378 PRINCIPAL SIR W. TURNFR ON 



dolichocephalic races as the Melanesians, the Australians, and the Dravidians, the height 



of the cranium was, as a rule, greater than the breadth, and the skulls were relatively 



high and narrow, hypsistenocephalic, in the sense in which the term was employed by 



Barnard Davis. On the other hand, in characteristic brachycephalic races as the Burmese, 



Andaman Islanders, and brown Polynesians, the height was usually less than the breadth 



and the skulls were broad and low. The relations of breadth to height may be expressed 



by a breadth-height index computed by the following formula, the breadth being regarded 



n „ basi-bregmatic height x 100 



as — luu i ; z i— _ — . 



parieto-squamous breadth 



In eight of the adult skulls in the Edinburgh museums the mean breadth was 

 132 mm. ; the breadth was more than the height in five, but less than the height in 

 three; the mean height was 131 mm., which gave a mean breadth-height index 99 "3. 

 When the corresponding dimensions of the Tasmanian skulls measured by other 

 observers were computed along with those which I have now recorded, the mean 

 breadth worked out at 133*8 and the mean height at 128*2, which gave for the series 

 a mean index 95*8. The mean breadth-height index, therefore, in these crania was less 

 than 100, and the skulls belonged to the group which I have elsewhere named platy- 

 chamsecephalic, i.e. broad and low crania.* In this respect, notwithstanding the 

 relation of length to breadth being of the dolichocephalic type, that of breadth to 

 height corresponded with the proportion existing in many brachycephalic races. We 

 may conclude that in Tasmanian crania it is the rule for the breadth to exceed the 

 height, a character which is without doubt due to the prominence of the parietal 

 eminences. 



The internal capacity of my seven adult male crania ranged from 1100 to 1430 c.c, 

 with the mean 1235 c.c. In the males in the Paris museums De Quatrefages and 

 Hamy gave approximately 1465 c.c.f for two, and 1375 c.c. for three specimens. In 

 Flower's series the range of nine males was from 1100 to 1400 c.c, with the mean 

 1243 ; in Harper and Clarke's three males the range was from 1155 to 1450 c.c, with 

 the mean 1282; in the Oxford collection two males were respectively 1180 and 

 1220 c.c. ; Wieger stated that the skull in the Breslau Museum measured 1225 c.c, and 

 Duckworth gave the capacity of the male skull (No. 2096) in the Cambridge Museum 

 as 1130 c.c The general result of these measurements shows that the average 

 capacity of the male Tasmanian skull is from 1200 to 1300 c.c., though a few individuals 

 may have an exceptional capacity of more than 1400 c.c, and the mean of the three 

 largest was as much as 1448 c.c, which approaches the mean capacity in European men. 

 Barnard Davis determined the capacity of the skulls in his collection by filling them 

 with sand, which he then weighed and expressed the amount in ounces avoirdupois and 

 in grammes. In his memoir on the determination of the weight of the brain ,\ he has 



* Memoir on Scottish Crania, op. cit. 



t These authors employed the method of Broca to obtain the internal capacity, a method which it is now 

 admitted overestimates the amount of the cranial contents. 

 \ Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc, London, 1868. 



