266 BtTBEAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 52 



ine the skull only cursorily, a fact wliicli doubtless accounts for his 

 failure to notice that the present color of the specimen is due to its 

 having been treated with a preservative, that it presents a post- 

 humous deformation, and, what is even more important, that it be- 

 longs to the skeleton of a child. ^ He further regards Ameghino's 

 reference to 18 lumbo-dorsal vertebrae as applying to this skeleton, 

 while it relates to that of Samborombon, which Ameghino includes, in 

 the paragraph that Mochi quotes on page 250, with the Arroyo Siasgo 

 skeleton in the new species of Homo caputinclinatus. Finally, the 

 hasty examination is also probably accountable for the one or two 

 errors that have entered into the figures of Mochi's measurements. 

 These are given as follows : 



em. 



Length 16. 6 



Breadth 11. 5 



Height (basion-bregma) 13. 0(?) 



Diameter frontal minimum 10. 2 



Mochi recognizes that the skull is artificially deformed, in the cir- 

 cular or Aymara fashion. The "far back" situation of the foramen 

 magnum and the rapidly descending roof of the orbits, insisted on by 

 Ameghino, "are both caused by the orientation of the calvarium." 

 With an approximation to the ordinary anthropologic posing of the 

 specimen ' ' the foramen magnum assumes a position which has nothing 

 extraordinary in a skull with a slightly flattened occiput, and the 

 roof of the orbits comes to lie in a much different way from that in 

 Ameghino's orientation." 



"On the whole," Mochi well concludes, "this species seems to me a 

 very doubtful one." 



Examination by the Writer 



Through the courtesy of Professor Ameghino, the writer was able 

 to examine all that remains of the Siasgo skeleton. The results, as 

 will appear, differ in some very essential points from those quoted 

 above. 



It is the skeleton of a child, probably not 12 years of age. 



The portion of the sJcull remaining (pi. 24) consists of only the vault, 

 without the facial parts and most of the base; the vault presents a 

 perceptible degree of Aymara deformation. ^ 



There is also a posthumous, unrestored depression, affecting the 

 posterior two-thirds of the lateral part of the right parietal and 

 diminishing the maximum breadth of the skull by 2 or 3 mm. 



The skull would be small for an adult but is not so for a child. 



1 The latter error is possibly due to the thickness of the bones of the vault, which resemble those in an 

 adolescent, to the absence of all the parts( teeth . face, base) that indicate the age of a skull, and to failure 

 to see the remaining parts of the skeleton. 



2 The photograph does not afford a good view of this feature, which is plainly recognizable in the specimen. 



