EXPRESSION BY MEASUREMENTS. 299 



Tiisli materials for comparison between the prevalent head-forms of the 

 two countries are valuable, as means towards determining the constancy 

 of ethnical type-forms, or the degree and rate of change which they 

 undergo under certain well defined circumstances, and within a known 

 period. The elaborate tables of measurements of Parisian crania selected 

 by Dr. ^purzheim as characteristic examples of the P'rench Celtic head, 

 appeared to me, accordingly, calculated to furnish a contribution of 

 some value to the comparative craniologist. But their minuteness has 

 defeated the purpose I entertained of adding the whole as an appendix 

 to this paper. After preparing them for the press, the space required 

 has proved to be much larger than could be spared for a subject of 

 limited interest, especially when presented in a tabular form. 



As a contribution to minute craniometry, Dr. Adam's elaborate 

 tables would, I doubt not, have been welcouled by those who have 

 devoted special attention to this department of ethnical study. But 

 the system on which they are based is set forth sufficiently clearly in 

 previous pages; and the details already selected for comparison with 

 other tables of cranial measurements furnish some illustration of the 

 results. To those I now add another selection of a different character. 



No mode of comparison brings out more clearly some of the most 

 important differences in skull-forms, alike in diverse races of men, and 

 in the lower animals, tlian viewing them on the base. Professor Owen 

 long since demonstrated the value of this method. Dr. Prichard illus- 

 trates it in his " Researches" by presenting such a drawing of the skull 

 of one of Napoleon's guards, killed at Waterloo, in juxtaposition with 

 those of a pure blood Negro, an Esquimaux, and an Orang, (^Stmia 

 sati/rus). The illustrations of the "Crania Britannica" also include 

 similar full size views of a British skull, from a barrow on the York- 

 shire Wolds ; an Anglo-Saxon skull from a barrow on the Sussex 

 Downs; and a Roman skull — that of Theodorianus, — from an inscribed 

 sarcophagus at York. Dr. Davis remarks of the last : "The foramen 

 magnum is 1.4 inch in its longitudinal diameter, and an inch across its 

 middle," — in this respect, exceeding in length, but falling considerably 

 short of the mean breadth of apperture, as shown in the fifteen male 

 Parisian crania of the following table. But the whole contour of the 

 Roman skull when seen in this aspect is compact, and uniformly bal- 

 anced, as compared with either of the others ; and especially when 

 viewed alongside of the Anglo-Saxon one, its greater posterior develop- 

 ment is very remarkable. 



