450 SKULLS OF WESTERN AFRICANS. Arp. L 



vailed long enough to affect the base of the zygo- 

 matic process ; the chief part of the articular surface 

 for the mandible is formed by the anterior^ slight 

 convexity (eminentia articularis), the smaller depres- 

 sion behind being unusually shallow. This approach 

 to the character of the same articular surface in 

 "edentate" mammals is not without interest. 



The bony palate is oblong and subquadrate : it is 

 shallow, through absorption of its lateral walls : its 

 surface is more than usually hard and irregular, 

 through pressure against it, probably by tongue and 

 mandible, of unchewed alimentary subtances, and the 

 palato-maxillary and intermaxillary * sutures remain : 

 the maxillo-premaxillary suture is obliterated on the 

 palate as elsewhere. The internasal suture is jDartly 

 obliterated at its upper half : the naso-maxillary 

 sutures remain ; both are linear. 



The frontal sinuses are slightly prominent, and are 

 accordingly more marked, in this old negress's skull 

 (fig. 8) than in the strong man's of the warlike and 

 cannibal tribe of Fans (fig. 5). 



The mandible shows strikingly the senile characters 

 due to absorption of alveoli; the forward slope of 

 the rami from the condyles ; the reduction of the 

 coronoid processes to a slender pointed form. The 

 anterior outlets of the dental canals open upon the 

 fore part of the broad shallow superior border of the 

 horizontal ramus, which is left by the absorption 

 of the sockets : anterior to each orifice the border 

 shows a slight protuberance of ivory hardness against 

 which the obtusely worn crowns of the upper canines 



* The meJiau palatal suture between the two maxillaiies is licie meant. 



