SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NOTES. 79 
of some partial compression, dependent, it may be, on the mode of nurture in 
infancy, having tended, if not to produce, to exaggerate the short longitudinal 
diameter, which constitutes one of its most remarkable characteristics.” But 
what does Dr. Davis say of it? He treats it as an altogether natural, though 
exceptional, form, thus :—‘‘ The circumstances of such a decidedly brachy cephalic 
cranium occurring amongst the ancient British series should arrest the attention. 
It shows the latitude of form or variety among any given set of features, but 
still far from allowing of the withdrawal of the skull from the race to which it 
belongs, and without by any means wholly overshadowing the ethnical charac- 
ters appertaining to that race.” These remarks occur in Decade II., on the page 
immediately preceding the description of the Juniper Green skull. When I first 
read them, with my opinions already formed as to the probable artificial origin 
of the vertical occiput, they attracted my attention as erroneous. I do not 
think any reader can have guessed from them that Dr. Davis had already adopted 
for himself the opinion “that the parieto-occipital flatness was produced by 
some artificial process.” 
It has afforded me peculiar pleasure, both before and since [ left Scotland, to 
forward, by any means in my power, the valuable labours of Dr. Thurnam and 
Dr. Davis in the ‘ Crania Britannica,’ as a truly national work. I trust, there- 
fore, I need not disclaim any unfriendly spirit in making this explanation, forced 
on me by being already committed to a statement now liable to misconstruction 
in sheets which, though unpublished, are already through the press. In a 
friendly review notice of Decade III, in the Canadian Journil for March, 1859, 
I have said, ‘In Dr. Davis’s latter remark on aboriginal British crania, he adopts 
observations on the subject which occur in the article in this journal,” &c. 
Possibly this escaped his notice. 
Placed as I am at some disadvantage, in relation to literary privileges, from 
my residence so far from the centres of Science and Literature, I shall esteem 
myself highly favoured by your courtesy if you can afford space for this 
communication in the Atheneum. 
Danie. Witson. 
' No. 2. To the Editor of the Atheneum. 
Shelton, Staffs., Sept. 22, 1862. 
I beg that I may be allowed the favour of a few words of explanation in 
reference to the letter of Prof. Daniel Wilson in your last publication, which 
seems to invite my reply. 
In the first place, I wish to say explicitly that I regret not having referred in 
my “Note” in the Natural History Review to Dr. Wilson’s remarks in the 
Canadian Journal of November, 1857, which contain his surmises of what I 
take to be the rationale of the matter. This is a sin of omission, for which I 
must apologise. It would have been easy to have referred to Dr. Wilson's 
“idea,” and it would, at the same time, ,have afforded me a confirmatory 
authority for the view I have taken—a view which, to say the least, craniologists 
seem not to be prepared to admit. This omission was an oversight, resulting 
from lapse of memory alone. 
