190 DESCRIPTION OF FIGURES OF SKULLS. 



in many cases they are connected by transitional forms. Thirdly, in 

 series containing- either well-developed and capacious skulls, such as 

 ' Cowlam, lix. 3,' or rough-hewn crania such as ' Rudstone, lxiii. 9,' 

 the one next to be described, or both, we find in England 1 as well 

 as in Denmark skulls differing 1 from them in being at once them- 

 selves 'ill-filled,' and in being indicative of feebleness in their 

 owners. The existence of such skulls in such series in Denmark 

 has often been explained by supposing- them to have belonged to 

 a Lapp population. This explanation however will not account 

 for their presence in the Bronze-Period barrows of this country. 



RUDSTONE. 



[lxiii. 9. p. 248.] 



With the cranium, ' Rudstone, lxiii. 9/ there came into my hands 

 two femora, the length (i9«i") and strength of which, as also the 

 character of the skull, show that we have here to deal with the 

 remains of a man of great muscular strength, of about 5' 9" in 

 stature, and ' past the middle period of life,' if not indeed ' aged.' 



The skull itself is a good example of one form of the brachy- 

 cephalic cranium, which is distinguished by having a very oblique 

 and low-lying frontal region, and large supraciliary ridges, which, 

 if covered with large eyebrows during life, would have given a 

 somewhat beetling and forbidding expression to the countenance. 

 In the skull now before us the obliquity of the forehead is probably 

 somewhat increased by the commencing 2 of the senile settling 



1 The series from Cowlam, Rudstone, Weaverthorpe, Goodmanham, and some 

 others furnish specimens of small delicate skulls in company with one or other of the 

 larger and stronger varieties of the brachycephalic type. 



2 There can be no doubt that with the atrophy of the brain which sometimes 

 accompanies other senile changes some substance must, in the nature of things, be 

 developed to fill up the void thus caused. In some cases an effusion of subarachnoid 

 fluid occupies the space as fast as it is formed, and in a case of a very aged man, 

 Dr. Holyoke of Salem, Massachusetts, a person known to be a centenarian, whose 

 body was examined after death, and whose s} r mptoms of intra-cranial fluctuation 

 during life were recorded by himself (see ' Memoirs/ p. 48 seqq., Boston, U. S. A., 1 829), 

 this fluid must have been exuded in great abundance to occupy the space rendered 

 available by the shrinking of the brain. 



In other cases, as also to a considerable extent even when fluid is poured out in the 

 subarachnoid space, the inner table of the skull appears to secrete fresh laminae of bone, 



