CRANIOMETRY 245 



learning the methods of investigation. In none has this been 

 more conspicuous than in the subject under consideration. 

 Many have come to despair, for instance, of any good, 

 commensurate with the time it occupies, coming of the minute 

 and laborious work involved in craniometry. This is because 

 nearly all our present methods are tentative. We have not 

 yet learnt, or are only beginning to learn, what lines of 

 investigation are profitable and what are barren. The results, 

 even as far as we have gone, are, however, quite sufficient, in 

 my opinion, to justify perseverance. I am, however, not so 

 sure whether it be yet time to answer the demand, so eager 

 and so natural, which is being made in many quarters for the 

 formulation of a definite plan of examination, measurement, and 

 description to which all future investigation should rigidly ad- 

 here. All steps to promote agreement upon fundamental points 

 are to be cordially welcomed, and meetings or congresses con- 

 vened for such a purpose will be of use by giving opportunities 

 for the impartial discussion of the relative value of different 

 methods ; but the agreement will finally be brought about by 

 the general adoption of those measurements and methods which 

 experience proves to be the most useful, while others will gradu- 

 ally fall into disuse by a kind of process of natural selection. 



The changes and improvements which are being made 

 yearly, almost monthly, in instruments and in methods, show 

 what we should lose if we were to stop at any given period, 

 and decree in solemn conclave that this shall be our final 

 system, this instrument and this method shall be the only one 

 used throughout the world, that no one shall depart from it. 

 We scarcely need to ask how long such an agreement would 

 be binding. The subject is not sufficiently advanced to be 

 reduced to a state of stagnation such as this would bring it to. 



To take an example from what is perhaps the most im- 

 portant of the anatomical characters by which man is dis- 

 tinguished from the lower animals, the superior from the 

 inferior races of man ; the smaller or greater projection 

 forwards of the lower part of the face in relation to the skull 

 proper, or that which contains the brain. From the time 

 when Camper drew his facial angle, to the present day, the 

 readiest and truest method of estimating this projection has 



