PROCEEDINGS OF SECTIOX F. ^61 



I cannot determine whether the socket in question ever contains a 

 separate tooth or is merely the socket for one fang of a premolar, the 

 two other fangs of which occupy a normal position in the maxilla. I 

 have not seen such a socket in connection with any other tooth." 



In August, 1905, I sent a skull of a young kanaka from New Cale- 

 donia to Professor Cunningham, asking him to look carefully at the 

 dentition. He wrote : " The dentition of the skull of the kanaka 

 girl is peculiar. The second premolar socket (the tooth is gone) is 

 enormous, and has all the appearance of a molar socket ; indeed, on 

 the right side it shows three compartments for fangs. Still, it must be 

 a premolar, I should think. I shall look more closely into the matter." 

 Another skull of a kanaka which I received lately from New Cale- 

 donia shows on the left side a pit-like depression internal to the second 

 bicuspid, which was either shed early or else was abnormal as regards 

 its roots (Fig. 7). On the right side there is a similar, but less marked, 

 condition. One wonders whether these pits can be the altered sockets 

 for milk molars that have not been followed by premolars. 



These large sockets are remarkable as occurring in the positions 

 where dental rudiments are commonest. 



Duckworth adopts the view that these particular dental rudiments 

 are aborted third premolars. As he points out {Studies in Anthropology, 

 p, 22), the racial occurrence of these rudiments is peculiar. They are 

 commonest in New Britain natives, Australian aboriginals, and African 

 negroes. One hundred Peruvian skulls showed only two instances ; 

 50 European skulls only one instance ; and 300 skulls of Egyptians 

 showed none. Among orang-utans and gorillas specimens were very 

 common. 



On this subject of supernumerary teeth it may be well to remind 

 you that Hunter was of opinion that they were always incisors and 

 canines, and that Owen stated that he had never seen a supernumerary 

 premolar or molar. 



The interest connected with these extra premolar or molar teeth 

 lies in their approximating to the dentition of the New World monkeys, 

 which have an extra premolar. This interest is further increased by 

 the fact that a question has now arisen as to what constitutes a pre- 

 molar. The view that a premolar is a tooth that takes the place of a 

 milk molar is being questioned.* 



Most workers in the anthropological field say no more about the 

 significance of abnormalities of dentition than what I have mentioned. 



♦After this was written I availed myself of Dr. Stirling's kind permission to 

 examine the series of aboriginal skulls in the South Australian Museum. In one 

 of them there is an extra lateral incisor tooth in the left maxiUa. The two laterals 

 on this side are small and peg-like (Fig. 8). This condition bears upon the subject 

 of which incisor has been lost in man, a question discussed by Turner, Albrecht, 

 Wilson, Gadow, Elhott Smith, Windle, and Edwards. Windle holds that the 

 loss of the incisors is consequent upon the contraction of the anterior part of the 

 jaw. He is inclined to beheve that the decrease in size exhibited by the jaws of 

 the modern English as compared with Australians, negroes, and ancient British 

 is exhibited in perhaps the most marked manner in the incisive region. The 

 examination of even a few aboriginal skulls is sufficient to expose this error. 

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