CHAP. v. ENGIS AND AUSTRALIAN SKULLS COMPARED. 



87 



day ; and as the natives of Southern and Western Australia are 

 probably as pure and homogeneous in blood, customs, and language, 

 as any race of savages in existence, I turned to them, the more 

 readily as the Hunterian museum contains a very fine collection of 

 such skulls. 



' I soon found it possible to select from among these crania two (con 

 nected by all sorts of intermediate gradations), the one of which should 

 very nearly resemble the Engis skull, while the other should some 

 what less closely approximate the Neanderthal cranium in form, size, 

 and proportions. And at the same time others of these skulls pre 

 sented no less remarkable affinities with the low type of Borreby 

 skull. 



' That the resemblances to which I allude are by no means of a 

 merely superficial character, is shown by the accompanying diagram 

 (fig. 6, p. 88), which gives the contours of the two ancient and of 

 one of the Australian skulls, and by the following table of measure 

 ments. 



A The horizontal circumference in the plane of a line joining the glabella, 

 with the occipital protuberance. 



B The longitudinal arc from the nasal depression along the middle line of 

 the skull to the occipital tuberosity. 



c From the level of the glabello-occipital line on each side, across the 

 middle of the sagittal suture to the same point on the opposite side. 



D The vertical height from the glabello-occipital line. 



E The extreme longitudinal measurement. 



F The extreme transverse measurement.* 



' The question whether the Engis skull has rather the character of 

 one of the high races or of one of the lower has been much disputed, 

 but the following measurements of an English skull, noted in the cata 

 logue of the Hunterian museum as typically Caucasian (see fig. 4) 

 will serve to show that both sides may be right, and that cranial 

 measurements alone afford no safe indication of race. 



* I have taken the glabello-occipital 

 line as a base in these measurements, 

 simply because it enables me to com 

 pare all the skulls, whether fragments 

 or entire, together. The greatest cir 



cumference of the English skull lies 

 in a plane considerably above that of 

 the glabello-occipital line, and amounts 

 to twenty-two inches. 



