648 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SKULL AND BRAINS. 



the near future. If the results obtained b}^ the craniologist have been 

 less marked, this arises mainly from the nature of the sul)ject, and is 

 certainly not due to any lack of energy on their part. Our cranio- 

 logical collections are continually increasing, and the various prehis- 

 toric skullcaps from the Neanderthal to the Trinil still form the basis 

 of interesting and valuable memoirs. 



While the additions to our general knowledge of cerebral anatomy 

 and physiology have been so striking, those' aspects of these subjects 

 which are of special anthropological interest have made comparatively 

 slight progress and can not compare in extent and importance with the 

 advantages based upon a study of fossil and recent crania. These facts 

 admit of a ready explanation. Brains of anthropological interest are 

 usually difficult to procure and to keep, and require the use of special 

 and complicated methods for their satisfactory examination, while 

 skulls of the leading races of mankind are readil}' collected, preserved, 

 and studied. Hence it follows that the crania in our anthropological 

 collections are as numerous, well preserved, and varied as the l)rains 

 are few in mmiber and defective, both in their state of preservation 

 atid representative character. It may reasonably be anticipated that 

 improved methods of preservation and the growing recognition on the 

 part of anthropologists, museum curators, and collectors of the impor- 

 tance of a study of the brain itself will, to some extent at least, remedy 

 these defects; })ut so far as prehistoric man is concerned we can never 

 hope to have any direct evidence of the condition of his higher nerve 

 centers, and must depend for an estimate of his cerebral development 

 upon those more or less perfect skulls which foi-tunately have resisted 

 for so many ages the corroding hand of time. 



I presume we will all admit that the main \alue of a good collec- 

 tion of human skulls depends upon the light which they can be made 

 to throw upon the relative development of the brains of different races. 

 Such collections possess few if any brains taken from these or corre- 

 sponding skulls, and we are thus dependent upon the study of the 

 skulls alone for an estimate of brain development. 



Vigorous attacks have not unf requentl}^ been made upon the crauio- 

 metric systems at present in general use, and the elaborate tables, 

 compiled with so much trouble, giving the circumference, diameters, 

 and corresponding indexes of various parts of the skull, are held to 

 atiord l)ut little information as to the real nature of skull variations, 

 however useful they may be for purposes of classification. AVhile by 

 no means prepared to express entire agreement with these critics, I 

 nnist admit that craniologists as a whole have concentrated their atten- 

 tion mainly on the external contour of the skull, and have paid com- 

 paratively little attention to the form of the cranial cavity. The outer 

 surface of the cranium presents features which are due to other factors 

 than l)rain development, and an examination of the cranial cavity not 



