Ill T1IE FOSSIL SKULLS 203 



these existing varieties of cranial conformation. In 

 the first place, I must remark, that, as Professor 

 Schmerling well observed (supra, p. 161) in com- 

 menting upon the Engis skull, the formation of a 

 safe judgment upon the question is greatly 

 hindered ty the absence of the jaws from both the 

 crania, so that there is no means of deciding, with 

 certainty, whether they were more or less prog- 

 nathous than the lower existing races of mankind. 

 And yet, as we have seen, it is more in this respect 

 than any other, that human skulls vary, towards 

 and from, the brutal type the brain case of an 

 average dolichocephalic European differing far less 

 from that of a Negro, for example, than his jaws 

 do. In the absence of the jaws, then, any 

 judgment on the relations of the fossil skulls to 

 recent Races must be accepted with a certain 

 reservation. 



But taking the evidence as it stands, and 

 turning first to the Engis skull, I confess I can 

 find no character in the remains of that cranium 

 which, if it were a recent skull, would give any 

 trustworthy clue as to the Race to which it might 

 appertain. Its contours and measurements agree 

 very well with those of some Australian skulls 

 which I have examined and especially has it a 

 tendency towards that occipital flattening, to the 

 great extent of which, in some Australian skulls, I 

 have alluded. But all Australian skulls do not 

 present this flattening, and the supraciliary ridge 



