112 PROFESSOR SIR W. TURNER ON 



one with the index 82 "9 from Bintenne of Badulla (R.C.S. Eng. No. 676) is said to be 

 unsymmetrically distorted from occipital pressure, which had doubtless affected the 

 relation of length to breadth ; another, from Batticaloa, measured by Virchow, with an 

 index 80 '6, is said to be evidently abnormal, probably from an artificial or accidental 

 deformity in the occipital region. 



This series of skulls confirms what I have previously had occasion to point out in 

 the study of crania, that in the dolichocephalic crania of savage races the basi-bregmatic 

 height usualty exceeds the greatest breadth. Thus, of thirty-six skulls in Thomson's 

 table, in which both breadth and height are recorded, the height exceeded the breadth 

 in thirty-one, and it was equal to the breadth in one specimen. In only four crania 

 was the height less than the breadth, and in three of these the length-breadth index 

 was above 80, and the skull was brachy cephalic. 



The seventeen skulls in Thomson's table in which the proportions of the upper jaws 

 were measured were all orthognathous. Of the twenty-two skulls in which the pro- 

 portions of the nose were measured, ten were platyrhine, seven were mesorhine, and 

 only five were leptorhine. The orbital index was variable ; in six specimens it was 

 microseme, in eight mesoseme, in eight megaseme. The palato-alveolar index in eight 

 skulls measured exceeded 120 in only one specimen. 



As regards the cranial capacity it is difficult to make a precise statement, as the 

 methods used by different observers in its determination were not uniform, and the 

 results cannot be strictly compared with each other. It may suffice to state that the 

 capacity in one woman's skull is said to be as low as 960 c.c. ; in eleven other women 

 the range of capacity was 1025 to 1442 c.c, and the mean was 1230 c.c., i.e., micro- 

 cephalic. In twenty men the range was from 1140 to 1611 and the mean was 1336 c.c, 

 also microcephalic In both sexes the mean was materially higher than in the skulls 

 which I measured, and several skulls exceeded considerably that with the highest 

 capacity, 1362 c.c. in my series, an excess which may perhaps partly be due to the 

 methods employed yielding a larger result than is obtained by the plan which I am in 

 the habit of following, which I believe to be more exact.* 



If we now examine the series of thirty skulls measured by the Messrs Sarasin, we 

 find that the mean length-breadth index of the Veddahs from the interior was 70 '5 for 

 seventeen men, and 69"1 for four women ; whilst the corresponding index of four men 

 from the coast was 76*5, and of four women 73. No skull was brachycephalic, but in 

 five the index was from 75 "9 to 79*8. In each group, except in that of the men from the 

 coast, the height exceeded the breadth. The mean complete facial index in each group 

 was near the upper limit of the chamseprosopic division. The mean gnathic index in each 

 group was orthognathous, and no specimen was prognathous, and only a small minority 

 was mesognathous. The mean nasal index was in the higher mesorhine series ; only 

 four specimens were leptorhine, but thirteen were platyrhine. Fifteen specimens were 



* I have described my method in Cludlemjer Reports, part xxix. p. 3, 1884. By the method of Bkoca, followed 

 l>y so many craniologists, the capacity is overstated. 



