172 DESCRIPTION OP FIGURES OF SKULLS. 



showed (' Nat. Hist. Rev.' April 1 865 ; ' Mem. Soc. Anth. Lond.' 

 vol. iii. 1867-9, P* 7° 5 see a ^ s0 Virchow, 'Archiv fiir Anthropologic,' 

 v. p. $35, 1872) that the British, like some other dolichocephalic 

 skulls, had a great tendency to premature obliteration of the 

 main sutures, and these facts have been kept in view in making 

 estimates of the ages of the skulls, and especially of the calvariae, 

 which have been put into my hands. 



For a description of senile changes in the cranium, may be con- 

 sulted Welcker, 'Archiv fur Anthropologic,' i. p. 119, 1866; 

 Virchow, ' Verhandlungen Phys. Med. Gesellschaft zu Wurzburg,' 

 iv. 354, 1853, 'Ueber die Involutionskrankheit (Malum senile) der 

 platten Knochen, namentlich des Schadels,' or ' Gesamm. Abhand.' 

 p. 1010 sqq., 1856 ; Lucae, ' Schadel abnorm. Form, 1 xiii. and xiv, 

 p. 31, 1857 ; and Cleland, 'Phil. Trans/ pp. 136, 160, 162, 1870. 



The ' basilar angle ' of Professor Broca, taken in the manner 

 recommended by him (' Revue d'Anthropologie,' ii. 2. p. 202, 1873 ; 

 ' Instructions Craniologiques, Mem. Soc. Anth. Paris,' torn. ii. 2 de 

 Serie, 1875, pp. 90-93, or Topinard, f L' Anthropologic,' pp. 54, 307, 

 1876), has been added to some of the lists of measurements. It ex- 

 presses well in the inverse ratio of its numbers the greater or less 

 extent of the cranial curvature or antero-posterior arch described by 

 the cerebral hemispheres. Its rationale is well illustrated by such 

 figures as those given by Ecker, ( Archiv fiir Anthropologic,' iv. 1870, 

 p. 301, fig. 39, p. 303, fig. 40, and by the figures in the two plates 

 appended to that paper, ' Ueber die verschiedene Krummung des 

 Schadelrohres und iiber die Stellung des Schadels auf die Wirbelsaule 

 beim Neger und beim Europaer.' The same indication is given in a 

 less precise way by placing a skull with the grinding surface of its 

 upper-jaw teeth upon a flat surface and then observing whether it 

 is the occipital condyles or the eonceptacula cerebelli which furnish 

 a support to the back part of the skull when it is brought down on 

 to that surface. This method however of estimating the extent of 

 cranial curvature is not rarely likely to mislead us. For in skulls 

 of adults, and especially of male adults, the occipital condyles are 

 often found to have increased considerably in a downward direction ; 

 and such skulls may then come, when placed as above directed, to 

 rest upon them, owing, not to any deficiency in the cranial curvature 

 or length of the brain, but simply to this outgrowing of the condyles 

 which is developed in aid of the maintenance of the balance of the 



