320 ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 



races of mankind, is not known to be more common 

 among Negroes or Australians : nor because the brain of 

 the Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to have 

 its convolutions more symmetrically disposed, and to be, 

 so far, more ape-like than that of ordinary Europeans, are 

 we justified in concluding a like condition of the brain to 

 prevail universally among the lower races of mankind, 

 however probable that conclusion may be. 



We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information respecting 

 the disposition of the soft and destructible organs of every 

 Race of Mankind but our own ; and even of the skeleton, 

 our Museums are lamentably deficient in every part but 

 the cranium. Skulls enough there are, and since the time 

 when Blumenbach and Camper first called attention to 

 the marked and singular differences which they exhibit, 

 skull collecting and skull measuring has been a zealously 

 pursued branch of Natural History, and the results obtained 

 have been arranged and classified by various writers, among 

 whom the late active and able Retzius must always be the 

 first named. 



Human skulls have been found to differ from one another, 

 not merely in their absolute size and in the absolute 

 capacity of the brain case, but in the proportions which the 

 diameters of the latter bear to one another ; in the relative 

 size of the bones of the face (and more particularly of 

 the jaws and teeth) as compared with those of the skull ; 

 in the degree to which the upper jaw (which is of course 

 followed by the lower) is thrown backwards and downwards 

 under the fore-part of the brain case, or forwards and 

 upwards in front of and beyond it. They differ further 

 in the relations of the transverse diameter of the face, 

 taken through the cheek bones, to the transverse diameter 

 of the skull ; in the more rounded or more gable-like 

 form of the roof of the skull, and in the degree to which 

 the hinder part of the skull is flattened or projects beyond 

 the ridge, into and below which, the muscles of the neck 

 are inserted. 



In some skulls the brain case may be said to be ' round,' 

 the extreme length not exceeding the extreme breadth by a 

 greater proportion than 100 to 80, while the difference 

 may be much less.* Men possessing such skulls were 

 termed by Retzius ' br achy cephalic,' and the skull of a 



* In no normal human skull does the breadth of the brain-case 

 exceed its length. 



