64 Proceedings of Learned Societies, 



came into contact, when the cells of necessity became regular hex- 

 agons. It was maintained that the theory which attributed the 

 hexagonal form of the cells to pressure, bad no foundation in fact, 

 and that the geometrical instinct was entirely suppositious ; the 

 actual form of the cell being a consequence of the law that six 

 circles of equal radii will just surround a seventh ; and that, had 

 it been the case that seven circles would surround another of equal 

 radius, the cells of bees, when in contact, would have been hepta- 

 gonal, instead of hexagonal. 



ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY.— July 5. 



Ok the Modes oe Measuring the Skull. — At a special meeting 

 of the society, Professor Huxley described some skulls recently 

 brought from Japan, and made some important remarks on the 

 general principles of skull measurement. The skulls of the different 

 races of men vary in several respects, as in the proportion of their 

 extreme length to their greatest breadth, in the width of the face, in 

 obliquity of the margin of the jaws, and in the projection of the 

 jaws beyond the forehead. 



The last two variations are generally expressed by the employ- 

 ment of Camper's Facial Angle, but it was shewn that this angle 

 did not merely -express the relative development of the anterior 

 parts of the skull, as is frequently imagined, but that its size de- 

 pended on several circumstances, as the development of the jaw, the 

 position of the auditory foramen and the extension of the brain cavity 

 forwards, so that two skulls may differ very greatly, and yet possess 

 the same facial angle. 



Professor Huxley showed that the best method of correctly 

 comparing skulls, was to make a vertical and longitudinal section of 

 each so as to detremine the " basi-cranial axis," which is a line 

 drawn forwards along the inside of the skull, from the front of the 

 occipital foramen to the anterior end of the sphenoid bone. When 

 skulls are bisected and examined in this manner, the vertical mea- 

 surement or depth of the face can be at once determined, and the 

 relative development of that part of the cerebral chamber lying 

 before the front end of the cranial axis can be compared with that 

 lying behind it. In some of the prominent jawed or prognathous 

 skulls of the lowest human races, the distance between the front 

 end of the axis and the back of the cerebral cavity is only four times 

 as great as the distance to the front of the cavity, whilst in other 

 skulls belonging to the highest developed races, the posterior mea- 

 surement is as much as seven times as great as the anterior. 



In the early fcetal skull, the posterior measurement is three 

 times as great as the anterior. As the European child developes, 

 the posterior part of the cranial cavity grows rapidly, the ante- 

 rior remaining almost stationary, and the face grows downwards 

 rather than forwards. In the lowest races the infantile measure- 

 ments of the crania are retained, and the jaws develope forwards as 

 well as downwards. 



Professor Huxley regarded the greater development in the 

 higher races, of those parts of the brain situated behind the basi- 



