576 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



placed amongst Sergi's sphenoides. The skull is slightly phsenozygous. 

 Norma lateralis. — Very similar to the last, but less depressed. Norma 

 occipitalis. — Is distinctly pentagonal. 



The cranium is mesaticephalic, metriocephalic, orthognathic, barely 

 leptoprosopic, mesorhine, very microseme, prosopic andbrachy-uranic. 



These skulls -vvere carefully described, and the circumstances of 

 the find narrated by Barnard Davis, and Thurnam in " Crania Britan- 

 nica" (n. 1857, Xo. 22 a and b). The circumstances of the find were 

 compiled from the report of the excavation published in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Eoyal Irish Academy, 1838, vol. i., pp. 187, 196, and 

 fi'om the account given by Sir "William Wilde in the " Catalogue of 

 the Museum of the Koyal Irish Academy," 1857, p. 180. Sir W. 

 Wilde had previously made some observations on the two skulls found 

 in this kistvaen, in his "Lecture on the Ethnology of the Ancient 

 Irish" (1844, p. 11), reprinted as Chap. IX. of his "The Beauties of 

 the Boyne and Blackwater" (1849), p. 212. Dr. Pritchard has also 

 described these skulls (" Researches," 1841, vol. iii., p. 200). 



In this kistvaen "two perfect male hiunan skeletons were founds 

 and also the tops of the femora of another, and a siagle bone of an 

 animal, supposed to be that of a dog. The heads of the skeletons 

 rested to the north, and, as the enclosure is not of sufficient extent to 

 have permitted the bodies to lie at full length, they must have been 

 bent at the vertebrae or at the lower joints." (Proceedings, Eoyal 

 Irish Academy, i. p. 189). 



B. — Cist ix ihe Phoenix Pabk, Dublix. 



Ko. 3. Cranium of an adult male. — The glabella and supra-ciliary 

 ridges are very strong, the ophryon is depressed, low, somewhat 

 narrow, retreating forehead; the side walls of the frontal are ill-filled. 

 There is a slight anterior sagittal keel ; the obelion is flat or somewhat 

 depressed ; the parietal eminences are prominent, but anteriorly the 

 sides of the cranium are ill-filled. There is a slight occipital protube- 

 rance ; the muscular impressions are not well marked ; mastoids large ; 

 the squamosals are rather prominent. The prominent cheek-bones give 

 the face a broader appearance than it has ; the teeth project, and there 

 is a subnasal prognathism. The powerful lower jaw has a very promi- 

 nent chin. The cranium is somewhat high in the mid-parietal region; 

 the posterior parietal region is decidedly vertical ; the skull is phsenozy- 

 gous. 



The cranium is mesaticephalic, akrocephalic, orthognathic, probably 

 leptoprosopic, very leptorhine, very microseme, and mesopic. 



