DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES OF SKULLS. 567 



of the age of their owner up to the age mentioned. When the 

 teeth all alike have begun to show marks of wear, but the inner 

 and outer surfaces of the skull still retain some smoothness and 

 glossiness, I have spoken of the skull as belonging to a person in 

 the t early portion of middle life,' meaning thereby a period from 

 30 to 40. Greater wear of the teeth as yet unaccompanied with 

 serious senile changes I have spoken of as characterising ' later 

 middle life/ a period between 40 and 50. The commencement 

 of senile changes I have noted by speaking of the skull as having 

 belonged to a person * past middle life/ their greater development 

 by speaking of the skull as that of an 'aged' person. In priscan, 

 as indeed, according to Dr. E. Zuckerkandl (Reise der Osterreich. 

 Freg. Novara, 1875, p. 117), in modern skulls, both of civilised 

 and savage races, the obliteration of the sutures of the skull takes 

 place at any time within a period extending over no less a time than 

 the twenty years from the age of 20 to that of 40. Dr. Thurnam 

 showed (Nat. Hist. Rev., April 1865 ; Mem. Soc. Anth. Lond., vol. 

 iii. 18679, p. 70 ; see also Virchow, Archiv fur Anthropologie, v. 

 p. 535, 1872) that the British, like some other dolicho-cephalic 

 skulls, had a great tendency to premature obliteration of the 

 main sutures, and these facts have been kept in view in making 

 estimates of the ages of the skulls, and especially of the calvarise, 

 which have been put into my hands. 



For a description of senile changes in the cranium, may be con- 

 sulted Welcker, Archiv fur Anthropologie, i. p. 119, 1866; Virchow, 

 Verhandlungen Phys. Med. Gesellschaffc zu Wurzburg, iv. 354, 1853, 

 Ueber die Involutionskrankheit (Malum senile) der platten Knochen, 

 namentlich des Schadels, or Gesamm. Abhand., p. 1010 i eqq., 1856 ; 

 Lucse, Schadel Abnorm., Form. xiii. and xiv, p. 31, 1857; and 

 Cleland, Phil. Trans., pp. 136, 160, 162, 1870. 



The ' basilar angle' of Professor Broca, taken in the manner 

 recommended by him (Revue d' Anthropologie, ii. 2. p. 202, 1873; 

 Instructions Craniologiques, Mem. Soc. Anth. Paris, torn. ii. 2 de Serie, 

 1875, pp. 90-93, or Topinard, L'Anthropologie, pp. 54, 307, 1876), 

 has been added to some of the lists of measurements. It expresses 

 well in the inverse ratio of its numbers the greater or less extent 

 of the cranial curvature or antero-posterior arch described by the 

 cerebral hemispheres. Its rationale is well illustrated by such 

 figures as those given by Ecker, Archiv fur Anthropologie, iv. 1870, 

 p. 301, fig. 39, p. 303, fig. 40, and by the figures in the two plates 

 appended to that paper, Ueber die verschiedene Krilmmung des Schadel- 



