2 76 APPENDIX 



six lower jaws are by far the most important bones as 

 regards the question of the nationality of the entire 

 " find." If, indeed, these half dozen lower jaws had 

 been brought to me with no other accompaniments 

 and with no other information than that they had been 

 all brought from one spot in Africa, I think I should 

 have been justified in saying that they had belonged to 

 no other known African race than the Khoi-Khoin, or 

 its Central African representative, the Akka. For they 

 all six alike show the following distinctive and eminently 

 significant peculiarities — viz., lowness of coronoid process, 

 smallness of absolute size, and all but complete obsoles- 

 cence of chin. Upon this I have already commented in 

 'British Barrows,' pp. 706, note 1, 707, 716, ibique citata, 

 comparing these lower jaws with the jaws of certain other 

 confessedly " priscan " races, which differ from them in 

 little but in being larger in size. It is, or should be, a 

 commonplace among craniographers that, whilst the lower 

 jaw is a more important bone for their purposes than any 

 other single bone of the skeleton, and even than the 

 pelvis itself, it is often more distinctive, if not more 

 valuable, than at least the entire calvaria. Certainly 

 this is the case with African skulls ; for though it is pos- 

 sible enough, as was long ago pointed out by Professor 

 Owen (see ' Osteological Catalogue, Royal College of 

 Surgeons of England,' 1853, p. 838, 5385, and for a con- 

 tradictory statement Retzius, ' Ethnol. Schriften,' 1864, p. 

 149), and as has recently been reaffirmed by Dr. Hamy 

 in Paris, to find brachycephalic skulls among those of 

 undoubted Negro races, and though, as I can aver from 

 my knowledge of the collections in the Oxford University 

 Museum, it is by no means always possible to distinguish 

 either such brachycephalic Negro skulls, or certain other 

 Negro skulls of the dolichocephalic type more usual amongst 

 such skulls, from Bushman skulls of the respective propor- 

 tions, both of which are represented in this latter series, 

 it is within my knowledge always possible to do this if 

 the skulls under comparison are in possession of the lower 



