ETHNOLOGY. 279 
cumambient " Zulus and Kaffirs," and against one of 
736 for "African Negroes of various tribes." 
The altitudinal index is as significant as, if not more 
significant than, the latitudinal ; and the tapeinocephalic or 
platycephalic character of the Bushman as compared with 
the two other assemblages of Africans just mentioned, is 
expressed by the figures 7 1 6, as against altitudinal indices 
for them of 741 and 735 respectively. The average of 
the altitudinal indices of my six Bushman crania is 72, 
the height exceeding the breadth in two cases only, and 
in each of them by one-tenth of an inch only. 
As important a question to ask about a skull as either 
of the two relating to the two indices just mentioned, is, to 
my thinking, the question, does the cranium when resting, 
in the absence of its lower jaw, with the grinding surfaces 
of its teeth on a flat surface, touch that surface posteriorly 
with its occipital condyles, or with its inferior occipital 
squamae ? Accordingly as the former or the latter por- 
tions of the occipital bone give support posteriorly to a 
skull so placed, is the cranial curvature lesser or greater, 
and with it the antero-posterior arc described by the brain 
it contains. Tried by this test, first suggested by Prof 
Ecker {Archiv. fiir Anthrop., iv. 1870, p. 288), the six 
Bushman crania in the museum whence I write, have 
four of their number resting on the occipital squamae, as 
opposed to two which show the lesser curvature. I incline 
to think that this is a higher average than West Coast 
Negro crania would show, but Abantu skulls are very fre- 
quently so well developed as to have a considerable 
interval left between their occipital condyles and a flat 
surface, touching anteriorly the grinding surface of their 
teeth, and posteriorly their conceptacula cerebelli. 
Another important point given us in that most in- 
structive of norincE, the norma lateralis^ is that of the 
junction or non-junction of the squamous to the frontal. 
This question is easily answered, as in no single one of 
my six Bushman crania does the squamous approximate 
itself at all more closely to the frontal than it would do 
