THE HURON RACE AND ITS HEAD-FORM. 129 



no clearly recognizable Indian character. Among the numerous crania 

 from this one region of Canada, examined by me from first to last, the 

 Barrie skull, with its flattened vertical occiput, and its brachy cephalic 

 proportions, remains unique. There is scarcely a trace, among all 

 those in Dr. Tache's collection of a flattened occiput. Many of them 

 are noticeable for its prominence ; and in the female skull especially 

 the tendency i« repeatedly towards such a decided projection of the 

 occiput as attracted my notice in examples previously described from 

 the same district. In one case, indeed, the occiput presents a wedge- 

 like protrusion in profile. But the specialties of the whole, in their 

 front aspect, suggest a greater uniformity in physiognomy than in 

 cranial conformation. The nose is in most cases large and prominent; 

 the superciliary ridges in the males are strongly developed ; and a 

 common ethnical character may be traced in the full-face as a whole, 

 including the massive, broad cheek-bones and superior maxilla j as well 

 as in the indications in the greater number of a tendency towards a 

 pointed apex, or meeting of the parietal bones at an angle at the 

 sagittal suture. 



Of the inferior maxillse only detached examples are generally reco- 

 verable, owing to the circumstances under which the bones were 

 originally gathered together to be deposited in the common ossuary. 

 Only in the rare cases of interments of the bodies of those recently 

 dead is the skeleton met with entire; and of the numerous skulls 

 obtained by Dr. Tache, the lower jaws of only two of them could be 

 identified, although he brought away with him, in all, twenty-six speci- 

 mens. In their general character they present the massive rectangular 

 ramus, and the square orthognathic jaw, characteristic of the North 

 American Indian. 



Dr. J. Aitken Meigs describes the skull of a Huron chief in Dr. 

 Morton's collection, and figured in the Crania Americana, pi. 37, as 

 " a massive, strongly marked, and brutish skull. The forehead is flat 

 and receding; the superciliary ridges very prominent; superior maxilla 

 everted; lower jaw ponderous and flared out at the angles, after the 

 manner of the typical Eskimau skull; malar bones projecting; ossa 

 nasi much incurvated; junction of parietal bones ridged or keel-like; 

 skull rather narrow, occipital protuberance pretty well marked; anterior 

 bregmatic region elevated, giving an arched outline to the whole head ; 

 occipital flatness in the upper part of the posterior region."* Dr. 



* Proceed. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. vol. xviii, p. 220. 



