8 NATURE 
But more remarkable than this is the statement :—‘‘ This 
method has been applied with marked success to the deter- 
mination of the characters of the brain in various fossil 
lemurs by Dr. Forsyth Major and Prof. R. Burckhardt ” 
(p. 540). The ‘“‘ marked success’? of Prof. Burckhardt 
consisted in flatly contradicting in almost every essential 
feature the correct account of the same specimen given by 
Dr. F. Major, as I have pointed out in a work (Trans. 
Linnean Soc., February, see especially p. 365) published 
seven months ago. Prof. Symington could not have chosen 
out of the scores of memoirs on cranial casts an example 
more likely to bring contempt on the method he so 
eloquently and so justly extols. 
His statement that ‘‘so far as prehistoric man is con- 
cerned, we can never hope to have any direct evidence of 
the condition ’’ of the brain is stultified by the fact (which 
I mentioned fifteen months ago in the Journ. of Anat. and 
Phys., July, 1902) that I have in my possession a large 
series of actual prehistoric brains with the crania from 
which they were derived. Many of these are so excellently 
preserved that every detail of the convolutionary pattern 
can be recognised, and by transferring it to the surface of 
the cranial cast an accurate model showing exactly the size, 
shape, and arrangement of the sulci with perfect accuracy 
can be obtained. That I am not exaggerating the excel- 
lence of these prehistoric relics may be seen from the brain 
fragment (D. 691) in the galleries of the Royal College of 
Surgeons’ Museum, especially when I add that I possess 
whole hemispheres in even a better state of preservation. 
As to the method of interpreting human brain casts, if 
we follow Prof. Symington’s advice and begin by identify- 
ing the Sylvian fissure as the groove produced by the orbito- 
sphenoid (‘‘as is well known, the marked prominence at 
the base of the human skull separating the anterior from 
the middle fossa fits into the deep cleft between the frontal 
and temporal lobes of the brain ’’) we shall fall into grave 
error in many cases. It sometimes happens (in more than 
59 per cent. of my collection of ‘‘ Greek ’? and ‘‘ Turkish ”’ 
hemispheres) that the orbito-sphenoid lies far in front of 
(and not in) the Sylvian fissure, mapping out a great ‘‘ post- 
orbital limbus ’’ (Spitzka) of the frontal lobe, which has 
slipped over into the middle cranial fossa. IT have seen 
the Sylvian fissure lying as far as 1 cm. behind the orbito- 
sphenoid (in a Syrian brain), and a prominent crest derived 
from the alisphenoid projecting into it. 
It is surprising to find Prof. Symington repeating that 
time-worn fallacy :—the inferior frontal convolution ‘‘ is 
well known to be much more highly developed in man than 
in the anthropoid apes’ (p. 541). For if we follow the 
lead of Profs. Marchand and Cunningham—and to anyone 
who really examines the facts of the case there is no other 
alternative—the inferior frontal sulcus is represented in the 
apes by the sulcus rectus, and the inferior frontal convolu- 
tion is relatively much bigger in the apes than in man. 
Every anthropologist will cordially re-echo Prof. Syming- 
ton’s wish that information concerning large series of non- 
European brains may soon be forthcoming. But that we 
know so little concerning these other types of the human 
brain is not wholly the fault of the people who have access 
to such material. The chief blame must rest on those 
anatomists who, with every advantage which museums, 
libraries, and trained assistants confer, have done so little 
to provide data relating to the European types of brain 
which are of any anthropological value. I know several 
anatomists in various parts of the world who have the 
material and are merely awaiting a ‘‘lead’’ as to which 
features of the brain are of anthropological importance and 
are worthy of being recorded. 
I have recently met with the same difficulty. After 
having examined six hundred Egyptian, Soudanese, and a 
varied assortment of other non-European brains, I am un- 
able to acquire from the writings of European anatomists 
just that information of the European types of brain which 
I need for purposes of comparison; moreover, I am unable 
to publish the anthropological results of my work in any 
satisfactory form until I have discussed such purely morpho- 
logical questions as the real constitution of the fissure of 
Sylvius and have unravelled the intricacies of the parieto- 
occipital regions of the brain. When the “ home ”’ 
anatomists have done their part of the work, the rest will 
soon follow. G. Extior Situ. 
The School of Medicine, Cairo, October 7 
NO. 1775, VOL. 69] ‘ 
[NoveMBER 5, 1903 
I nave to thank you for your courtesy in allowing me the 
Opportunity of reading a letter which Prof. G. Elliot Smith 
has addressed to you, criticising various statements in my 
presidential address in Section H of the British Association 
at Southport. Prof. Smith has raised so many points 
that I have only time, at present, to reply to a few of 
them. 
What a reader “‘ might imagine” I will not attempt to 
picture, but I certainly had no intention of implying that 
only the three investigators I happened to mention had 
worked at the subject of cranial casts, or that ‘it was an 
entirely new branch of research.’’ 
I endeavoured to show that the examination of a skull 
was necessarily incomplete until the interior of its cranial 
cavity was exposed and cast, and that, although such 
methods were calculated to afford valuable information as 
to the relation between the external and internal surfaces 
of the cranial wall, and to give an important indication of 
the form of the brain it once contained, yet the curators 
of museums appeared to have an invincible objection to 
making the necessary section, and the practice of taking 
casts of the cranial cavity had been too much neglected by 
craniologists. I gave as an illustration of the usual custom 
of preserving skulls entire the Hunterian Museum in 
London, and this selection appears to have been a source 
of offence to Prof. Smith, although he does not disprove my 
statement. His remarks as to the number of casts of 
different genera in that museum are quite beside the mark. 
I was referring to the very large collection of human skulls, 
and, so far as I have been able to ascertain, no systematic 
attempt has been made to examine more than a small 
fraction of them in this way. I know that many curators 
object strongly to the skulls under their care being bisected, 
and believe that at any rate their appearance would be 
seriously affected by such an operation. I ventured to 
advocate a method which, in my opinion, has not 
been followed to any marked extent in the collection 
of human crania in the Hunterian Museum or else- 
where in this country, and trust I was at liberty to do 
this without it being regarded as a personal attack upon 
the conservator, for whom I have the very highest 
regard. 
Prof. Smith objects to my statement that ‘‘ we can never 
hope to have any direct evidence of the condition of the 
higher nerve centres of prehistoric man’’ on the ground 
that he has collected a large series of such brains from 
Egyptian cemeteries, and he refers to a paper he published 
in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology last year. J had 
the pleasure of reading his paper when it appeared, and 
although his specimens were of great interest, it seemed 
to me that their state of preservation was not sufficiently 
good to be of much use for the accurate determination of 
the numerous details which it would be necessary to know, 
when comparing them with modern brains. The specimens 
had undergone marked diminution in size, and in places 
were considerably distorted. Further, from the actual 
photographs (Plate xiv.) which he gave it appeared to me 
that a considerable restoration would be needed when 
attempting to limit the boundaries of the cerebral fissures. 
I hope that the impression left upon my mind from the 
perusal of his paper may be an erroneous one, and that the 
additional evidence promised by Prof. Smith will dissipate 
my doubts. 
I do not quite appreciate the cautiousness of those 
anatomists who are waiting for a ‘‘ lead ” before describing 
the specimens of non-European brains in their possession. 
The numerous memoirs that have been hitherto published 
on the cerebral convolutions are based almost entirely upon 
the study of European brains, and what we obviously require 
is a careful and an unbiased account of the cerebral fissures 
and convolutions of other races. If Prof. Smith and his 
friends wait until the favoured ‘‘ home’’ anatomists agree 
as to the ‘‘ types’’ of European brains, and until he has 
definitely settled for us all the morphological problems con- 
nected with the cerebral cortex, we shall, I fear, need a 
large store of patience. 
In conclusion, I should like to assure Prof. Smith that 
if I did not refer specially to his work it was not because 
I do not appreciate its value, but on account of the limit- 
ations in time and space necessary in the circumstances 
of my address. J. SYMINGTON. 
October 19. 
