FORMS OF THE SKULL. 285 



are formed and supported ; — that the size and configuration 

 of the latter must determine those of the former*. We 

 venture to affirm, that a blind man, if he knew the vast dif- 

 ference which exists between the face of a Calmuck and that 

 of a Negro, would be able to distinguish their skulls by the 

 mere touch ; nor could you persuade any person, however 

 ignorant of the subject, that either of these belonged to a 

 head similar to those from which the divine examples of 

 the ancient Grecian sculpture were copied. Differences 

 equally striking are found in the cavity of the cranium ; of 

 which the general capacity and particular forms depend 

 entirely on the size and partial developement of the brain. 

 Hence our zoological study of man will be greatly assisted 

 by carefully examining genuine specimens of the skulls of 

 different nations, which are easily prepared and preserved, 

 may be conveniently handled and surveyed, considered in 

 various points of view, and cempared to each other. 



Such a comparison will shew us that the form of the 

 cranium differs no less than the colour of the skin, or other 

 characters ; and that one kind of structure runs, by gentle 

 and almost inobservable gradations, into another ; yet that 

 there is, on the whole, an undeniable, nay, a very remark- 

 able constancy of character in the crania of different nations, 

 contributing very essentially to national peculiarities of 

 form, and corresponding exactly to the features which cha- 

 racterize such nations. Hence anatomists have attempted 

 to lay down some scale of dimensions, to which the various 

 forms of the skull might be referred, and by means of which 

 they might be reduced into certain classes. 



With the exception of a few desultory observations, 

 which are scattered through the works of different writers, 

 Daubenton's Paper, " Sur la Difference du grand Trou 



* 1 do not speak of the original formation, nor mean to assert that the 

 particular forms of the soft parts depend on tliose of the bones, as their cause- 

 for numerous phenomena rather tend to prove the reverse of that position, or 

 that the soft parts influence the configuration of the bones. I only wish to 

 point out the relation between them, and to state, that either being known, 

 it will be easy to determine the other. 



