io8 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER 



Professor Flower to the Duke of Argyll 



39 Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C. 

 Oaober 26, 1878. 



The Tasmanian skull is by no means the only one which can 

 be distinguished from all others. The Eskimo, for instance, is 

 certainly quite as characteristic. I do not think that a genuine 

 Eskimo skull could possibly be mistaken by any one conversant 

 with the characters of the race for one of any other family of 

 men. The same may almost be said of the Australian, the 

 Andaman, and, in fact, of many other races which have retained 

 their purity. 



As in everything else of the kind, very much depends upon 

 the skill and powers of observation of the person examining the 

 skull — skill and powers which only become developed by long 

 familiarity with the objects examined. 



The possibility of finding a skull exactly similar to that of a 

 typical Tasmanian among people of other races, I could no more 

 believe in than I should in that of finding a man with the thick 

 lips, woolly hair, and black skin of an African negro born in an 

 English village of English parents ! You might look through 

 any number of European skulls and certainly would never find 

 one which could be mistaken by a competent observer for either 

 a Tasmanian, Australian, Eskimo, or Andaman, and I might 

 even say Negro, American, Polynesian, Chinese, etc. I fancy 

 such statements must have arisen among people who have only 

 considered some few points, as the comparative length or round- 

 ness of the cranium, etc., and not the tout ensemble of the char- 

 acters of skull and face. 



It may have been said, for instance, that the Eskimo has a 

 very long head (index 71), the Lapp a very short head (index 

 82); you may find among Europeans (a much mixed race) skulls 

 as long as the former and others as short as the latter, therefore 

 the character is of no value — this conclusion is a complete mis- 

 take, the European skull which may resemble the Eskimo in its 

 length will differ from it in numbers of other points. We are 

 still, however, very far from an exhaustive knowledge of these 

 subjects. I am only a beginner myself at Craniology, but I am 



