906 REPORT — 1892. 



MONBA Y, A UG UST 8. 

 Tlie following Papers were read : — 



1. On a Coiffure from the South Seas. By Sir W. Turner. 



Sir William Turner exhibited the coiffure of a Kanaka labourer, who had been 

 employed on a sugar plantation in Queensland. The mode of dressing the hair in 

 locks, each of which was tied round with a slender ribbon, half a millimetre in 

 width, formed of vegetable fibre, was described. The free end of each lock was 

 not confined by the ribbon, and the hair was curly at this end, and somewhat 

 auburn-tinted ; probably it had been artificially bleached : 834 such locks were 

 present in the coiffure, and it was estimated that about 120 hairs were in each 

 lock, making in all about 100,000 hairs in the coiffure. The locks were tied 

 together into a bunch with bands of tape, so that the coiffure had projected 

 upwards for 17 inches from the top of the head in the manner figured by Dr. 

 Prichard, in vol. ii. of the ' Natural History of Man,' in a native of Ombai Island. 

 Captain Cook, in vol. ii. p. 78 of his 'Voyages/ figures a man of the island of Tanna 

 in whom a similar mode of dressing the hair is described, but in this case the 

 locks were not tied together into a top-knot, but hung pendulous over the neck and 

 shoulders. 



2. On the Articular Processes of the Vertebrce in the Gorilla compared with 

 those in Man, and on Costo-vertehral Variation in the Gorilla. By 

 Professor Steuthers, M.D., LL.D. 



The paper was founded on the observation of twenty gorilla skeletons, two of 

 which — a male and a female — the author exhibited to the Section. In the female 

 specimen the ribs are placed on the spine a vertebra lower than usual, giving eight 

 cervical vertebr.-B. That vertebra has the usual characters of the normal seventh, 

 including the foramen in the transverse process. The thirteenth rib is well formed ; 

 three lumbar vertebrce, the last (twenty-fourth vertebra) not ossified to the sacrum. 

 It is an old gorilla, the sacro-ihac joint on one side ossified. In three of the 

 twenty gorillas there were fourteen ribs instead of the usual thirteen. In man an 

 additional rib occurs more frequently at the neck than below. In the gorilla it 

 would seem to be the contrary. The lowest rib in man is small and variable ; in 

 the gorilla the lowest rib is long. 



Articular processes are adapted to the different movements of the several 

 regions of the vertebral column. The early type, seen throughout the vertebral 

 column in reptiles and birds, is retained in the lumbar region of mammals — the 

 anterior pair form the zygantrum, the posterior pair the zygosphene. The place 

 of change to the dorsal type is generally at several vertebrae in front of the last 

 rib. In man it is normally just above the last rib. In the gorilla the change 

 occurs generally a vertebra lower, which is just above its last rib. The place 

 varies sometimes both in man and in the gorilla, tending to follow any variation 

 in the number or position of the ribs. 



Approximation of the lumbar articular processes, going downwards, does not 

 occur in the female gorilla until the lumbo-sacral joint is reached. In the male 

 exhibited to the Section the approximation is seen on all the four lumbar vertebrae, 

 but all male gorillas do not show this until the last two vertebrae are reached. This 

 approximation of the lumbar articular processes, going downwards, in the gorilla 

 contrasts strongly with the opposite condition in man, in whom the width apart 

 of the processes increases from the third vertebra downwards, and is very marked 

 above and below the last vertebra, though not invariably below it. 



The lowest lumbar vertebra (twenty-fourth vertebra) is known to be frequently 

 ossified to the sacrum in the gorilla, at least in old males. The author has found 

 this union to have taken place in eight of the cases — seven males and one female — 

 and not to have occurred in twelve — eight males and four females. But three of 

 the twelve — two males and one female — were not adult. In man the tendency 



