March 30, 1883.] 



SCIENCE. 



233 



The arrangement of the tuiljinal bones in the 

 fissiped carnivores. — E. D. Cope divides this group 

 of mammals into two tribes, according to the arrange- 

 ment of the turbinals. The Hj'pomycteri, including 

 the families Cercoleptidae, Procyonidae, Mustelidae, 

 Aeluridae, Ursidae, and Canidae, have the external 

 nostril occupied by the complex niaxillotiirbinal bone. 

 The Epimycteri, comprising the remaining families, 

 have the external nostril occupied by the inferior 

 ethmoturbinal and the reduced maxiUoturbinal. — 

 {Proc. Amer.phllos. soc, xx. 1882, 471.) F. w. T. [524 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 



The prehistoric antiquity of man. — In his re- 

 cent woi'lv (reviewed in this issue) Mortillet says, 

 " Palaeoethnology is the study of the origin and 

 development of humanity, before the occurrence of 

 historic documents. This science is divided into three 

 parts: 1°. The study of tertiary man, or the origin 

 of humanity; 2°. Tlie study of quaternary man, or 

 the development of humanity; 3°. Tlie study of man 

 in the present epoch, the prolegomena or first horizon 

 of history." The following scheme, of which the 

 work is an elaborate development, will convey some 

 idea of the patience and originality of the author, 

 whatever may be our opinion concerning the dura- 

 bility of his work. 



On pp. 28 and 29, the eolithio period is tabulated 

 into upper secondary, eocene, miocene, and pliocene, 

 and further subdivided into thirteen epochs. Part i. 



(chapters i.-xv., p. 25-12.5) relates to tertiary man; 

 part 11. (chapters i.-xxiii., p. 127-476), to quater- 

 nary man; and part lll. (chapters i.-xii., p. 479- 

 627), to recent man. One feature of the book will 

 be viewed with favor, that is, the addition of the 

 author's name, in parentheses, to significant discov- 

 eries; as, Deposits containing gashed bones of Balae- 

 notus (Oapellini), Calaveras skull (Whitney), Dela- 

 ware gravels (Abbott), etc. — j. w. P. [525 



The cerebral convolutions of man. — In 1839 

 Leuret ascertained that the number and the dispo- 

 sition of the primary convolutions of tbe brain were 

 constant in difi'erent species of mammals. Arrested 

 hy disease, on his way to the tomb he confided his 

 worlv to Gratiolet, who, actuated by the comparative 

 method, extended his researches to the entire series 

 of primates, and succeeded in bringing order out of 

 the chaos of convolutions in the human brain. The 

 labors of these two brilliant investigators were fol- 

 lowed up by many as talented as they, — such as 

 Arnold, Bischoff, Ecker, Flower, Buschke, Huxley, 

 Marshall, Meynert, Paush, Rolando, Eolleston, Tur- 

 ner, Vogt, and Wagner, — but by none with more 

 zeal and care than by Paul Broca of Paris. Even 

 from his tomb he reaches forth his hand to cast one 

 more ray of light upon this obscure subject; for 

 we find, in the January nrimber of the Eevue 

 d'antJiropolof/ie, a paper entitled "Elementary de- 

 scriptions of the cerebral convolutions of man ex- 

 plained by the brain-chart." Broca was nothing 

 if he was not laborious and painstaking. He had 

 hundreds of brains cast. He examined them all to 

 ascertain the forms that were typical. By means of 

 painted casts and charts he taught his pupils the 

 geography of the brain, as one might teach children 

 the map of Europe. He introduced a system of 

 nomenclature for the hemispheres, the fissures, fur- 

 rows, lobes, convolutions, and branches, so that the 

 student could follow up his work with a description 

 as accurate as that of the anatomist dissecting a 

 bird. Indeed, this pajjer is a text-book upon human 

 cranio-cerebral topography. — {Bev. d'anthrop., .Jan., 

 1883.) J. w. p. [526 



The skulls of criminals. — Drs. Corr^ and Eous- 

 sel have communicated to the French anthropologi- 

 cal society the results of their researches upon 202 

 criminals whose crania are preserved in the museum 

 of anatomy at Brest. They have arrived at the fol- 

 * lowing conclusions: — 



1. The skull is remarkable in criminals for a hori- 

 zontal development, generally above the mean. 



2. The sub-brachycephalic, brachycephalic, and 

 mesaticephalic types are much more numerous than 

 the dolichocephalic. 



3. The proportion of asymmetry is enormous. It 

 varies little in llie different categories, and in the 

 whole criminality it amounts to fl.5.3 to the 100. It is 

 at its maximum (7.05) among those condemned for 

 immorality and rape; at its mimimum (60), among 

 those condemned for attempts upon life. ^ra 



4. The deformations of the transverse vertical 

 curve are very remarkable among thieves. Among 

 them, as well as on those condemned for attempted 

 violations of virtue, are to be found a certain number 

 of carinated crania. 



5. The deformations of the antero-posterior medi- 

 an curve are common in all the groups: they arise 

 mostly from the flattening of the bregma and of the 

 posterior parietal region. 



6. These results confirm and complete those already 

 obtained hy several investigators (Broca, Bordier, 

 etc.). — {Revue d'anthrop., Jan. 15, 1883.) o. t. m. 



[527 



