UPON THE SERIES OF PREHISTORIC CRANIA. 265 



in 1854 examined the relation of brains and skulls in situ without 

 any knowledge of his precedence, but with the result of confirming 

 his statements. Of these there are two which are of eminent im- 

 portance for our present purpose, the one namely which allocates the 

 supra-marginal convolution of the brain to the parietal eminence in 

 the skull (see Huschke, ' Schadel, Hirn, und Seele/ p. 142) ; and a 

 second, according to which the internal perpendicular or parieto- 

 occipital fissure 1 holds a similar relation to the lambdoid suture 

 (Huschke, 1. c. pp. 62, 142). For as I have already said (p. 234), 

 of all the peculiarities distinguishing the brachycephalic from the 

 dolichocephalic skull, at least in European races, there is none 

 more important and more striking, even from a merely cranioloo-ical 

 point of view, than the difference existing between them as to the 

 distance intervening between the plane of the parietal eminences 

 and that of the back of the skull. When however we come to look 

 into this difference a little more closely, we find that if we take for 

 our posterior limit, not the posterior aspect of the skull but the 

 plane of the lambdoid suture, the two varieties of skull are just as 

 clearly differentiated as before. For the relative proportions of 

 that portion of the cerebral cranium which is constituted by the 

 superior squama occipitis and lodges the occipital lobe proper, and 

 the relative proportions of that lobe itself, are exceedingly variable 2 



investigation ; an account of their labours is given by Professor Broca in his memoir 

 * Sur la Topographie Cranio-ce're'brale,' published in the ' Revue d' Anthropologic,' torn, 

 v. No. 2, 1876. 



1 Professor Turner (* Journal of Anatomy and Physiology,' Series ii. No. xiii. 

 Nov. 1873, p. 145) says that the 'exact distance of the parieto-occipital fissure from 

 the apex of the lambdoidal suture varies, partly from variations in the brain itself, 

 and partly from the not infrequent variations in the mode of ossification of the upper 

 squamous part of the occipital bone. About 0-7 or o«8 of an inch will express its 

 average distance from the apex of that suture.' In this Professor Turner differs from 

 Ecker, 'Arch, fur Anth.' ix. 1876, pp. 72 and 76 ; and from Broca and BischofF, citt. in 

 loco. Broca, in the 'Revue d'Anthropologie,' torn. v. No. 2, 1876, says : ' La scissure 

 occipitale externe correspond assez ordinairement chez les adultes de notre race a la 

 suture lambdoide, a quelques millimetres prfes; toutefois elle peut s'en ecarter 

 davantage, soit en dessus, soit en dessous.' These statements are mainly of importance 

 as bearing upon the variability of the occipital lobes, to which reference has been made 

 above and will be also in the next note. 



2 The occipital lobe is supplied exclusively by the posterior cerebral artery, which, 

 on account of the angle which it makes with the main trunk whence it arises, 

 the basilar, namely, or, on the right side, very frequently the internal carotid, 

 as also on account of its great length, must work at very considerable hydraulic 

 disadvantage. What the peculiar course of the artery would lead us to anticipate, 



