588 PROFESSOR SIR WILLIAM TURNER ON 



as to make it impossible to obtain measurements which can be relied on. From the 

 condition of the sutures, the skulls were obviously in the later stage of adult life. The 

 sex characters were not strongly pronounced, but it is probable that the majority were 

 of the male sex ; one skull was metopic. 



Norma verticalis. — In their general form, owing to their well-marked parietal 

 eminences, and the mode in which the skull inclined backwards to the occipital squama, 

 the crania had a pentagonal outline. They varied, however, in the proportion of 

 length to breadth, and two were more elongated than the rest. The vertex was not 

 flattened, and, though not ridged, it had a tendency to be elevated in the line of 

 the sagittal suture. The descent from the obelion to the lambdoidal suture was gradual, 

 and the postero-parietal region was obliquely flattened. The mean length of the crania 

 was 183*6 mm., the mean height was 131 mm., the mean breadth was 141 mm., the mean 

 horizontal circumference was 519 mm., the mean vertical transverse circumference was 

 425 mm., the mean longitudinal circumference was 503 mm. The cephalic index ranged 

 from 7 4 '2 to 7 9 "3 ; three crania were either dolichocephalic or approximated thereto, 

 whilst two approached the brachy cephalic standard ; the mean index of the series was 

 7 6 "9, mesaticephalic. In each cranium the basi-bregmatic height was less than the 

 greatest breadth. 



The glabella and supraorbital ridges were moderate in projection, the forehead was 

 slightly retreating, the frontal eminences were distinct. One cranium had a single 

 Wormian ossicle in the lambdoidal suture, and another had a small one near the posterior 

 end of the sagittal suture. No facial measurements could be taken. 



I have recently received two female skulls, one a native of South Uist with the teeth 

 in good condition, another born in Stornoway with the teeth all shed and the alveoli 

 absorbed. The crania were elongated and ovoid, of the dolichocephalic type. 

 One, with the index 75*1, fractionally exceeded the upper term of that group ; the 

 other had a long slope backwards and downwards in the post-parietal regions, associated 

 with a strong development of Wormian bones in the lambdoidal suture, which gave to 

 that region something of the shelf-like character referred to in the description of the 

 skull from New Lanark (p. 572). In both, the breadth exceeded the height. The facial 

 proportions in the skull from South Uist were mesognathous, chamseprosopic, mesorhine, 

 microseme, dolichuranic. In the Stornoway skull only the nasal and orbital indices 

 could be taken, which were respectively leptorhine and megaseme ; the orbit had the 

 unusual relation of being higher than wide ; in this skull also each squamous-temporal 

 articulated at the pterion with the frontal bone. 



Practical Rooms. Table XV. 



Sixteen skulls were obtained from the dissecting-room. The names of ten persons 

 were known, and three of these, Haggart, Howison, and Gordon, were executed for 

 murder from sixty to seventy years ago. The remaining six, though the names were 



