THE ST. JOHN'S RIVER, FLORIDA. 



57 



the distance between the tip of the great trochanter and the articular surface of the 

 external condyle. 



Brown Sand Layer. Measurements are given in mm. 





Projected on axis. 



Oblique Position. 



Great Troch. to 



Sex. 



Head. | Great Troch. 



Head. 



461 

 445 

 406 



Great Troch. 



Ex I Condyle. 



Male 



ii 



Female 



a 



469 451 

 450 438 

 409 



420 



434 

 425 



411 



440 

 430 



414 



White Sand Layer. Measurements are given in mm. 



Sex. 



Projected on axis. 

 Head. Great Troch. 



Oblique Position. 

 Head. Great Troch. 



Great Troch. to 

 Ext. Condyle. 



Male 



467 

 440 



452 



465 

 437 



446 



447 



Tibicz. — The platycnemic (sabre-shaped) or laterally flattened tibia, has long- 

 been considered a racial characteristic. Its occurrence was reported among the races 

 of caves, barrows and mounds, and among early and unmixed races. It is, how- 

 ever, notably wanting in the skeletons of Spy. 1 Dr. Manouvrier in his " Memoire 

 sur la Platycnbnie chezT Homme et chez les Anthropoides"' 1 an able and exhaustive 

 paper, maintains that " platycnemia results from the need of a surface upon the 

 tibia, broader, more extended, more advantageous for the insertion of the posterior 

 tibial muscle. It results from the marked activity of this muscle, and is in no 

 wise due to the relative predominance of the muscles of the anterior region of 

 the leg, a predominance invoked without proof by various authors. 



" Platycnemia favors the resistance of the tibia to an antero-posterior flexion, 

 but it is not produced through need of this resistance alone. 



" The function of the posterior tibial muscle, which by its marked activity pro- 

 duces or maintains platycnemia in the human species, is not its direct function, which 

 is the flexion-adduction of the foot, but, in fact, its inverse function, the immobiliza- 

 tion of the leg in those movements in which the weight of the body tends to tilt it 

 forward. 



" The inverse action of the posterior tibial is called for particularly in running 

 and in walking over rough and hilly ground. Platycnemia, then, should be looked 

 for principally among peoples living in countries more or less mountainous, 

 people following the chase." 



* * * (page 542) " Thus platycnemia in man could be a character transmitted 

 by a climbing anthropopithecus, but it is not a character of either evolution or func- 

 tional inferiority. The resemblance to the monkey is a purely morphological char- 

 acter retained, be it observed, b}- a function essentially human ; it tends to disappear, 

 among civilized people, only through a diminution of this activity." (Translated). 



1 La Race Humaine de Neanderthal ou de Canstadt en Belgique, Hecherches Ethnographiques sur 

 des Ossements Humaines, decouverts dans les depots quaternaries d'une grotte & Spy et determination de 

 leurage geologique, par Julien Fraipontet Max Lohest." Extrait des Archives de Biologie, tome VII, 

 1886, page 656 ; et. wry— See also " Dictionnaire des Sciences Anthropologiques," page 1058. 



2 Menioires de la Society d' Anthropologic de Paris. Tome troisieme, deuxieme serie. Paris, 1883- 

 1888.— Page 469 et. seq. 



