126 naPony—+18570" 
from experience, that by moderation, tact, and truthfulness on our part, these may 
be overcome. 
With regard to a telegraphic communication with India by this route, two lines 
have been proposed ; the one along the Red Sea to Kurrachee, the other along the 
Valley of the Euphrates to the same part. Both would seem to be most desirable, 
if not necessary. To effect this a submarine cable should be laid down from Kur- 
rachee to Ras-el-Had, or some other place near the entrance of the Persian Gulf. 
Thence the proposed respective companies could carry their lines to England, the one 
by way of Suez, and the other by the Persian Gulf. The Red Sea line, by following 
Arabia, at a short distance from the coast, would encounter depths varying from 
20 to 100 fathoms nearly the whole way to Suez; coral rocks are only occasionally 
met with, and we should have the advantage of knowing where an accident might 
occur, and prepare the means in consequence of recovering and repairing the broken 
pieces of the cable: so that the completion of the line from Ras-el-Had to Suez 
does not seem to offer any practical difficulty. For the other line, there is a choice 
of two routes across Asia Minor from Constantinople, as far as Aleppo by one line, 
and as far as Dyarbekir by the other: no difficulties whatever exist. But beyond 
these places the Arabs are to be taken into account, but this is only for a limited 
distance. The line of the railway would ultimately be the preferable one, but for 
immediate operation the other might be somewhat quicker. The work might there- 
fore be commenced simultaneously at each extremity. A submarine cable could be 
laid down from Ras-el-Had to Kurnah, and from the latter place to Bagdad, along 
the bed of the Tigris; and again between Constantinople and Dyarbekir, beginning 
at several places at once in each part of these lines. The middle part only would be 
wanting from Dyarbekir to Bagdad, and this might be completed by a line of Tartars; 
and thus we should very soon be in possession of two lines of electric wires to India. 
The line of communication with India proposed by the French, would traverse 
Asia Minor more to the northward than that which I have advocated, so as to come 
into this line towards the head of the Euphrates. Unlimited funds might, doubt- 
less, accomplish this, but my local knowledge gives me the firm belief that the Taurus 
can only be passed, without an absolutely ruinous expense, in the direction of Adana 
and the Orontes. The French have long seen the importance of the Valley of the 
Euphrates. They seem to know and feel, as the great Oriental scholar Dr. Sprenger 
has said, “‘ that its possessor holds the key of the Eastern world.” It is, in fact, a 
country far richer and more valuable than Egypt, and England, therefore, has now 
at her feet the opportunity of acquiring the means of greatly increasing her com- 
merce, of consolidating Turkey, and of securing our Indian territory both from in= 
ternal and external dangers ; and the proposed railway would be the means of repay- 
ing to the East, with tenfold interest, that knowledge and those blessings which came 
to us originally from thence. 
On Australian Crania. By Professor J. H. Corsert. 
Professor J. H. Corbett exhibited crania, which had been selected by the late Dr. 
John A. Corbett, R.N., in the neighbourhood of Port Essington, North Australia, 
as affording characteristic examples of the heads of the Aborigines of that country. 
The texture of the cranial and facial bones is strong and compact. The superior max- 
illary bones exhibit the prognathous tendency in a marked degree. The frontal region 
may be described as receding, but by no means deficient in height; the temporal 
regions are much flattened ; the perpendicular measurement of head from the mar- 
gin of the foramen magnum to the vertex is equal with European heads; the antero- 
posterior measurement of the cranium is somewhat from half to three quarters of an 
inch greater than that presented by many European skulls. The internal capacity 
of these crania was found to be exactly the same as that of several European crania 
of average size, which had been examined; the method adopted for this purpose 
being that of sealing up the several apertures, and then filling the head with fine sand 
introduced through the foramen magnum. This mode of examination tends to show, 
that the Australian crania are capable of lodging an amount of cerebral matter just 
equal to that of many European skulls, although the form of the brain must be 
