CRANIOLOGY OF PEOPLE OF INDIA. 743 



the orbit was rounded (megaseme), but in four the transverse diameter so much 

 exceeded the vertical as to place them in the microseme group. In nine specimens the 

 palato-alveolar arch was horseshoe-shaped, brachyuranic ; in only two skulls it was 

 elongated so as to be dolichuranic. 



In the Chinese the mean cranial capacity of the males was 137 6 "5 c.c. They 

 approximate closely, therefore, to the Burmese and Siamese in the volume of the cranial 

 cavity. 



Since I began, about thirty-five years ago, to collect human crania for purposes 

 of anthropological study, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to obtain for each 

 skull or group of skulls, a statement of the locality where the specimen was obtained, 

 and of the conditions under which it was got. In a large majority I have found 

 it possible to acquire these particulars, and to speak therefore with some precision 

 of the specimens. When I have resorted to the older collections to which I have 

 had access, not unfrequently 1 have found a skull catalogued under some general 

 designation, such as from Australia, from India, or from Ceylon, without any attempt 

 being made to specify the exact locality. Such specimens, of course, have not the 

 same value in determining the distribution of the two great groups of dolichocephali 

 and brachycephali. 



In all cases, however, the conservator of a museum is dependent on the accuracy of 

 the original collector, and the care with which the specimens have been marked. The 

 series of crania described in this memoir have, with few exceptions, been gathered by 

 members of the medical profession, who have carefully labelled them and given me an 

 account of the locality, and the conditions under which they were collected. We may 

 rely therefore on the specimens as representing, so far as they go, the crania of the 

 people inhabiting the regions in which they were obtained. 



It will have been noticed that from time to time in the course of the description, I 

 have referred to the occurrence of crania, brachycephali c in form and proportions, 

 in districts where the skulls are usually dolichocephalic, and conversely of skulls, dolicho- 

 cephalic in form and proportions, being found in districts where brachy cephalic crania 

 are the customary type. The question may, therefore, be very properly considered, in 

 how far the contrasted forms of skulls which we designate by the terms dolichocephalic 

 and brachy cephalic, are to be regarded as two distinct race types, or merely extremes 

 found in the same race, graded into each other by a series of intermediate forms. If 

 the latter proposition be correct they would lose the value which has been assigned to 

 them, since the time of Anders Retzius, as important guides in the classification 

 of races. In employing these terms it should be understood that I recognise with 

 Broca and the later school of craniologists a mesaticephalic (mesocephalic) group, as 

 interposed between the more extreme brachycephalic and dolichocephalic forms, and 

 that, to enable a comparison to be made between my observations and those of crani- 

 ologists generally, the arbitrary numerical division into dolichocephali, with the length- 



VOL. XXXIX. PART III. (NO. 28). 5 Y 



