ADDRESS ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 897 



former times. But those times were times of a severer struggle 

 for existence than even the present; and inferior intelligences, and 

 specially the inferior quickness and readiness observable in 'such 

 cases, it may well be supposed, would have fared worse then than 

 now. There is, however, no need for this supposition ; for, as 

 a matter of fact, the brain-case of brains so hypertrophied i has a 

 very readily recognisable shape of its own, and this shape is 

 not the shape of the Cro-Magnon skull, nor indeed of any of the 

 prehistoric skulls with which I am acquainted. 



As regards the second suggestion, to the effect that a large 

 brain-case may have contained a brain the convolutions of which 

 were simple, broad, and coarse, and which made up by consequence 

 a sheet of grey matter of less square area than that made up in a 

 brain of similar size but of more complex and slenderer convolu- 

 tions, I have to say that it is possible this may have been the case, 

 but that it seems to me by no means likely. Very large skulls 

 are sometimes found amongst collections purporting to have come 

 from very savage or degraded races ; such a skull may be seen in 

 the London College of Surgeons with a label, ' 5357 D. Bushman, 

 G. Williams. Presented by Sir John Lubbock ^ ;' and, from what 

 Professor Marshall and Gratiolet have taught us as to other Bush- 

 man brains, smaller, it is true, in size, we may be inclined to think 

 that the brain which this large skull once contained may never- 

 theless have been much simpler in its convolutions than a European 

 brain of similar size would be. This skull, however, is an isolated 

 instance of such proportions amongst Bushman skulls, so far, at 

 least, as I have been able to discover ; whilst the skulls of pre- 

 historic times, though not invariably, are yet most ordinarily large 

 skulls. A large brain with coarse convolutions puts its possessor 

 at a disadvantage in the struggle for existence, as its greater size 

 is not compensated by greater dynamical activity; and hence 

 I should be slow to explain the large size of ancient skulls by 

 suggesting that they contained brains of this negative character, 



^ I may, perhaps, be allowed to express here my surprise at the statement made by 

 Messrs. Wilks and Moxon, in their very valuable 'Pathological Anatomy,' pp. 317, 

 218, to the effect that they have not met with euch cases of Cerebral Hypertrophy. 

 They were common enough at the Children's Hospital in Great Onnond Street when 

 I was attached to it. 



=* [This skull is evidently 1299 of the new Catalogue of Crania prepared by 

 Professor Flower, where it is named ' The Cranium of a Koranna.' -Editor.] 



3M 



