TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 185 



fourteen years of age, tlie child has only twelve teeth." Here it is 

 curious to note the analogies in physical structure to the lower 

 anthropomorph in other organs besides the brain, for it only renders 

 more striking the absence of any corresponding aptitudes. 



Dr. J. Barnard Davis, in his interesting monograph on "Synostotic 

 Crania among Aboriginal Eaces of Man," produces some remarkable 

 illustrations of the effect of premature ossification of the sutures of 

 the skull in arresting the full development of the brain, and so 

 rendering it unequal to the due performance of its functions. " I 

 have," he says, " the cranium of a convict who was executed on Nor- 

 folk Island, which I owe to the kindness of Admiral H. M. Denham. 

 This man was executed there when that beautiful isle was appropri- 

 ated to the reception of the most dangerous and irreclaimable convicts 

 from the other penal settlements. It is a microcephalic skull, rather 

 dolichocephalic, of a man apparently about forty years of age. It exhi- 

 bits a perfect ossification of the sagittal and of the greater portion of 

 the lambdoidal sutures." The coronal suture is partially obliterated 

 at the sides in the temporal regions, and can only be distinguished by 

 faint traces in all its middle parts. In this case there has not been 

 any compensatory development of moment in other directions. The 

 calvarium is not abridged in its length, which is 7'1 inches, equal to 

 179 millimetres; probably it is a little elongated. It is, however, 

 very narrow, being only 4-8 inches, or 122 m.m. at its widest part, 

 between the temporal bones. So that the result is a very small, 

 dwarfed, almost cylindrical calvarium. The internal capacity is only 

 59 ounces of sand,* which is equal to 71*4 cubic inches, or 1169 

 cubic centimetres." Here is a skull considerably below the lowest 

 mean of the crania of any race in Morton's enlarged tables, or in the 

 more comprehensive ones furnished in Dr. Davis's "Thesaurus Crani- 

 orum." Another skull nearly approximating to it is that of a Cole, 

 one of the savage tribes of Nagpore, in Central India, who are said 

 to go entirely naked. It is described in the supplement to the 

 " Thesaurus Craniorum" as that of " Chara," a Cole farmer, aged fifty, 



* The internal capacity of 59 oz. is given here from the " Thesaurus Craniorum," p. 40, 

 m correction of that of 50 oz. stated in the memoir in " Transactions of the Dutch Society of 

 Sciences," Haarlem, p. 21, which may be presumed to be a misprint. Dr. Davis add.", in the 

 " Thesaurus Craniorum," "An early closure of the sutures has occasioned a stunted growth of 

 the brain, especially of its convolutions, and thus prevented the development of those struc- 

 tures and faculties which might have given a different direction to his lower propensities;" and 

 he justly adds his conviction that this was a case rather for timely treatment as a dangerous 

 idiot, than for punishment as a criminal. 



