252 THE NATURAL HISTORY RETIEW. 



views adopted by these two eminent men ; and to warrant tlie infer- 

 ence that a great relative frequency of congenital obliteration of 

 the sagittal suture, and consequent synostosis of the parietals, is, 

 in fact, a characteristic of the African races, as it may be of others 

 likewise, which have naturally a dolichocephalous form of sknll. 



That the premature obliteration of the sutnres is in part due to a 

 tendency to exuberant ossification, is confirmed by the fact, that 

 though in the dolichocephalous races the sagittal is more liable to be 

 effaced than the others, obliteration is by no means confined to it ; but 

 that several sutures in the same skull, both longitudinal and trans- 

 verse, are often implicated. In such instances, the concurrence 

 of both the longitudinal and transverse forms of synostosis — if we 

 adopt a term which it might be better to restrict to obviously 

 abnormal and pathological conditions — ought to be compensatory the 

 one of the other, and no particular dolichocephalism be observed. 

 This would accord with the celebrated law established by Virchow, 

 *' ihat hy synostosis of a suture tlie development of tlie sJctdl is always 

 retarded in the direction 'perpendicular to the synostotic sutured ^ In 

 the dolichocephalous skull from the long barrow at "Winterbourn 

 Stoke described more fully hereafter, the coronal and sagittal sutures 

 are almost equally obliterated, and though the lambdoid is well 

 marked externally it is completely effaced within, so that the cal- 

 varium is converted into a solid osseous box. The spheno- parietal 

 and spheno-frontal sutures are moderately distinct. It would be 

 impossible from any thing which appears in their present state, to 

 attribute the dolichocephalism of this sliull to the premature ossifica- 

 tion of the sutures. In other skulls from the long and chambered 

 barrows distinguished by their elongate form, I find the sagittal 

 suture open ; whilst contrary to what would be found were Yirchow's 

 law applicable to them, the lambdoid and coronal are quite obli- 

 terated. 



It is very possible, as observed by Dr. Wm. Turner, " that 

 through the action of the premature imion of adjacent bones, aberrant 

 fornis of crania may arise in individuals of any given nationality, 

 possessing a shape quite different from that of the race to which 



* Loo. cit. p. 936. The. sutures of the skull are divided into three classes ; 1. 

 Median-loiujitudinal ; 2. Iransverse ; and 3. Lateral-longitudinal ; the first allow- 

 ing growth in the direction of breadth, the second in that of length, and tlie third 

 in that of the height of the skull. Welcker, loc. cit. p. 13, Taf. TV. 



