CHAP. XX.] OF THE HUMAN BRAIN. 351 



" Broca availed himself of the rare opportunity of examining 

 a number of skulls which were found in Paris, on laying the 

 foundation of the new Tribunal de Commerce, in a vault, at a 

 depth of three metres, at a spot which was already covered with 

 houses at the time of Philip Augustus. The crania must, there- 

 fore, at the latest, date from the twelfth century, many of them 

 possibly from the Carlovingian period. They certainly belonged 

 to individuals of the higher ranks, as they were found in closed 

 vaults." 



The average capacity of 115 of these twelfth-century 

 skulls was found to be 1425*98 cubic centimetres. 



Another series of skulls was obtained from the Cime- 

 tiere de 1'Ouest, which was used as a cemetery from 

 1788 to 1824. Of these, which may be called skulls 

 of the nineteenth century, as many as 125 were ex- 

 amined, and they yielded an average capacity of 1461-53 

 centimetres. 



It is not without interest, therefore, to find that in the 

 course of seven centuries of progressive civilization the 

 average Parisian skull seems to have distinctly increased 

 in capacity. 



It is, moreover, a remarkable fact, as Vogt points out, 

 " that the difference between the sexes as regards the 

 cranial capacity increases with the development of the 

 race, so that the male European excels much more the 

 female than the Negro the Negress." 



Le Bon also has quite recently stated* that the differ- 

 ence existing between the average capacity of the skulls 

 of male and female modern Parisians is almost double 

 that which obtains between the skulls of male and female 

 inhabitants of ancient Egypt. 



This again is to be regarded as interesting evidence of 



* " Compt. Rend.," July 8, 1878, p. 80. Since this chapter has 

 been in the hands of the printer a longer paper has appeared, by 

 Le Bon, in the Revue d'Anthropologie, January, 1879. 



