368 PRINCIPAL SIR W. TURNER ON 



Description of Tasmanian Skulls. (Plates I. -III.) 



Measurements of the skulls are given in Table I., in which they are discriminated by 

 the catalogue numbers, Group xxx. No. 1, e.s. With two exceptions they were adult 

 males, though two were advanced in years, xxx. 3 was probably that of a woman, and 

 the fragmentary calvaria xxx. 9 was that of a youth. The lower jaw was present in only 

 two specimens, in one of which, the aged xxx. 4, it was edentulous. No definite 

 statement can be made of the parts of the island in which the majority of the skulls 

 were procured, but two (xxx. 2, 9) were obtained in or near Hobart Town. 



Norma verticalis. — The skulls were elongated, and dolichocephalic in the propor- 

 tions of length and breadth. In three specimens the outline of the cranium was ovoid, 

 but in the others the parietal eminences were so prominent, more especially in xxx. 2,7, 

 that they broke the uniformity of the sides of the cranium, the outline of which approxi- 

 mated to the pentagonal form. Behind the eminences the width of the cranium rapidly 

 diminished into the occipital region. 



The frontal eminences were distinct. The frontal bone in the males showed in front 

 of the bregma an area almost triangular in form, the broad base of which was at the 

 coronal suture, whilst the apex approached a point between the frontal eminences ; its 

 surface was convex from side to side and from base to apex. It was bounded 

 laterally by a shallow, concave depression which extended backwards across the suture 

 on to the parietal bone, as far as or somewhat beyond the parietal eminence. This 

 depression was only feebly indicated in the single female skull in the collection. The 

 temporal curved line was well marked in the male crania, and its anterior end formed 

 the outer and lower boundary of the depression on the frontal bone. In two specimens 

 the temporal line arched in the parietal region immediately above the eminences, and 

 partially divided the depression on the vault into an upper and a lower area, the upper 

 of which was the larger ; but in the other skulls it intersected the eminence at or near 

 the greatest projection and formed the lower boundary of the depression. The width of 

 the cranium in the frontal region, as compared with the parietal or parieto-squamous 

 diameter, was relatively small. The mean Stephanie diameter was 103*2 mm. ; the 

 mean parieto-squamous diameter was 133 mm. ; as the zygomatic arches were visible 

 in the norma verticalis, the skulls were phaanozygous. 



The crania along the line of the sagittal suture were keeled, especially in its 

 anterior half, though in some specimens in almost its whole length. In three skulls 

 from 3 to 4 mm. behind the bregma the sagittal suture was depressed in a groove which 

 was bounded on each side by a ridge which formed the upper boundary of the parietal 

 depression ; the groove widened as it passed backwards to the lambdoid suture. In the 

 other skulls the groove, with its lateral bounding ridges, was either absent, or so faintly 

 marked as to be scarcely perceptible, and the upper boundary of the parietal depression 

 was formed by the sagittal keel itself. The keel, conjoined with the steep, lateral slope 

 of the parietal bones down to the eminences, gave a definite, roof-shaped character to the 



