74 (5 PROFESSOR SIR W. TURNER ON 



maux and be adopted as members of the tribe. One may therefore legitimately draw 

 the conclusion that, as regards the Esquimaux, the occurrence of a brachycephalic 

 cranium or of skulls in the higher terms of the mesaticephalic group may be accounted 

 for by the introduction from without of another race possessing brachycephalic propor- 

 tions, and not by the evolution within the dolichocephalic Esquimaux of a brachycephalic 

 type. 



As regards certain of the other leading characters of the adult crania, it is to be 

 observed that in the dolichocephalic Esquimaux, with few exceptions, the height of the 

 cranium was greater than the breadth ; the nasal region was narrow and elongated and 

 well within the leptorhine index, with the exception of one specimen which was meso- 

 rhine. The mean gnathic index was 99*5, mesognathous ; one specimen only was pro- 

 gnathous; the index variation between 94, the lower, and 104 - 6, the highest, was 10*6 ; 

 and twelve out of sixteen specimens ranged only from 97 '3 to 101. The skulls there- 

 fore showed in these relations a remarkable constancy of type, in harmony with the 

 uniformity in the proportion of the length to the breadth of the cranium. 



Another race, from its geographical isolation, and from the number of specimens 

 which I have collected, may also appropriately be considered. I refer to the 

 aborigines of Australia. Several travellers have expressed the opinion that the natives 

 conform to one pattern as regards features, colour of skin, hair and mental characters. 

 The University Museum contains seventy-one adult crania of these people. In almost 

 every instance the locality where the skull was got is known, and the series is repre- 

 sentative of all parts of the great island, except the central region. Sixty-nine skulls 

 ranged in their length-breadth index from 61 '5 (a specimen elongated from scaphocephaly) 

 to 71*1, and their mean index was 70*2 ; they were all dolichocephalic both in form and 

 proportion. Of the remaining two skulls, one, a female from West Victoria, had a 

 cephalic index, 77 "9 ; the other a male, from the Thomson River, Queensland, had an 

 index 77*4 ; both, therefore, were mesaticephalic. Although brachycephalic Malays do, it 

 is said, visit the west coast, and brachycephalic Polynesians may possibly have visited 

 the east coast of Australia, yet in the large series of skulls now before me not a 

 single brachycephalic specimen occurred. There is no evidence therefore of an evolu- 

 tion within the dolichocephalic Australians, or even of the intrusion from without, of a 

 brachycephalic type. As regards the proportions of other parts of the skull, the platy- 

 rhine nasal index, dolichuranic palate, upper jaw either markedly prognathic or meso- 

 gnathic, and the microcephalic brain cavity are characters which, conjoined with the 

 dolichocephalic cranium, constitute race features of the aboriginal Australians. Tin- 

 relation of the breadth to the height of the cranium is not, as I pointed out in my 

 Challenger Report (Part xxix., 1884), constant in the different tribes; for whilst in 

 South Australia, and in some other localities along the southern seaboard, a considerable 

 proportion of the crania possess the basi-bregmatic diameter distinctly below the greatest 

 breadth, in other parts of the island it is altogether exceptional to meet with a skull 

 in which the height is less than the breadth. 



