180 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 



ciliary ridge would convert the Australian brain case into 

 a form identical with that of the aberrant fossil. 



And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to the rank 

 which they occupy among, or beyond, these existing varie- 

 ties of cranial conformation. In the first place, I must 

 remark, that, as Professor Schmerling well observed (su- 

 pra, p. 142) in commenting upon the Engis skull, the 

 formation of a safe judgment upon the question is greatly 

 hindered by the absence of the jaws from both the crania^ 

 so that there is no means of deciding, with certainty, 

 whether they were more or less prognathous than the 

 lower existing races of mankind. And yet, as we have 

 seen, it is more in this respect than any other, that human 

 skulls vary, towards and from, the brutal type the brain 

 case of an average dolichocephalic European differing far 

 less from that of a Negro, for example, than his jaws do. 

 In the absence of the jaws, then, any judgment on the 

 relations of the fossil skulls to recent Races must be ac- 

 cepted with a certain reservation. 



But taking the evidence as it stands, and turning first 

 to the Engis skull, I confess I can find no character in the 

 remains of that cranium which, if it were a recent skull, 

 would give any trustworthy clue as to the Race to which 

 it might appertain. Its contours and measurements agree 

 very well with those of some Australian skulls which I 

 have examined and especially has it a tendency towards 

 that occipital flattening, to the great extent of which, in 

 some Australian skulls, I have alluded. But all Austra- 

 lian skulls do not present this flattening, and the supra- 

 ciliary ridge of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of the 

 typical Australians. 



On the other hand, its measurements agree equally 

 well with those of some European skulls. And assuredly, 



