PHYSICAL ETHNOLOGY. 273 



chamberetl barrows or cairns of the British Islands, we are at best reasoning 

 from the little known to the less known indices of prehistoric races ; between 

 which the points in common may amount to no more than those which admit of 

 a comparison being draAvn between the Brachycephali of the British Stone- 

 Period, and the corresponding physical form and rude arts of American grave- 

 mounds. 



Nevertheless the Ben-Djemma skull in the Mortonian collection is not im- 

 probably what it has been assumed it to be; and it is in many respects a 

 remarkable one. A deep indentation at the nasal suture gives the idea of an 

 overhanging forehead, but the superciliary ridges are not prominent, and the 

 peculiar character of the frontal bone is most strikingly apparent in the vertical 

 view, where it is seen to retreat on either side, almost in a straight line from 

 the centre of the glabella to the external angular processes of the frontal bone. 

 The contour of the coronal region is described by Dr. Meigs as "a long oval, 

 which recalls to mind the kumbecephalic form of Wilson."* It is of more 

 importance, perhaps, to note that the remarkable skull recovered by Dr. 

 Schmeriug, from the Engis Cavern, on the left bank of the Meuse, buried five 

 feet in a breccia, along with the tooth of a rhinoceros and other fossil bones, 

 appears to be of the same elongated dolichocephalic type. Its frontal develop- 

 ment is long and narrow; and its greatest relative proportion, in length and 

 breadth, are 7.7 by 5.25 inches, so that it closely corresponds in those respects 

 to the most characteristic British kumbecephalic crania." t 



Whatever be the final conclusion of ethnologists as to the evidence which led 

 me to adopt that name to indicate the characteristics of a pre-Celtic British race, 

 the necessity appears to be acknowledged for some term to distinguish this form 

 from the ordinary dolichocephalic type. The Ben-Djemma skull is narrow through- 

 out, with its greatest breadth a little behind the coronal suture, from whence it 

 narrows gradually towards front and rear. The lower jaAV is large and massive, 

 but with less of the prognathous development than in the superior maxillary. 

 The skull is apparently thr.t of a woman. The nose has been prominent; but 

 the zygomatic arches are delicate, and the whole face is long, narrow, and 

 tapering towards the chin. The parietals meet at an angle, with a bulging of 

 the sagittal suture, and a slight but distinctly defined pyramidal form, running 

 into the frontal bone. The occiput is full, round, and projecting a little more on 

 the left side than the right. The measurements are as follows : 



Longitudinal diameter 7.4 



Parietal diameter 5.1 



Frontal diameter 4 



Vertical diameter 5.3 



Intermeatoid arch 12.3 



Intermastoid arch 15 (?) 



Intermastoid line 4..3(?) 



Occipito-frontal arch 14.2 



Horizontal circumference 20.2 



I have been thus particular in describing this interesting skull, because it 

 furnishes some points of comparison with British kumbecephalic crania, bearing 

 on the inquiry whether we may not thus recover traces of the Phoenician 

 explorers of the Cassiterides in the long-headed builders of the chambered 

 barrows. When contrasting the wide and neai-ly virgin area with which Dr. 

 Morton had to deal, with that embraced in the scheme of the Crania Britannira, 

 I remarked in 1857: — Compared with such a wide field of investigation, the 

 little island home of the Saxons may well seem narrow ground for exploration, 



* Catalogue of Human Crania in the Academy of Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia, p. 29. 



tLyell's Antiquity of Man, p. 81. 



18 s 



