PREFATORY NOTE 



IN presenting this remarkable craniological study to the scientific public, a 

 few words in reference to its lamented author and to the chief results 

 which it reaches will not be unwelcome to readers. 



This memoir was the last of Dr. Allen's many contributions to our 

 knowledge of organic forms and their modifications. Only a week before his 

 sudden death he handed it to the Publication Committee, prepared so carefully 

 that it was in all respects ready for the printer. As on several occasions he 

 showed me his manuscript and explained to me what features in it he con- 

 sidered of special importance, it may be well in these introductory lines, which 

 the Committee on Publication has kindly suggested I should write, to single 

 out these points for comment. 



In a general sense this memoir is a continuation of Dr. Allen's previous 

 earlier article on " Crania from the Mounds of the St. John's River, Florida," 

 etc., published in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadel- 

 phia (vol. x., November 24, 1896). The same terminology is adopted and the 

 lines of investigation are analogous. That paper attracted most favorable 

 attention from the leading c.raniologists of Europe, and Professor Emil Schmidt, 

 of Leipsic, did not exaggerate its merits when he closed his review of it in 

 the Centralblatt fur Antliropologie (Bd. ii., Heft 3, p. 258) with the words, 

 " Allen's work is the most important craniological investigation which Ameri- 

 can scientific literature has had to show for a long series of years." 



It was one of Dr. Allen's chief aims to establish some other, and if pos- 

 sible more stable criteria of cranial comparison than those in common use; 

 and, on the other hand, to subject the latter to a much closer criticism than 

 they have heretofore received. 



In the former direction he emphasized the significance of the presence of 

 the prenasal fossa as determining grade ; pointed out the value of the infra- 

 orbital suture, which is generally neglected ; and offered as entirely new the 

 comparisons of the pyramidal process of the palatal bone and the prominence 

 or recession of the zygoma when the skull is viewed from above. He esti- 



