342 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 52 



precision, simply as a means of confirmation of what is expressed to 

 me by morpholog}^" 



And then, not moved in the shghtest in his notions of the case by the 

 various criticisms, Ameghino proceeds to develop an " absolutely exact " 

 mode of cranial orientation or posing of his own. He invents an instru- 

 ment ("craniorientor "), consisting of a vertical stand with a long hori- 

 zontal branch and a shorter terminal descending part. The latter is 

 applied to"thecentralglabellarpoint," which for Ameghino is the point 

 of intersection of the antero-posterior median line with a horizontal 

 passing between the highest points of the superior border of the two 

 orbits. The second landmark is "the most elevated point of the 

 skull, that is to say, the central point of the vertex." ... " These two 

 points, united by two lines that form a right angle, give the natural 

 orientation of the skull." The two branches of the "craniorientor" 

 supply these two lines. "To use this instrument, one places the 

 skull, skull-cap, or frontal, on a wooden base in such a manner that the 

 glabella comes in contact with the perpendicular descending branch 

 of the instrument. Then, with the help of two superposed wooden 

 wedges, the specimen is elevated or lowered until the perpendicular 

 branch touches tangentially the central glabellar point. This 

 obtained, the fronto-glabellar orientation of the skull has been reached, 

 and on making the horizontal branch descend, this will come against 

 the culminating point of the skull; that is, against the center of the 

 vertex." The result reached by this procedure is shown in the 

 accompanying illustration. The author states that he "does not 

 pretend that the methods of orientation now in use should be aban- 

 doned for this one"; it is only to supplement them, as one more 

 applicable to isolated frontal portions of skulls and one which will 

 give more exact and less variable results. (PI. 55.) 



Oriented with the help of this instrument, the DiprotJiomo frag- 

 ment "takes an absolutely different pose" from that of the skull of 

 the present man or of the Neanderthal man, and also from that of a 

 chimpanzee. "The vertex falls fully on the frontal, toward its 

 posterior two-thirds. ['] The bregma remains much farther back. 

 Immediately beliind the vertex which, as seen, is placed extraor- 

 dinarily forward, the rear curve of the skull descends rapidly, 

 indicating an extremely low skull, a characteristic of inferior apes. 

 Finally, one sees the enormous length of the frontal bone and the 

 direction of the coronal suture which, instead of being transverse, 

 descends obliquely forward in a form which is seen only in the mon- 

 keys and especially among American monkeys, as in the Eriodes, 

 Ateles, and a number of others." 



[•" Vers ses deux tiers posierUurx": the exact sense of this, as of some other of Doctor Ameghino's expres- 

 sions, is difficult to determine.] 



