Scott, — Osteology of the Maori and Moriori. 41 



and the tubercle of the tenth rib ; and in three more the 

 absence of this articulation on one side was observed. 



The spines of the twelfth and eleventh dorsal vertebrae 

 were noted as being exceptionally small in one female column. 

 In two cases I observed a spinous process in the upper dorsal 

 region, divided longitudinally into two approximately equal 

 parts, due no doubt to a want of union between the two 

 centres from which the neural arch is developed. 



Lwnhar Vertehrcz. 



The average lumbo-vertebral index of the twelve sets of 

 lumbar vertebrae given in the table is 105-9, showing that the 

 sum of the posterior vertical diameters of the bodies exceeds 

 the sum of the anterior measurements. The highest index, 

 that of a male, is 116'4, and the lowest, also a male, is 95-3. 

 In this latter case and in two others, females, the index is 

 under 100, and shows that in these the anterior depth is 

 greater than the posterior, though the average of the series 

 shows the reverse condition. The Maori vertebral column, 

 described by Professor Turner in his " ' Challenger ' Eeport," 

 has a lumbar region whose index is 100, the sum of anterior 

 and posterior vertical diameters being the same, 101mm. 



Professor Cunningham, in his memoir on the lumbar curve,"' 

 ■shows that the European differs markedly from the un- 

 civilised races in the relation between the anterior and posterior 

 depths of the vertebrae in the lumbar region ; and Sir William 

 Turner has made the same observation. The sum of the an- 

 terior depths is in the European greater than the sum of the 

 posterior depths, and the vertebrae are, in consequence, shaped 

 in a manner favourable to convexity of the lumbar portion of 

 the column. In savage races, on the other hand, the opposite 

 condition holds, and the vertebrae are shaped in a manner un- 

 favourable to the curve. The average index of seventy-six 

 Europeans measured by Cunningham is 95-8 ; that of the 

 Andaman Islanders, according to the same observer, is 104"8 ; 

 of Negroes, 105-4; and of Australian blacks, 107'8; while in 

 the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang it is still higher. The 

 Maori then, judging from my measurements, has an index 

 practically the same as that of the Negro, and widely different 

 from the European. 



The divergence from the European type is more fully 

 brought out if we compare the indices of the individual vertebrge 

 in the two races, as in the following table, in which the Euro- 

 pean column is taken from Dr. Cunningham's paper. 



* "The Lumbar Curve in Man and the Apes," "Cunningham 

 Memoirs," No. II. Royal Irish Academy. 1886. 



