186 HUMAN FOSSILS III 



stituent bones. The muscles winch move the 

 bones vary largely in their attachments. The 

 varieties in the mode of distribution of the 

 arteries are carefully classified, on account of the 

 practical importance of a knowledge of their 

 shiftings to the surgeon. The characters of the 

 brain vary immensely, nothing being less constant 

 than the form and size of the cerebral hemispheres, 

 and the richness of the convolutions upon their 

 surface, while the most changeable structures of 

 all in the human brain are exactly those on which 

 the unwise attempt has been made to base the 

 distinctive characters of humanity, viz. the pos- 

 terior cornu of the lateral ventricle, the hippo- 

 campus minor, and the degree of projection of the 

 posterior lobe beyond the cerebellum. Finally, 

 as all the world knows, the hair and skin of human 

 beings may present the most extraordinary diver- 

 sities in colour and in texture. 



So far as our present knowledge goes, the majority 

 of the structural varieties to which allusion is 

 here made, are individual. The ape-like ar- 

 rangement of certain muscles which is occasion- 

 ally met with 1 in the white races of mankind, is 

 not known to be more common among Negroes 

 or Australians : nor because the brain of the 

 Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to 

 have its convolutions more symmetrically disposed, 



1 See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology of 

 the Orang, in the Natural History Review for 1861. 



