158 LIFE OF FLOWER 



which appeared in the following year, and is entirely 

 devoted to man. This accurate and laborious work 

 was very far from being a mere catalogue of the 

 contents of this section of the museum under the 

 author's charge, for it is in fact to a great extent a 

 manual of the methods employed in human craniology ; 

 tables and figures being given of the manner in which 

 the measurement of skulls are made, and the method of 

 calculating " cranial indexes." For taking the cubical 

 capacity of skulls Flower employed mustard seed, and 

 the "craniometer " invented by Mr. Busk. In the 

 introduction is given a general sketch of the osteology 

 of man, followed by a dissertation on his dentition, and 

 this, in turn, by an account of the special osteological 

 and dental features of the various native races of the 

 human species. 



Earlier in the same year Flower had entered in some 

 degree on the domain of ethnology by contributing to 

 the Journal of the Anthropological Institute a paper 

 illustrating the " Mode of Preserving the Dead in 

 Darnley Island and in South Australia," figuring the 

 mummified body of a Melanesian from the above- 

 named island. Another paper of somewhat similar 

 nature from Flower's pen was published in the same 

 journal for 1881, dealing with a collection of monu- 

 mental heads and artificially deformed crania of 

 Melanesians from the Island of Mallicollo, in the New 

 Hebrides. These preserved heads have attracted the 

 attention of Europeans ever since Cook's visit to the 

 island in 1774 ; and appear to be quite unique. 



" Whatever the special motive among the Malli- 

 collese," wrote Flower, " whether they are the objects 



