the usual Indian type. From age, 

 the bones are less dense and strong than in the Osage skull ; the 

 absorption of the alveolar processes detracts from the Indian 

 appearance of the jaw, and gives the face a more vertical 

 facial angle ; the nasal bones are uncommonly prominent, and 

 show marks of disease, apparently from a cut ; in ma^j places 

 the sutures are entirely obliterated. This is evidently tne skull 

 represented in Figs. 302 and 303, p. 442, of Nott and Gliddon's 

 " Types of Mankind^; " a Chief who died while a prisoner, near 

 Mobile, in 1837. 



The young Choctaw skull, as far as the shape and proportions 

 of the cranium are concerned, might well pass for Caucasian ; 

 but the width between the eyes, the quadrangular orbits, the high 

 cheek bones, the prominent jaw, and especially the deep palatine 

 fossa, betray the lower type which in this specimen would not be 

 recognized from a retreating forehead, prominent vertex, or flat 

 occiput ; it resembles more a female than a male skull. There 

 is a depression at the posterior third of the sagittal suture, no 

 occipital protuberance, a fine hamular process, a remarkable de- 

 velopment of the vaginal process on both sides, and of the bony 

 processes generally. 



The measurements of these skulls were as follows : 



Hor. 

 Periph. 



19.5 iu. 

 20.4 



1S.7 



The examination of the first two skulls shows a narrowness in 

 the frontal portion of the skull corresponding to the seat of the 



