284 APPENDIX. 
aberrant from the average. It certainly would not 
have entered into the head of any craniographer to 
refer this skull to the Bushman variety of our species, 
unless he had been informed of the character of its 
accompaniments. A morphological point which might 
have served to indicate the character of its owner — I 
mean the feebleness of the nasal spine, a shortcoming 
more or less evident in all, or nearly all, Bushman crania 
■ — does not help us here ; for we observe in this skull that 
the line of symphysis of the two halves of the upper jaw 
rises here anteriorly, as it does sometimes in European 
jaws, into a raised double ridge, which, though it slopes 
gradually into the plane of the alveolar border, and does 
not rise into a sharply-defined angular spine, and so far 
falls short of the typical *' anterior nasal spine," is yet a 
very different thing from the very feebly-developed bifid 
process of ordinary Bushmen, and many other African and 
other savage jaws. 
The question arises, how are we to interpret these 
facts .-* We may explain them by saying that the elasti- 
city and plasticity of the type is such as to admit of the 
escape of an exceedingly aberrant individual, and its 
homogeneity and plasticity, nevertheless, also such as to 
allow of its walls joining again, and restoring the perfect 
circumscription which is implied in our speaking of the 
race as possessing well-defined limits. Or lovers of logi- 
cal consistency, who may not be extensively acquainted 
with the width over which variability may extend itself, 
may prefer to suggest that some kind of error may attach 
or have been attached to the identification of this particu- 
lar cranium. It is possible, I suppose, that a runaway 
Caffre, or even an outcast white man, may have betaken 
himself to some horde of Bushmen, and identified himself 
with their manners and customs, and adopted their dress 
and equipment. Such voluntary degradations are known 
to have taken place, with the consequence of the refugee 
becoming not merely " half a savage," but rather, as shown 
by the place and precedence given to him, " a savage and 
