1326 



VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



.Ffg.821. 



Fig. 822. 



Cranium of Masacusi Indian. {From a specimen in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.) 



take a survey of the African nations, we find 

 the prognathous type gradually softened down 

 (so to speak) among them, until in some of 

 the races of undoubted African descent, in- 

 habiting the Nile valley, it merges into the 

 oval. We have already noticed the curious 

 admixture of the pyramidal and prognathous 

 types which is seen in the Hottentot races ; and 

 among the widely spread and isolated tribes 

 by which Oceania is peopled, the same com- 

 bination is exhibited in various degrees. For 



Fig. 823. 



whilst the skulls of the Malayan portion of 

 the population are referable to the pyramidal 

 type rather than to any other, those of many 

 native Australians, and of various islanders 

 designated as " Pelagian Negroes," are almost 

 purely prognathous, presenting but a ver.y 

 slight indication of a pyramidal tendency 

 about the upper part of the face ; and between 

 these there is every degree of gradation. Thus, 

 in the Australian skulJ, delineated in figs. 

 823, 824, there is decidedly less prognathisra 



Fig. 824. 



Cranium of Aboriginal Australian. {From a specimen in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.') 



than in that already described (fig. 808.) ; and 

 in the skull of the Tahitian (Jig. 825), with 

 about the same amount of prognathism, there 



Fig. 825. 



Cranium of a Tahitian. {From a specimen in the 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.) 



is a considerably less degree of antero- 

 posterior elongation ; in both these skulls, 



age of European skulls, than the latter varied from 

 each other. 



moreover, the upper part of the face, when 

 seen in front, shows a decidedly pyramidal 

 tendency. So, again, the Greenlanders are 

 ranked by Professor Retzius among his Doli- 

 chocephaks prognatha?, along with the Negroes 

 and Australians, although the upper part of 

 the face is often most characteristically pyra- 

 midal ; and even the Br achy cephalic Tartars 

 and Kalmuks are reckoned by him suffi- 

 ciently prognathous to be separated from the 

 Finns, Lapps, Turks, &c. 



These facts, to which many more might be 

 added, should be sufficient to convince every 

 philosophic naturalist, who duly estimates 

 what is required for the establishment of spe- 

 cific distinctions, that none such can be laid 

 down among the different races of mankind, 

 upon the foundation of cranial conformation 

 alone. Those ethnologists who hold the 

 doctrine of originally distinct stocks, which 

 (they maintain) have continued to preserve 

 their characteristic features through succes- 

 sive generations, have been obliged to admit, 

 not three or five varieties of cranial conform- 



