302 FORMS OF THE SKULL. 



oblong form, because the children are allowed to sleep on 

 their sides." These practices account just as well for the 

 German and Belgian forms, as the manoeuvres of the Con- 

 stantinople midwives do for the spherical skulls of the 

 Turks. 1 have, however, seen German heads of a globular 

 form ; remarkably high and broad behind ; resembling the 

 Turkish cranium in this respect, and in the approximation 

 of the great occipital foramen to the posterior part of the 

 basis cranii. 



SoEMMKRRiNG says that he finds no well-marked diffe- 

 rences between the German, Swiss, French ^', Swedish f? 

 and Russian X skulls in his collection ; except that the orbits 

 arc contracted in the Russian, their margins quadrangular, 

 and the teeth small. In the skull of a Pole, figured by 

 Blumenbach §, the smallness of the orbits is a remarkable 

 feature. 



That no striking difference has been discovered on com- 

 paring together one or two casual specimens of each of the 

 nations above mentioned, does not authorize us to conclude 

 that no differences exist. On the contrary, if the brain be 

 the seat of our intellectual and moral functions, which no- 

 body at present seems to doubt ; and if tlie several propen- 

 sities, sentiments, and intellectual powers are the functions 

 of certain parts of this organ, which is at least a probable 

 doctrine; we shall be much surprised to find tliat no dis- 

 tinctions are observable in the shape of the cranium between 

 English, French, Germans, Italians, &c. The only mode 

 of ascertaining the point satisfactorily would be to collect a 

 considerable number of heads of each nation, or of accurate 

 casts or portraits ; and to select, for this purpose, indivi- 

 duals of genuine descent, whose organization has not been 

 modified by foreign intermixture. My friend Mr. George 

 Lewis, whose quickness in distinguishing forms, and 



* Sandifort Muaeum Jrnd. Lugd. Bat. v. i. tab. G. 



+ Ibid. tab. 4. 



X Ibid. t. 9. 



C Decad. iii. No. 22. 



