76 SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NOTES. 
celebrated philosopher of Astracan—that ‘‘the best way to ascertain 
what the result of such an event can possibly be, will be to wait till 
the event actually happens.” 
We conclude with our most hearty thanks to Prof. Bond for his 
splendid work, and trust to see still more important services rendered 
by him in a similar examination of the great Comet of 1861. 
J. B.C. 
SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NOTES. 
HTHNOLOGY AND ARCHAOLOGY. 
ARTIFICIAL OCCIPITAL FLATTENING OF ANCIENT CRANIA. 
The following correspondence is inserted in the Journal at the request of Dr. 
Joseph Barnard Davis, M.R.C.S., Eng., F.S.A., who has responded to the invita- 
tion, contained in the third letter of the series, to reply to the previous letter and 
paper on the above subject: by enclosing to Dr. Wilson his letter, (No. 4.), with 
the following request: ‘‘I shall feel obliged by your placing it in the hands of 
the Editor of the Canadian Journal, to be printed with our letters to the Athe- 
neum, which I also enclose, and any additional remarks you may be pleased to 
make.” 
No. 1. Yo the Editor of the Atheneum, 
University College, Toronto, Aug. 14th, 1862. 
In the last number of the Watural History Review, for July, Dr. Joseph Barnard 
Davis contributes a paper ‘On Distortions in the Crania of the Ancient Britons,” 
the point of chief importance in which is to establish that the peculiar flatness 
in the occipital region of ancient British crania was produced by some artificial 
process analogous to that effected by the American Indian cradle-board in infancy. 
It happens, unfortunately, that, in the belief that Dr. Davis recognized my prior 
origination of this idea, I have spoken of him in a forthcoming work, ‘ Prehistoric 
Man,’ as giving the weight of his concurrent testimony to my previously-pub- 
lished opinions. This is not the only case in which I experience the difficulties 
of a colonial author, with the Atlantic intervening batween him and his pub- 
lisher, and making that false when published which was true when penned. As 
the sheets of my work are through the press, and the question has some scientific 
bearings of general interest, perhaps you will favour me with a brief space in 
the columns of the Athencewm for necessary explanation. 
In a paper ‘On the Supposed Prevalence of One Cranial Type throughout the 
American Aborigines, which was read for me by my late brother, Dr. George 
Wilson, before the Ethnological Section of the British Association, at Dublin, in 
1857 and printed in the Hdinburgh Philosophical Journal for the following 
