28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



these islands live in the central depression formed by the bed of the 

 old central lagoon which lies some sixty feet lower than the edge of 

 the old reef, and therefore out of sight and sound of the sea. 



On the physical side the natives of the south-eastern district, 

 though probably essentially of one stock, differ within tolerably broad 

 limits owing, as I believe, to local infusions of foreign blood. 



If a line be drawn obliquely from the north-west to the south- 

 eastern corner of this district it will divide it roughly into two equal 

 areas, the southern half comprises by far the greater part of the land 

 area, and is inhabited by a short broad-nosed people with moderately 

 dark skin and frizzly or sometimes wavy hair and a mouth which is 

 sometimes " snouty ". In the northern half of the area, that is to say 

 in the Trobriands, the Marshall Bennet group and Murua the natives 

 are sometimes somewhat lighter coloured and often have curly or 

 wavy hair ; many of the men are of taller stature and less prog- 

 nathous ; their skulls are rounder and their noses often longer, the 

 bridge being often high and narrow. But these characters are shown 

 only by a portion of these islanders, and even in these the degree in 

 which they occur is not constant, in fact if skin colour be ignored it is 

 possible in the Trobriands to meet with individuals making a complete 

 series from the typical Papuo-Melanesian of the district to a tall good- 

 looking man, at least as Polynesian in appearance as many Micro- 

 nesians. Broadly speaking the Papuo-Melanesians ' of South-Eastern 

 British New Guinea are dolichocephalic with a tendency to mesati- 

 cephaly which becomes especially obvious in measurements on the 

 living, though, as far as our present knowledge goes, a varying number 

 of brachycephals occur everywhere, though the proportion of these 

 may be locally very small. The inhabitants of the D'Entrecasteaux 

 group, composed of the three big islands of Goodenough, Fergusson 

 and Normanby, appear to be the most dolichocephalic of the Papuo- 

 Melanesians. Of 118 skulls of both sexes, collected by Loria from the 



1 I apply this name to the rather short predominantly frizzly-haired, cafc-an-lait 

 coloured race of South-Eastern British New Guinea and the neighbouring archipelagos. 

 Lancet, 1906, p. 422. 



