Ill AUSTRALIAN SKULLS 201 



again, is extremely sudden, so that the brows over- 

 hang and give the countenance a particularly 

 lowering, threatening expression. The occipital 

 region of the skull, also, not unfrequently becomes 

 less prominent ; so that it not only fails to project 

 beyond a line drawn perpendicular to the hinder 

 extremity of the glabello-occipital line, but even, in 

 some cases, begins to shelve away from it, forwards, 

 almost immediately. In consequence of this cir- 

 cumstance, the parts of the occipital bone which lie 

 above and below the tuberosity make a much 

 more acute angle with one another than is usual, 

 whereby the hinder part of the base of the skull 

 appears obliquely truncated. Many Australian 

 skulls have a considerable height, quite equal to 

 that of the average of any other race, but there 

 are others in which the cranial roof becomes re- 

 markably depressed, the skull, at the same time, 

 elongating so much that, probably, its capacity is 

 not diminished. The majority of skulls possessing 

 these characters, which I have seen, are from the 

 neighbourhood of Port Adelaide in South Australia, 

 and have been used by the natives as water 

 vessels ; to which end the face has been knocked 

 away, and a string passed through the vacuity and 

 the occipital foramen, so that the skull was sus- 

 pended by the greater part of its basis. 



Figure 31 represents the contour of a skull of 

 this kind from Western Port, with the jaw 

 attached, and of the Neanderthal skull, both 



