M. Flourens on the Natural History of Man. 355 



As for ourselves, by adhering to the authentic crania alone 

 which our Museum possesses, we think we can establish ten 

 distinct forms or types of human heads — ^the Caucasian type, 

 the Mongolian, the Negro, the Ainerican, the Malay or Java- 

 nese, the Hottentot, the Boschisman, the Papuan, the Alfourou, 

 and the Zealandic. 



I shall recapitulate, in a few words, the principal characters 

 of these types. 



The Caucasian type is distinguished by the oval head, the 

 height of the cranium, the prominence of the forehead, that of 

 the nose, &c. ; the Mongolian type by the lateral prominence of 

 the cheek bones, the square form of the cranium, &c. ; the 

 Negro type by a compressed forehead, a flat nose, oblique in- 

 cisor teeth, &c. ; the American type by the volume of the pos- 

 terior part of the cranium, the prominence of the nose, the 

 width of the orbits, &c. &c. 



M. Pritchard has suppressed, as we have just seen, the Malay 

 type. This type wants indeed, even in Blumenbach who esta- 

 blished it, precise characters. I think I have found these 

 characters on two heads in our Museum, one of a Javanese, 

 the other of a Madurais ; two heads whose type is quite simi- 

 lar, and both of which are distinguished by the projection 

 which the very large parietal protuberances make behind, and 

 above all by the manner m which the occipital bone is abruptly 

 flattened below these protuberances. 



The cranium of the Hottentots evidently forms a particular 

 type, beside the general type of the Negroes ; this cranium is 

 long and narrow, but it is proportionally very elevated ; and 

 by this also it is distinguished, in a marked manner, from the 

 cranium of the Boschismans, which is, on the contrary, sin- 

 gularly flattened, and as it were crushed from above down- 

 ward. 



The Papuans, cai'efuUy described by MM. Quoy and Gai- 

 mard, and the Alfourous, described with no less care by M. 

 Lesson, are two distinct types. The Papuans are remark- 

 able for the flatness and the depression of the forehead 

 and the face ; the Al/ourous have a long and narrow cranium. 

 I^add, that, if the sinking which the parietal bones on each 

 side of the sagittal suture present, on the two heads from Van 



