SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 193 



responding diminution in others ? The answer to this question is 

 given by the following figures : 



Average capacity of 25 < metopic skulls - 1,568 c.cm. 



25 c? normal 1,450 



A similar difference is to be noted in the female skulls (Tables 

 I,V.). 



Metopism is found to be much more frequent in certain races 

 than in others, and it is said in modern races than in ancient or pre- 

 historic. Thus the frequency in modern European nations is about 

 10 per cent., the percentage being greater in the Southern broad- 

 headed races than in the Northern. It is rare in African and Ameri- 

 can races, the frequency being, according to Professor Welcker, rather 

 less than 2 per cent. In the Barnard Davis collection, in 127 African 

 crania, only two are metopic, and these skulls of Guanches. On com- 

 paring ancient European races with modern I find that about 5 per- 

 cent, of the ancient skulls are metopic as compared with 10 per cent, 

 in the modern. It was, however, very common in the skulls of the 

 ancient Britons, and of the Romans and Romano- British. It is not 

 infrequent in the ancient Egyptians : about 6 per cent. Metopism 

 has thus been thought to be associated with a greater frontal develop- 

 ment in civilised races as compared with uncivilised or barbaric races. 

 Certain of the Asiatic races, however, such as the Indians, Chinese 

 and Japanese, and the Northern races of Europe, in which metopism 

 is rare, can boast of a tolerably high degree of civilisation, so that the 

 presence of a metopic suture, with its associated increase in width of 

 the frontal lobes, cannot without qualification be regarded as a mark 

 of intellectual superiority. 



Metopism, in some cases, appears to be hereditary. Dr. William 

 Wright in examining skeletons from the barrows in East Yorkshire, 

 found that out of nine skulls obtained from a single barrow four were 

 metopic (44 percent.) ; he also noted that there was a striking similarity 

 in most of these skulls. It would appear, therefore, that the barrow 

 was a family burial ground, and that the mciopic suture was a here- 

 ditary character of this family. Another fact which is in favour of 



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