DIFFERENT RACES OF MANKIND. 361 



skulls this is the case. Whether this has any bearing upon the Neanderthal cra- 

 nium depends, as Prof. Wyman with much judgment says, upon whether this is a con- 

 stant attendant upon synostosis, — i. e., interparietal synostosis. Prof. Huxley had 

 previously discovered a skull with perfect obliteration of the sagittal suture, which 

 manifested no elongation of the parietal bones. Taking the same view of synostosis 

 as Prof. Wyman has been disposed to do, — that ossification of the sagittal suture, 

 especially when premature, leads to a lengthening of the parietals and thus must 

 necessarily produce elongation of the cranium, — this case of the Tartar skull was at 

 first not easily understood by Prof Huxley. But after an elaborate and complete 

 examination of it, he says: "It is therefore clear that extreme brachycephaly is con- 

 sistent with comparatively early synostosis of the parietal bones ; or in other words, 

 that synostosis of those bones may take place comparatively early, and yet have no 

 discernible effect upon the form of the skull."* This is an ample reply to Professor 

 Wyman's implied query. It would thus appear that even in comparatively early 

 synostosis of the parietals, that form which lengthens the cranium in some cases so 

 enormously, the parietal bones may not be at all elongated. In my Pokomame skull, 

 No. 377, there is not the slightest trace of sagittal suture, and where the synostosis of 

 the parietals can hardly have occurred later than foetal life, the length of the parie- 

 tals is only 110 mm., or 12 mm. below the average.f This is, I believe, the most 

 brachycephalic skull in the entire collection. In ray Kanaka skull, No. 645, in which 

 the faintest remnant of neither coronal nor sagittal suture can be perceived, the 

 length of the arc of the frontal and uniparietal combined is only 228 mm., which 

 brings the latter much within the average. This skull has been lithographed.J The 

 skull of an Esquimaux (No. 568*, p. 219 of my "Thesaurus Craniorum") may be 

 adduced in this argument, premising that Esquimaux crania are naturally both doli- 

 chocephalic and scaphocephalic. This example is actually scapholoid, but brachy- 

 cephalic. The length of the parietals is nevertheless normal. 



* On two widely contrasted forms of the Human Cranium. By Thos. H. Huxley, F.R.S. ; read at the Not- 

 tingham Meeting of the British Association, 1866, and published in the Journal of Comparative Anatomy and 

 Physiology, late in 1866. I am indebted to the politeness of the author for this memoir. The cranium with 

 which Prof. Husley contrasted the very brachycephalic Tartar skull is one of those singular crania to which I 

 have applied the term Hypsi-stenocephali. They have a specific form, are unmistakable, and are peculiar to 

 the Islanders of the New Hebrides and the surrounding groups of the Western Pacific. They are the narrow- 

 est of all normal crania, and were first described and figured by myself: On the Peculiar Crania of the Inhabit- 

 ants of certain Groups of Islands of the Western Pacific. By J. Barnard Davis. 1866. Qto., with three 

 plates. My first paper, in which I gave an account of these hypsi-stenocephali, was entitled, "The Skulls of 

 the Inhabitants of the Caroline Islands," and appeared in the "Anthropological Review," No. 12, January, 

 1866, page 47. 



t Thesaurus Craniorum. Catalogue of the Skulls of the various Races of Man in the Collection of J. Barnard 

 Davis, M.D., 1867, p. 235. 



J On Synostotic Crania among Aboriginal Races. Plate viii. 



81 



