EXPRESSION BY MEASUREMENTS. 275 



tions, such as the Negro type; or even with the native Iroquois cranium: 

 the contrast is very striking. But Professor Huxley, when discussing 

 the results of a similar comparison of the proportions of an English 

 skull, noted in the catalogue of the Hunterian Museum as typical Cau- 

 casian, with that of the Engis cave, remarks that they only serve 

 to show " that cranial measurements alone afford no safe indication of 

 race.^' He therefore resorts to the pencil, supplementing the metrical 

 test by a series of outlines of typical skulls placed in juxtaposition, and 

 thereby aims at a more reliable demonstration. Nor can it be doubted 

 that, where available, drawings, measurements and description, employed 

 in combination, are needed to supply an adequate substitute for the 

 original. 



But the value of any system of measurement consists in its easy ap- 

 plication, and equally ready reproduction ; so that if its results can be 

 rendered specific and determinate, they are available to an extent far 

 beyond any other means of comparison ; and are nearly free from 

 chances of error such as affect the draftsman's labors. This is abund- 

 antly illustrated by the Scioto-Mound skull. A minute comparison 

 of Messrs. Squier and Davis's lithographs with the original reveals 

 important discrepancies, which in no degree affect the accompanying 

 measurements. After carefully comparing the skull with the views in 

 question, I satisfied myself that the vertical view — so important for 

 comparative purposes, — is specially inaccurate. In the original the 

 peculiar characteristics of what I have elsewhere designated the 

 truncated occiput, is seen in its extremest development, passing 

 abruptly from a broad, flattened occipital region, including the posterior 

 portion of the parietal bones, to the greatest parietal width, and then 

 tapering, with slight lateral swell, until it reaches its least breadth 

 immediately behind the external^angular processes of the frontal bone. 

 This remarkable parieto-oceipital flattening has been produced, I con- 

 ceive, by the use, in infancy, of the cradle-board, but without any pads 

 or bandages affecting the forehead. The frontal bone is unusually 

 high and well-arched; and hence I infer that the occipital modification 

 has resulted without any purposed aim at a change of form, as in the 

 case of the Flathead Indians. It illustrates the effect of persistent 

 and greatly prolonged pressure on the occipital and parietal bones, in 

 one direction, acting on a head naturally of extreme brachycephalic 

 proportions and great posterior breadth. The views here given of it, 

 vertically and laterally, have been executed from the original with 



