July 3. 1879] 



NATURE 



223 



light upon the history and development of the species" 

 These are all exceedingly difficult and complicated 

 problems. 



As an example of one of the problems which the 

 student of the Comparative Anatomy of Man sets him- 

 self, may be quoted the relation of the size of the brain 

 to that of the rest of the body in different races and 

 different individuals. An important contribution to this 

 much-vexed question appeared in the last number of the 

 French Revue d' Anthropologie, by M. Gustave Le Bon, 

 in which the author, among other things, endeavoured to 

 show that in lower races, and uncivilised conditions of the 

 higher races, the brains of men and women were compara- 

 tively equal in size and weight, but that with elevation in 

 the scale and advance of culture, the differences between 

 the sexes increased, the women's brain remaining station- 

 ary, while that of the men augmented. There are, how- 

 ever, some fallacies in the statistics quoted in support of 

 this proposition, which might apply to the women of 

 France, although not to so great a degree as M. Le Bon 

 seems to imply. The lecturer showed that in England, 

 according to the best information yet obtained, the pro- 

 portional size of the female brain to the male was as 9 to 

 10, very nearly the same as in the lowest and least culti- 

 vated of the races quoted by M. Le Bon. 



As regards the relative size of the head in men, it seems 

 probable from the investigations ot Mr. Francis Gallon 

 and others, that on the whole men with the greatest 

 amount of intellectual capacity have large heads, although 

 this is by no means always the case. Small heads are 

 frequently accompanied by great energy. 



The Australians were described in last year's lectures, 

 but as they are a very interesting race, being both socially 

 and physically the most different from ourselves, it may 

 be as well to go over some of their principal characters 

 again. 



Their habits are very primitive, their only domestic 

 animal being the native dog, and their only weapons the 

 boomerang, spear, and lance, having no bows and 

 arrows. They have not acquired the art of pottery 

 making. One of their principal characteristics is the 

 small size of the brain-cavity compared with that of a 

 European, the largest not coming up to the size of the 

 average Italian peasant. Since last year five Australian 

 skulls have been added to the museum, which are all 

 extremely characteristic of the race. The average capa- 

 city of these five is 1,234 c.c, while the average of five 

 ordinary European skulls is i,S74 c.c. 



Another characteristic of the skull is that it is long and 

 narrow ; the cephalic index, or relation of the greatest 

 breadth in the parietal region to the extreme length, 

 which is taken as 100, being on the average 71 or 72. 

 The super-orbital ridges are extremely pronounced, and 

 the orbits are elongated, and short from above down- 

 wards. The nose is short and wide below, and the jaws 

 project forwards. The skin of these people is dark, and 

 their hair is black, but not curly. 



The Tasmanians are in some respects allied to the 

 Australians, and in others differ greatly from them. 



Tasmania was discovered in 1642 by Abel Tasman, but 

 it was not until 1777, when Capt. Cook visited it, that the 

 intercourse between the English and the Tasmanians 

 commenced. In 1803 it became an Enghsh colony. The 

 race is now entirely extinct, the last man having died in 

 1869, and the last woman in 1876. 



Unfortunately, but few skulls have been preserved, and 

 we have very little information about this curious and 

 interesting race. Their habits seem to have been very 

 primitive ; they had no domestic animals, not even the 

 native dog, and no boomerang, their only weapons being 

 a lance and a club or " waddy." 



The skull is very characteristic, the parietal part being 

 broader than in that of the Australians, and the hair is 

 woolly, something like that of a negro, a microscopic 



section showing it to be flattened and elliptical, while 

 straight hair is more or less cylindrical. They have 

 probably been isolated from all other races for a great 

 length of time, though it is likely that Australia was once 

 inhabited by a people resembling them. 



The islands of the Pacific Ocean proper are inhabited 

 by two extremely distinct and different races, which are, 

 however, often much intermixed. One of these, the 

 Papuans or Melanesians, are very like negroes, having 

 woolly hair, broad noses and mouths, and low orbits ; the 

 skull is long and narrow, and more like the Australian 

 type. The other — the true Polynesian — of which the 

 Samoans and Tongans may be taken as the best types, 

 have more or less straight hair, and in many respects 

 resemble the Malays ; their heads are round, and they 

 have a fine high face, with a long and narrow nose and a 

 round short mouth. These latter are much more highly 

 civilised than any of the races described above ; when 

 they were discovered, at the end of last century, they had 

 houses, clothes, domestic animals, canoes, &c. 



It seems very probable that these islands were once 

 inhabited much more extensively by Melanesians, the 

 Polynesians having colonised those which extend from 

 the Sandwich Islands, on the north, to New Zealand, on 

 the south, and having in most cases replaced the original 

 race. Mixtures have also taken place, as in the Maories 

 of New Zealand. 



A few details must now be given about the methods of 

 measuring the capacity of crania. This is a much more 

 difficult operation than might at first sight be supposed. 

 The best method seems to be that used by Mr. Busk, 

 viz., filling the skull with rape or mustard seed, which is 

 then measured with an instrument called a choremometer. 

 It should always be filled to a maximum, a funnel of a 

 certain aperture being used, and the seed being well 

 shaken and pressed in, as a difference of three or four 

 cubic inches may be made if these ^precautions are not 

 attended to. 



The capacity of a skull, as well as its extreme dimen- 

 sions, varies much in proportion as it is wet or dry. One 

 which measured 520 linear millimetres in circumference 

 in summer increased 7 millimetres in winter. 



Side view of skull of male Australian. KK.horizontal line, correspondmg with 

 visual ax.s : A , alveolar puint ; i', spinal point, or base of nasal spine ; 

 N, nasion, or centre of fronto-nasal suture ; C, glabella ; O/, ophryoD. 

 or centre of super-arbital line; Bf, bregma, or union of coronal ana 

 sagittal sutures ; L, lambda, or union of lambdoid and sagittal suiires , 

 O, occipital point ; Au, auricular point, or centre of external auiliiory 

 meatus; £, basion. or centre of anterior margin of foramen magnun, 

 PI, ptereon, or point where the frontal (Fr), parietal (/'), squamosal iS<,}. 

 and alisphenoid iAS) bones meet. 



The circumference of a skull is taken by passing a tape 

 round it from a point called by Broca the ophryon, which 



