OUR ORIGIN AS A SPECIES. 545 



value of the differences between lowest man and highest ape, a naturalist would 

 not limit his comparison of a portion of the human skull with the corresponding 

 one of a female ape, but would extend it to the young or immature gorilla, and 

 also to the adult male ; he would then find the generic and specific characters 

 summed up, so far, at least, as a portion or "fragment " of the skull might show 

 them. What is posed as the " Neanderthal skuH " is the roof of the brain case, 

 or " calvarium " of the anatomist, including the pent-house overhanging the eye- 

 holes or "orbits." There is no other part of the fragment which can be supposed 

 to be meant by the " large bosses " of the above quotation. And, on this as- 

 sumption, I have to state that the super-orbital ridge in the calvarium in question 

 is but little more prominent than in certain human skulls of both higher and low- 

 er races, and of both the existing and cave-dwelling periods. It is a variable 

 cranial character, by no means indicative of race, but rather of sex. 



Limiting the comparison to that on which the writer quoted bases his con- 

 clusions — apparently the superficial extent of the roof-plate — its greater extent as 

 compared with that of the gorilla equaling, probably, in weight the entire frame 

 of the individual from the Neanderthal cave, is strongly significant of the super- 

 iority of size of brain in the cave-dweller. The inner surface moreover indicates 

 the more complex character of the soft organ on which it was moulded ; the 

 precious "gray substance" being multiplied by certain convolutions which are 

 absent in the apes. But there is another surface which the unbiased zoologist 

 finds it requisite to compare. In the human "calvarium " in question, the mid- 

 line traced backward from the superorbital ridge runs along a smooth track. In 

 the gorilla a ridge is raised from along the major part of that tract to increase the 

 surface giving attachment to the biting muscles. Such ridge in this position 

 varies only in height in the female and the male adult ape, as the specimens in 

 the British Museum demonstrate. In the Neanderthal individual, as in the rest 

 of mankind, the corresponding muscles do not extend their origins to the upper 

 surface of the cranium, but stop short at the sides forming the inner wall or 

 boundary of what are called the " temples," defined by Johnson as the " upper 

 part of the sides of the head," whence our "biting muscles" are called "tem- 

 poral," as the side-bones of the skull to which they are attached are also the 

 "temporal bones." In the superficial comparison to which Mr. Grant Allen h?s 

 restricted himself in bearing testimony on a question which perhaps affects our 

 fellow-creatures, in the right sense of the term, more, warmly than any other in 

 human and comparaiive anatomy, the obvious difference just pointed out ouglit 

 not to have been passed over. It was the more incumbent on one pronouncing 

 on the paramount problem, because the "sagittal ridge in the gorilla," as in the 

 orang, relates to and signifies the dental character which differentiates all Qtiad- 

 rumana from all Bwiana that have ever come under the ken of the biologist. 

 And this ridge much more "strikingly suggests" the fierceness of the powerful 

 brute-ape than the part referred to as " large bosses." Frontal prominences, more 

 truly so termed, are even better developed in peaceful, timid, graminivorous 

 quadrupeds than in the skulls of man or of ape. But before noticing the evi- 



