MAC CURDY HUMAN SKULLS FROM GAZELLE PENINSULA. 



are megaseme. The human hard palate has been classified 

 as rectilinear and curvilinear. When the branches of the 

 alveolar arch are rectilinear and divergent there is produced 

 the hyperbolic or human type; when the branches are parallel 

 and rectilinear the result is the hypsiloid or simian type. Cur- 

 vilinear branches are either divergent and hence parabolic or 

 convergent and elliptic. The elliptic is a simian form. The 

 arch of the hard palate is elliptic in eight cases (five males and 

 three females), and hypsiloid in the case of three males. In 

 more than half of the entire series therefore the hard palate is 

 of a simian type. 



Nasal index. No matter which system is employed 

 (French or German), the series easily falls within the platy- 

 rhine class; eight out of ten males and six out of eight females 

 being platyrhine. 



~, . /naso-malar length xioo\ 



The naso-malar index (- bimalar length" ~) re P re - 



sents the degree of prominence of the nasal bridge beyond 

 a straight line connecting the anterior margins of the malar 

 bones. It was used by Oldfield Thomas 1 with valuable results, 

 and has since been used extensively by Mr. Risley 2 in India, 

 who accepts Mr. Thomas' nomenclature, but applies the terms 

 to slightly different groupings of the indices. The series from 

 Gazelle Peninsula is arranged according to both methods: 



THOMAS 



1 Account of a collection of skulls from Torres Straits. Journal of the Anthropological 

 Institute, XIV, 1885, p. 332. 



2 The Study of Ethnology in India. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, XX, 1891, 

 p. 255. 



