OF THE MICMAC SKULL CAMERON. 25 



racial significance for the extreme limits of its fluctuations 

 were found by Turner (^) to be present in his extensive series 

 of Scottish skulls. For example, 19 of these crania showed in- 

 dices above 120, and 11 possessed indices below 105. 



The Dental Index. — All the teeth had dropped out of their 

 sockets, but it is evident that a'll were present at death for the 

 alveoli were deep and showed a healthy condition of the bone, 

 though the fragile tissue of their front walls had been broken 

 away here and there. The sockets for the molar and pre- 

 molar series were very clearl}^ defined, so that by measuring 

 from the front edge of the first premolar socket to the pos- 

 terior edge of the third molar socket an approximate idea of 

 the dental index could be obtained. It worked out at 45.6, 

 thus placing the skull in the megadont class, and rendering 

 the dentition comparable to that of the lowest type? of modern 

 Hominidae. However, one meets occasionally with anoma- 

 lies of this nature in single specimens of skulls. For example 

 I found that the dentition was microdont in two New He- 

 bridian skulls C) of the Melanesian type, where one would have 

 expected a definite megadont condition. One cannot therefore 

 rely on a small series of skulls, far less on any single specimen 

 owing to the vagaries of the racial range of variation, which 

 vitiates the value of all individual cranial indices and measure- 

 ments. 



The Spheno-M axillary Angle. — I have usually found this 

 to be a trustworthy^ cranial angular measurement, and I am 

 bound to say that it provided a surprise in this skull, for it 

 proved to be as much as 95° which was as great as in the two 

 Melanesian skulls recently described by the author. (0 The 

 angle is usually much smaller than this in the orthognathous 

 skull of the higher races of mankind, and generally measures 

 about 75° in Europeans. One would have expected to have 

 found the spheno-maxillarj^ angle in the North American 

 Indian about midway in size between the highest and the 



