200 HUMAN FOSSILS III 



antipodal races are antipodal in climate, the 

 greatest contrast the world affords, perhaps, being 

 that between the damp, hot, steaming, alluvial 

 coast plains of the West Coast of Africa and the 

 arid, elevated steppes and plateaux of Central Asia, 

 bitterly cold in winter, and as far from the sea as 

 any part of the world can be. 



From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific 

 Islands and subcontinents on the one hand, and to 

 America on the other, brachycephaly and orthog- 

 nathism gradually diminish, and are replaced by 

 dolichocephaly and prognathism, less, however, on 

 the American Continent (throughout the whole 

 length of which a rounded type of skull prevails 

 largely, but not exclusively) 1 than in the Pacific 

 region, where, at length, on the Australian Con- 

 tinent and in the adjacent islands, the oblong 

 skull, the projecting jaws, and the dark skin re- 

 appear ; with so much departure, in other respects, 

 from the Negro type, that ethnologists assign to 

 these people the special title of " Negritoes." 



The Australian skull is remarkable for its 

 narrowness and for the thickness of its walls, 

 especially in the region of the supraciliary ridge, 

 which is frequently, though not by any means 

 invariably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses re- 

 maining undeveloped. The nasal depression, 



1 See Dr, D. Wilson's valuable paper "On the supposed 

 prevalence of one Cranial Type throughout the American 

 Aborigines." Canadian Journal, Vol. II. 1857. 



