EUROPEAN VARIETY. 307 



compressed laterally, and considerably elongated towards 

 the front ; hence the length of the whole skull, from the 

 teeth to the occiput is considerable. It forms, in this re- 

 spect, the strongest contrast to that globular shape which 

 some of the Caucasian races present, and which is very re- 

 markable in the Turk. 



The capacity of the cranium is reduced, particularly in its 

 front part, where it appears as if the forehead had been sliced 

 off. The face, on the contrary, is enlarged. 



"I measured," says Soemmerring, " several Negro, and 

 nearly all my European crania, in order to compare the ca- 

 pacity of the respective cerebral cavities. I found in the 

 former ; 1st, that the measure taken by carrying a string 

 from the root of the nose, along the middle of the forehead 

 and the sagittal suture, to the posterior edge of the foramen 

 ovale, the length of the face being equal, was much shorter; 

 2dly, that the horizontal circumference, measured by a 

 string carried round the head above the eye- brows and the 

 superior edge of the temporal bone, was much less ; 3dly, 

 that neither the long diameter from the forehead to the oc- 

 ciput, nor any transverse diameter between the parietal or 

 the temporal bones, is equal to the corresponding one in the 

 European*.*' 



The frontal bone is shorter, and, as well as the parietal, 

 less excavated and less capacious than in the European ; the 

 temporal ridge mounts higher, and the space which it in- 

 cludes is much more considerable. The front of the skull 

 seems compressed into a narrow keel-like form between the 

 two powerful temporal muscles, which rise nearly to the high- 

 est part of the head ; and has a compressed figure, which is 

 not equally marked in the entire head, on account of the 

 thickness of the muscles. Instead of the ample swell of the 

 forehead and vertex, which rises between and completely 

 surmounts the comparatively weak temporal muscles of the 

 European, we often see only a small space left between the 

 two temporal ridges in the Ethiopian. 



* Ueber die korperliche Verschiedenhcit des Negers vom Europder ; ^50. 



X 2 



