390 PRINCIPAL SIR W. TURNER ON 



of Asia, and an eastern Austro-Malayan, the productions in which corresponded with 

 those of New Guinea and Australia. 



On the supposition that a Negrito population, instead of being limited as at present 

 to a few widely separated localities, had formerly been generally distributed throughout 

 Malaya, a migration eastward by land, before it subsided at the shallow straits, was 

 within the limitations of travel. It is also said that the Andaman islanders have 

 canoes hollowed out of single trees, and are expert in their management. If this were 

 general with those Negritos, who lived in proximity to the sea, migration across the 

 narrow intervening straits was within the power of these people. 



The inhabitants of New Guinea are the Papuans, and a similar black-skinned race, 

 known generally as Melanesians, occupies groups of islands to the east and north of 

 New Guinea. In their external characters they are distinguished from the Negritos 

 by much longer hair, frizzled at the free end, which may either be arranged as 

 a mop around the head, or be divided into locks which hang down on the shoulders, 

 or be sometimes tied together to form a top knot on the head ; the beard also is well 

 developed. They are taller than the Negritos, and are superior to them, both physically 

 and intellectually. 



Some years ago I described a number of Papuan crania from New Guinea, and 

 reviewed the literature of the subiect. # 



The University Museum contains twenty-three skulls which, with one or two excep- 

 tions, were collected on the south and the east end of the island. Sixteen had the cephalic 

 index 75 or less, with the mean index 70 - 8, strongly therefore dolichocephalic; three 

 were mesaticephalic, and four were brachycephalic, the wider skulls being perhaps due 

 to an intermixture with Malay or Polynesian immigrants. The dolichocephalic crania 

 were relatively narrow ; the glabella and supraciliary ridges were moderately projecting ; 

 the nasion was not greatly depressed ; the parietal eminences were not strongly projecting ; 

 the cranial vault in some was roof-shaped, but the longitudinal fronto-parietal depression, 

 so characteristic in the Tasmanians, was only feebly indicated in a small minority of 

 the skulls. In six of the crania a shallow depression of the sagittal suture in the 

 postero-parietal region was also apparent. Although in the majority of the Papuan 

 dolichocephali the basi-bregmatic height exceeded the greatest breadth, in some others the 

 height was a little less than the breadth. The mean vertical index of these skulls was 

 7 3 '2. In the dolichocephalic form and proportions, in the height being usually greater 

 than the breadth, and in the dominancy of the parietal longitudinal arc over the frontal 

 and occipital arcs, the skulls showed Melanesian characters. It is doubtful if short, woolly- 

 haired Negrito tribes, as defined in a previous paragraph, at present exist in New Guinea. 



The islands of the Admiralty group are inhabited by Melanesians with black- 

 brown skins and mop-like hair. The museum contains twelve skulls collected by the 

 " Challenger.'" t Each cranium was dolichocephalic, and the mean cephalic index was 70. 



* " Challenger" Reports, p. 81, part xxix., 1884 ; and Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., p. 553, vol. xxii., 1900. 

 + Described by me in " Challenger" Reports, part xxix., 1884. 



