825 
brium is more unstable than in» most other living: races-of. man, 
which requires particularly strong nuchal muscles (and ligament). 
This is very clearly to be seen by the size, the form, and the 
external moulding of the lower tabular part of the occipital bone. 
Calculated in proportion to equal cerebral areas (the two-third 
powers of the cranial capacities), the Australian human race has 
about one and a half times larger palatal area than the European 
(Englishman); in this respect it differs, therefore, almost as much 
from other living races of Man as the Siamang from the other 
gibbon species. Among recent Men this race has also the smallest 
relative height of the calvaria (calvarial height index). In the Nean- 
dertal Man it lies between 40 (Gibraltar) and 44.3 (Spy IJ), and in 
Australians it reaches (according to Berry and ROBERTSON) a mean 
value of 53, however a minimum of 44,9. As a rule at least the 
median part of the anterior border of the frontal bone, not so very 
seldom the whole border, is thickened to a bony ridge (torus). But 
in the last respect the Australians in general distinguish themselves 
from the Europeans in a higher, in the first respect in a less degree 
than the Siamang from the small gibbon species. Here the mechanism 
that has the flattening of the skull and the torus supraorbitalis 
as morphological consequences, must, again, be different. It seems to me 
that the great thickness of the skull-bones so characteristic of the 
Australian race, for a great part takes over the task of the epicra- 
nial muscle apparatus, the consequence of which is that the flattening 
and the torus-formation seldom go so far as in the Neandertal Man, 
whose cranial bones are accordingly less thick than those of recent 
Australians, and in whom the mechanism that brought abont the 
flattening, was much more powerful. Though the facial part may not 
have been much heavier than it is in some Australians, the head of 
the Neandertal Man, which was not poised on the vertebral column, was 
carried hanging forward, which renders strong nuchal muscles necessary. 
Thus the exceedingly thick-boned Piltdown skull (Koanthropus) 
may have been high-vaulted with a comparatively small brain 
volume, and though accompanied by a large masticatory apparatus. 
Towards the middle of November a fossil human skull became 
known which is exceedingly remarkable, also as regards the subject 
of this communication. It had been discovered in August of this 
year in the cavern of Broken Hill in Rhodesia (14° 26' S.L., 28° 
37’ E.L.), and is at present in the British Museum (Natural History) 
in London. Through the kind information and photographs sent, 
in the first place, by Dr. A. Smirn Woopwarp, Keeper of the Geo- 
logical Department of this Museum, and by Prof. Ermor Smith and 
