28 L. BOLK 



After having- cominuuicated the results of my own investiga- 

 tion I will enter into some critical remarks ujion this opinion. 



The above mentioned explanation of metopism gives rise to 

 a more extended point of view. Some authors believe that a 

 large brain indicates intellectual superiority. And it is easy to 

 understand that to such a metopical suture too, should be a symp- 

 tom of such a superiority, being a suture caused by a strongly 

 developed brain. This opinion has in fact the approval of 

 Schwalbe. In an investigation into the occurrence of a frontal su- 

 tiu-e in apes and monkeys this author, after having mentioned the 

 current opinion with regard to the etiology of metopism, says: 

 "This hypothesis agrees with the idea that persons with metop- 

 ical crania are to be considered as being intellectually on a higher 

 level." 



The partisans of this hypothesis surely may advance the fol- 

 lowing anthropological fact, in favor of their view. It is incon- 

 testable that metopism occurs more frequently in culture races 

 than in those possessing a lower degree of civilization. The 

 differences are sufficiently pointed out in the following table, 

 most of whose data are taken from Martin's Manual of 

 Anthropology. 



Frequency of metopism 



per cent 



Australian 1.0 



Negroes 1.2 



Malayan 2.8 



Papuan 4.3 



Slaves 6.4 



Alsatians 6.5 



Bavarians 6.4 



Swiss 7.1 



Hamburgher 9.5 



Scotchman 9.5 



Parisian 9.7 



The difference between the civilized and uncivilized people 

 is a very obvious one. And even when rejecting the hypothesis 

 of any relation between metopism and intellectual development, 

 this difference still retains its anthropological significance to the 

 full. 



