320 FORMS OF THE SKULL. 



induced to believe by cases of large bony tumours growing 

 within the skull, and encroaching on the brain, without 

 causing any of those inconveniences or dangers which a 

 small sudden pressure often produces. In the newly-born 

 child, too, when the sutures are all open, the brain, if pre- 

 vented from growing in one direction, may expand easily in 

 other qnarters. 



I conclude, therefore, that the thing Is possible : and I 

 shall add the evidence, which seems to me quite sufficient 

 to prove that it is true. 



Besides the Carib skull, which I have already described, 

 in which the forehead indeed is extremely low, but the con- 

 tinuity of outline, regularity of form, symmetry and har- 

 mony of parts, prove that it is a natural organization ; there 

 are many others, in which the regular outline is interrupted, 

 the smooth convexity of the skull harshly and abruptly dis- 

 turbed, an uneven rising and sinking surface substituted for 

 the naturally uniform swell of the forehead; and a con- 

 figuration is thus produced, such as would naturally arise 

 from the alleged artificial process, but totally different from 

 any thing in the works of nature. 



Various modes of proceeding are described ; the dif- 

 ferences in this respect, in the method of application, the 

 length and constancy of the process, the resistance of the 

 skull and brain during the pressure, and the degree of re- 

 covery after Its cessation, account for the individual diver- 

 sities in these compressed skulls. 



The tenth plate of Blumenbach's first decade is the 

 head of a male Carib from the island of St. Vincent's '^ ; in 



* This is the race which occupied the W^est-Indian islands at the time of 

 their first discovery by Columbus, and agreed in physical characters with 

 the Caribs of the Continent already alluded to (p. 316, note*), from whom 

 thi^y were originally derived. European hostility and encroachment con- 

 fined the last small remnant of this unfortunate race on a part of the island of 

 St. Vincent's. They were here distinguished, under the name of Red Caribs, 

 from the descendants of some Negroes who escaped from a shipwreck, and 

 whose numbers were perhaps augmented in other ways, who were called 

 Black Caribs. The latter are merely Negroes. The hostilities of the two 

 races have been very fatal to the former ; who are now nearly extinct. — 

 1m)wauus, History of the West Indies; 1. p. 411. 



