OF PECULIAR CRANIAL FORMS. 417 
fine sand had filled up the hollow brain-case; and then, while the 
bones were still replete with animal matter, and softened by being 
filled with moist sand and embedded in the same, if some considerable 
additional pressure, such as the erection of a heavy structure, or the 
sudden accumulation of any weighty mass, took place over the grave, 
the internal sand:would present sufficient resistance to the superin- 
cumbent weight, applied by nearly equal pressure on all sides, to 
prevent the crushing of the skull or the disruption of the bones, while 
these would readily yield to compression of the mass as a whole. The 
skull would thereby be subjected to a process in some degree analo- 
gous to that by which the abnormal developments of the Flathead 
crania are effected during infancy, involving as it does, great relative 
displacement of the cerebral mass, but little or no diminution of the 
internal capacity. The discovery of numerous traces of domestic 
pottery, pipes, stone implements and weapons in the same locality, 
furnishes abundant proof that it was the site of the Indian village as 
well as the cemetery, and thereby demonstrates the probability of the 
erection of such a structure, or the accumulation of some ponderous 
mass over the grave, at a period so near to that of the original inter- 
ment, as would abundantly suffice to produce the change of form 
described. To some such causes similar examples of ‘posthumous 
cranial malformation must be ascribed; as they are so entirely excep- 
tional as to preclude the idea of their resulting from the mere pressure 
of the ordinary superincumbent mass of earth. 
Another skull found in the same ancient Indian cemetery, appa- 
rently that of a female. and now in the collection of M. Guilbault, of 
Montreal, has also the appearance of having been modified in form by 
artificial means, whether posthumous or otherwise. The supercilliary 
ridges are prominent, the frontal bone is receding, but convex, and 
the occipital bone has considerable posterior projection, which is ren- 
dered the more prominent by a general flattening of the coronal re- 
gion, and a very marked depression immediately over the lambdoidal 
suture, probably the result of unequal posthumous compression. The 
abnormal conformation of this skull is shown in the proportions of the 
intermastoid arch, which measures only 11.75, while the normal mean, 
so far as ascertained by me from measurements of thirty-three examples 
of Algonquin crania is 14.34, and of thirty-six examples of Huron 
crania is 14.70. 
The great importance now justly attached to the form and relative 
