FOUR METHODS OF EXAMINING THE SKULL. 



581 



Fig. 281 



of gravity, whence an important difference arises in the relative position 

 of the head and trunk in man and in inferior animals. The extent of 

 this difference, when the human skeleton is compared with that of the 

 simias, has been most fully made known by Mr. Owen, who has shown 

 that it is much greater in respect to the adult ape than it has hitherto 

 been supposed. But there is, in reality, no difference in human races. 

 The foramen magnum is only posterior in the negro skull to its place 

 in the European, in consequence of the projection of the upper jaw, par- 

 ticularly of the alveolar process." 



In illustration of the statement of Mr. Owen respecting the relative 



length of the arm in man 

 and in the more anthropoid 

 apes, I give the annexed 

 photograph, Fig. 281, of 

 the human skeleton and 

 those of the chimpanzee 

 and orang. Of the chim- 

 panzee it should be ob- 

 served that the specimen 

 was young. They are all 

 brought nearly to the same 

 size by adjusting the dis- 

 tances at which they were 

 taken. The human skele- 



Skeleton of man, chimpanzee, and orang. fOU Was that of a man more 



than six feet in height. 



There are four different views from which an examination ^ 



K our modes of 



of the skull of man and animals may be made : 1st. The lat- examining the 

 eral ; 2d. The vertical ; 3d. The basilar ; 4th. The front. skulL 



1st. The lateral view, or Camper's method, is thus described by the 

 anatomist who introduced, it, and whose name it bears. 



"The basis on which a distinction of nations is founded may be dis- 

 played by two straight lines, one of which is to be drawn The lateral 

 through the meatus auditorius to the base of the nose, and view, or Cam- 

 the other touching the prominent centre of the forehead, and per s n 

 falling thence on the most advancing part of the upper jaw-bone, the 

 head being viewed in profile. In the angle produced by these two lines 

 may be said to consist not only the distinctions between the skulls of 

 the several species of animals, but also those which are found to exist 

 between different nations ; and it might be concluded that Nature has 

 availed herself, at the same time, of this angle to mark out the diversi- 

 ties of the animal kingdom, and to establish a sort of scale from the in- 

 ferior tribes up to the most beautiful forms which are found in the human 



