No. 405.] STUDIES IN CRANIAL VARIATION. 743 
plete absorption of the latter. Crania and skeletons from that 
region exhibit a large percentage of all kinds of malformations 
—atavistic, artificial, and pathological. 
Torus Palatinus.— This hyperostosis of the middle line 
of the hard palate is most pronounced in the Eskimo crania. 
It was slightly more frequent in the Ohio collection (Fig. 9), 
though the ridges were not so large. With the exception of 
these two groups, this anomaly appears to be fairly uniformly 
distributed in North America. The number of skulls from 
Florida upon which this character could be noted is so small 
that it would be extremely hazardous to assume southern 
affinities for this group, because it resembles those of South 
America, where the percentage of occurrence of this anomaly 
is so low that I have not combined it with that of North 
America to form a total for the race. The Florida series also 
stands apart from all others studied in having a larger per- 
centage of “pterion in K." 
In addition to the above characters, observations were made 
to determine the percentage of occurrence of the infraorbital 
suture, right and left; of *pterion in H,” etc.; as to whether 
the malar entered the spheno-maxillary suture; the number of 
bipartite malars (one case to the thousand skulls); and con- 
cerning the morphology of an anomalous process at the basion 
that was found three times in the whole collection. However, 
I have regarded these characters, somewhat arbitrarily perhaps, 
of less interest than those considered above and shall not pub- 
lish the data relating to them. 
I hope that the facts presented may prove suggestive and 
interesting, but do not expect them to establish firmly any 
hypotheses regarding the origin or affinities of the Amerinds. 
