608 
NATURE 
[ April 26, 1883 
intermingling between the Melanesian and Polynesian 
races. Ona closer examination I always found that such 
men were covered from head to foot with an inveterate 
form of body ringworm—a scaly skin-eruption, which 
affects ina greater or less degree quite two-fifths of the 
nativ_s of this part of the group—and that in all their 
other physical characters they belonged to the Mela- 
nesian type. In its most aggravated and chronic condi- 
tion this parasitical disease implicates the skin to such a 
degree that the rapid desiccation and desquamation of 
the epidermal cells lead to a partial decoloration of the 
deeper parts of the cuticle, as though the rate of the 
production of pigment was less rapid than the rate of its 
removal in the desquamative process. 
The hair of the head is generally black, frizzly, and 
bushy ; more particularly amongst the younger adults of 
both sexes this last character prevails. Amongst middle- 
aged men I have sometimes observed that the air 
arranges itself into entangled corkscrew-like spirals, 
SSS 
== 
SSS 
Fic. 1.—Native of Santa Anna (an island off the east extremity of St. 
Christoval). The round disk of wood in the lobe of the ear should be 
quite white, the dark spots being due to the imperfections of the dry 
plate. The faint linear markings on the cheek due to a form of tattoo 
are rarely well marked. 
the whole head of hair having much the appearance of 
a mop placed erect on its handle. Nowand then, though 
rarely, the hair shows a tendency to become straight; I 
met with one such native near Cape Keibeck, on the 
north coast of St. Christoval; and I am informed that 
straight-haired varieties do exist among the hill-tribes in 
the interior ofthe island. With regard to the amount of 
hair on the face, limbs, and body, great diversity is 
observed amongst natives of the same village. Epilation 
is commonly employed, but there can be no doubt that 
the development of hair varies quite independently of 
such a custom. Out of ten men taken promiscuously 
from any village, perhaps five would have smooth faces, 
three would possess a small growth of hair on the chin 
and upper lip, the ninth would wear a beard, a moustache, 
and whiskers of moderate growth, whilst the tenth would 
present a shaggy beard and a hairy visage. The surfaces 
of the body and limbs are as a rule comparatively free 
from hair; but hairy men are to be met with in most 
villages ; and on one occasion when in the vicinity of 
Cape Surville—the eastern extremity of St. Christoval— 
I visited a village where the proportion of hairy-bodied, 
hairy-visaged men was in excess of the smooth-skinned 
element. 
From my measurements the form of the skull would 
appear to be mesocephalic : the cephalic indices ranged 
between 73 and 82—the greater number of them being 
included between 74 and 77. The facial angle varied in 
amount between 85° and go’. The nose is g=nerally 
straight, coarse, and somewhat short, the nostrils wide, 
and the bridge depressed in some instances. Not un- 
commonly the nose is arched or aquiline ; out of fifty 
natives amongst whom I took especial notice of this 
feature, I found that ten possessed an aquiline nose. The 
countenances of the younger of both sexes are often 
prepossessing, and amongst the adults I have frequently 
met with men of some intellectual expression. 
Such are some of the leading physical characters of 
the natives of this part of the Solomon group. To the 
inhabitants of the small island of Santa Anna, which lies 
off the east extremity of St. Christoval, the same descrip- 
tion will apply ; but we find in the still smaller adjacent 
island of Santa Catalina a subvariety of the Melanesian 
type characterised by a lighter colour and probably a 
greater height, although I made no measurements there. 
The few natives which I saw belonging to the large island 
of Malayta, which we did not visit, resembled in appear- 
ance those of St. Christoval ; and from a few measure- 
; ments and observations which I made in the Florida sub- 
group, where the St. Christoval type prevails, it was 
evident that thus far to the westward the same description 
of a native of the Solomon Islands was equally applicable. 
The large neighbouring island of Guadalcanar I had no 
opportunity of visiting. In the small island of Simbo, 
further to the west, I found no important difference in the 
physical characters of the natives except perhaps a rather 
darker shade of colour. Proceeding westward as far as 
Treasury Island, our furthest point in that direction, we 
for the first time came upon a distinct variation in the 
\ type of native—a difference which has been a subject for 
| remark even by such usually unobservant people as the 
masters of trading ships. In their greater height and in 
the alinost black colour of the skin, the natives of Treasury 
Island are at once distinguished from the prevailing native 
type to the eastward. Their features are more finely cut, 
and the form of the skull, as shown by the cephalic 
indices, is more brachycephalic—the range of seven 
measurements being 78 to 84, and the mean cephalic 
index 81. In some individuals the cheekbones were 
prominent and the foreheads retreating. As a race the 
Treasury Islanders are said to evince a fiercer disposition 
than do the natives in the eastern islands of the Solomon 
group. The natives of the large adjacent island of 
Bougainville have the reputation of being amongst the 
most daring and warlike of the inhabitants of this archi- 
pelago ; and probably the examination of their physical 
characters will exhibit them as a more pronounced type 
of the Treasury Islanders. H. B. Guppy 
H.M.S. Lark, Auckland, N.Z., February 27 
ON A FINE SPECIMEN OF APATITE FROM 
TYROL, LATELY IN THE POSSESSION OF 
MR. SAMUEL HENSON 
fpo= specimen of apatite represented in the diagram 
was submitted to my inspection by Mr. Henson last 
November, and is the most beautiful specimen of this 
mineral which I have seen. The faces observed were 
not, however, determined on the specimen itself, but from 
a plaster cast and a smaller specimen with which Mr. 
Henson supplied me. From these latter approximate 
measurements of some of the more prominent angles 
were obtained by means of a contact-goniometer, which, 
