390 



LECTUEE XIII, 



ttat Troyon's theory of the succession of different pile-peoples 

 becomes very doubtful. There remain only the children's skulls 

 of Plan d'Essert and a fragment of an old skull of Wallis, both 

 in possession of Troyon, which certainly do not belong to the 

 Helvetian type^ but to our square so-called Dissentis type, and 

 which according to Troyon belongs to the bronze period. 



Further researches will show whether the Swiss skull really 

 has a tendency to an open frontal suture persisting in advanced 

 age. Several skuUs of Grenchen present this peculiarity, 

 which is also shown in a skull sent me by Colonel Schwab, 



Fig. 125. Back view of tlie Helvetian Skull of Geneva. 

 WeU developed Os Incm. 



which was, according to the assertion of the workmen, found 

 in the vicinity of Biel in a railway cutting, at a depth of 

 eighteen feet in the sand, but which perhaps had rolled down. 

 I may here state that this persistence of the frontal suture is, 

 according to Gastaldi, found in many old skulls dug out near 

 Modena. 



There seems also in these Swiss skulls to exist a tendency to 

 the separation of the lambdoid suture. The skull from the 

 vicinity of Geneva has that isolated piece of bone at the point 

 of this suture, which was formerly considered as peculiar to 

 Peruvian skulls, and hence called the bone of the Inca {Os 

 Incce). I saw the same thing in some other skulls of Biel 



