THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL 579 
Again, in the higher apes, the sutures, with age, disappear very 
completely ; how then is their asserted absence in the Neanderthal 
skull evidence against its ape-like character ? 
Still more difficult do I find it to understand how the closure and 
disappearance of the sutures is to be regarded as arising from a want 
of bony matter. If the argument were worth anything, I should have 
thought it told the other way, seeing that more bony matter must be 
required to close a suture than to leave it open. 
Thus the former part of the passage just quoted appears to me to 
be irrelevant ; the latter part, on the contrary, is relevant enough, but, 
unfortunately, it is incorrect. 
To the sentence—* The crista superciliaris is in the apes, in the 
Gorilla, especially, strong and gives the face its ferocious expression, 
whilst, at the same time, the frontal sinuses are entirely absent.”— 
Professor Mayer has affixed a note of admiration in the original. 
And he has done well, for it expresses with great accuracy the feelings 
of the reader who happens to be aware that both in the Gorilla and 
the Chimpanzee the frontal sinuses may exist, and sometimes attain 
far greater absolute and relative dimensions than in man. There are 
to be seen, at the present moment, in the Museum of the Royal Col- 
lege of Surgeons, two bisected skulls, one of a Gorilla and one ofa 
Chimpanzee, in which the frontal sinuses are enormous, their walls 
being no thicker, in proportion, than in man. 
So much for Professor Mayer’s facts and reasonings concerning 
the Neanderthal skull ; I come next in order to his remarks on the 
accompanying bones appertaining to the rest of the skeleton. 
“The (left) innominata is represented only by a part of the os 
ilium, which is injured superiorly. The anterior superior spine and 
the crest are strong ; the iliac fossa is deep ; the linea innominata pro- 
jecting: the os pubis is for the most part wanting, the acetabulum is 
spacious, the greater ischiatic notch large but narrow, the lesser notch 
and the ischiatic spine are wanting; the tuberosity of the ischium is 
singularly turned upwards, forwards, and inwards, and moderately 
strong. The two thigh bones are similarly formed, about 17 inches 
in length, and therefore moderately long; strong, thick and heavy. 
They are both convex forwards, and somewhat twisted inwards below. 
This flexure is not normal, and is observable, like the inward flexure 
of the tuberosities of the ischial bones, in those who have been riders 
from their youth up. 
“ The angle of the femur [Winkel des femur] is 110°, its condyle and 
the trochanters are strong, the crista gluteeorum is sharp, the internal 
condyle projecting, and both tubera of the condyles strong. The right 
PR. 
