CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



those of Africa, e.g. the chimpanzee, being doli- 

 chocephalic. Dolichocephaly may be due to the 

 greater amount of muscular pressure brought to 

 bear on the sides of the skull constantly tending 

 to compress and elongate it ; and this would be 

 greatest in the lower races, where the muscles that 

 act on the jaws are more highly developed than in 

 races that eat less and think more. Some races 

 artificially alter the form of the skull by flattening 

 the forehead in infancy by means of pressure. A 

 good example of this is shewn in fig. 8, represent- 

 ing a Peruvian skull Here we can, from marks 



Fig. 8. Artificially Distorted Skull 



on the skull, trace the course of the bandages 

 used for flattening it, as shewn in the dotted lines 

 of the figure. The forehead seems to have been 

 squeezed downwards and backwards by a com- 

 press, probably of folded cloth. To keep it in its 

 place, a bandage has been carried over it from 

 the base of the occiput, and thence across the 

 forehead. To confine the lateral portions of the 

 skull, and to produce the symmetrically elongated 

 form, the same bandage has been carried over the 

 top of the head, immediately behind the coronal 

 suture (probably with an intervening compress), 

 and the bandaging has been repeated over these 

 parts till they were immovably fixed in the posi- 

 tion desired, and the head permitted to develop 

 only in the posterior direction. This practice 

 was common amongst the ancient Mexicans and 

 Peruvians, and though it is unknown amongst 

 their modern Indian descendants, yet Dr Robert 

 Brown, in his Races of Mankind, says the practice 

 is still continued in some of the lower races of 

 the north-west Pacific coast. His theory of it is, 

 that the American aborigines borrowed the idea 

 from the Mexicans and Peruvians, who had a 

 notion that a flattened retreating forehead was 

 a sign of divine greatness, and whose gods are 

 always represented with this peculiarity. 



In the latest -and greatest work on craniology, 

 Dr Barnard Davis's Thesaurus Craniorum, pub- 

 lished by subscription in 1867, a series of most 

 elaborate tables of cranial measurements are 

 given, which, being based upon a much more 

 extensive series of observations than the old 

 tables of Morton, are of greatly more value. 

 The measurements indicating internal cranial 

 capacity, supposed to indicate brain-power, are 

 most interesting, as might be expected, and are 

 of value as correcting the comparatively limited 

 series of observations Morton made in the infancy 

 of the science. Dr Davis finds that the largest 

 average of internal capacity prevails in European 

 skulls, these reaching 90 cubic inches and up- 

 wards. In Germans, Russians, and Cossacks, it 

 10 



was 98-5 cubic inches, in Finns 98, ancient Britons 

 97'5 Welsh 94-8, Turks 93-3, Merovingian Franks 

 93, Italians 93, Dutch 92-5, Swedes 92, Scotch and 

 Irish 91-2, English 90-9, Lapps 90-6, ancient Gauls 

 90-3. In Morton's tables, the capacity of the 

 English skull is set down at 96 cubic inches, but 

 his averages were made up from only 58 observa- 

 tions, whereas Dr Davis's are the result of prob- 

 ably ten times that number. In Asiatic skulls, 

 we find few with an internal capacity above 90. 

 Amongst the few are Mishnees 92-7, Chinese 92 -6, 

 Siamese 92-1, Bodos 90. Morton's limited obser- 

 vations gave the Asiatic skull an internal capacity 

 under 90 cubic inches. In the African races there 

 are only three whose skulls shew over 90 cubic 

 inches of internal capacity these are, Kaffirs 

 92-6, Zulus 91-2, Dahomans 90-7. The mean of 

 Morton's Negro group is 82-25 only. Of the Amer- 

 ican skulls, Dr Davis finds the Araucanians with 

 internal capacity of 94-1 cubic inches, the Eskimos 

 90-6; the average of the American group being 89, 

 whereas Morton's tables make it only 80-3. The 

 Australians have an internal cranial capacity of 

 80-9, Tasmanians 82-5 ; the general average being 

 81-7, as compared with Morton's average 75. Dr 

 Davis found the internal cranial capacity of the 

 Oceanic races to be as follows : Mathuans 98-6, 

 Tidonese 98-4, Javans 93-3, Papuans 91-6, Loyalty 

 Islanders 91-3, Marquesans 91, Sumatrans 90-8, 

 Amboynese 90-5, Celebeans 90-2. In Dr Davis's 

 unrivalled craniological collection, few races 

 shewed an internal cranial capacity under 90. Of 

 the few, we may mention, amongst African races, 

 Eboes 85-1, Hottentots 83-9, Bushmen 85-7 ; 

 amongst American races, Caribs 86-3, Nians 83-5. 



It must be remembered that these observations, 

 though more valuable than Morton's, are merely 

 contributions to the ultimate absolute truth. Aver- 

 ages obtained from measuring a series of skulls 

 will be affected by the extent of the series, by the 

 proportion of male to female specimens, by the 

 proportion of microcephalic, or idiot crania in the 

 collection, and perhaps by the class of the popu- 

 lation from which the skulls are taken. The 

 internal cranial capacity is of use to give us an 

 idea of the contained brain-volume but it must 

 be borne in mind that the volume of the brain in 

 relation to the brain-case changes greatly at differ- 

 ent periods of life. In childhood, when develop- 

 ment is going on, the brain presses outwards on 

 all sides of the cavity of the skull, whose bones, 

 by means of the un-united dovetailed joinings called 

 sutures, yield. But as development is completed, 

 the brain-pressure diminishes, and the bone-pres- 

 sure or cranial resistance increases, as the sutures 

 close. It is held by many that in middle age, the 

 brain, having reached its highest development, 

 begins to shrink ; but the space left in the cranial 

 cavity in consequence is filled by serous fluids, 

 which are effused in the ventricles of the organ 

 and between its membranes. We do not, how- 

 ever, know with any exactness the rate at which 

 this shrinking goes on. In a rough way, craniolo- 

 gists say that 10 per cent, requires to be deducted 

 from the brain-volume, as indicated by measure- 

 ments of internal cranial capacity, on account of 

 this shrinking. 



The bones of the face vary in different races. 

 When the facial bones jut forward to excess, the 

 face is prognathous (pro, forward, gnathos, jaw). 

 When the face and jaws are upright, the face is 



