432 PRINCIPAL SIR WM. TURNER ON 



tibiae of the Guanche people of the Canary Islands. The tibiae, therefore, were distinctly 

 platyknemic. 



The axis of the head was not in the same vertical plane as that of the shaft, and the 

 head was retroverted ; its anterior surface formed with the anterior border of the shaft 

 an angle of 29°. When the shaft was placed vertically the condylar articular surfaces 

 sloped from before backwards and downwards ; the internal was concave from before 

 backwards and from side to side ; the external was convex along the margin for the 

 semilunar cartilage, and the area enclosed by the cartilage for apposition to the femoral 

 condyl was partially flattened, partially faintly concave (figure 4). The external 

 condylar surface formed with the front of the external tuberosity an angle of 80° ; 

 a deep depression behind for the attachment of the posterior crucial ligament gave 

 a convexity to the condylar surface posteriorly. The modifications in the curvature 

 of the external condylar surface and the retroversion of the head of the tibia in different 

 races were carefully studied by Professor Arthur Thomson some years ago.* He 

 arranged tibiae in five groups in accordance with the contour line of this condylar surface. 

 The Brussels skeleton in this character resembled No. 2 in Thomson's figure, with which 

 one Tasmanian skeleton, in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, also 

 corresponded ; though in the two other skeletons of the same race the surface was, as 

 in his group 3, more distinctly convex. Thomson associated the form of the surface 

 and the retroversion of the head of the tibia with the acutely flexed knee-joint in the 

 squatting posture, a conclusion in which I concur. Some anthropologists have supposed 

 that this configuration of the tibia indicated that the knee-joint could not, in those 

 who possessed it, be fully extended, and consequently that the erect attitude could not 

 be completely attained. Ample evidence, however, exists in the writings of those 

 who saw living Tasmanians that they held themselves very erect when standing and 

 walking. 



A well-defined smooth area on the external tuberosity in front of the fibular articula- 

 tion marked the attachment of the ilio-tibial band of the fascia lata (fig. 3, x). 



The tibia had a special articular facet on the outer part of the anterior margin of 

 the lower end which was 15 by 5 mm. in the right bone and 13 by 5 mm. in the left. 

 It was continuous with the articular surface for the astragalus ; on the inner part of which, 

 close to the anterior border as well as on the articular surface of the malleolus, another facet 

 was mapped out. The signification of these facets was recognised when the astragalus 

 was articulated with the tibia, for the upper surface of its neck was not rough as in 

 Europeans, but possessed two elongated smooth facets, separated from each other by a 

 non-articular area, and prolonged forwards from the saddle-shaped surface of the 

 astragalus almost to its anterior convexity. When the astragalus was moved on the 

 tibia in flexion and extension the outer of the two elongated facets came in contact in 

 acute dorsifiexion with the special facet at the outer part of the anterior border of the 



* Journ. of Anat. and Phys., vol. xxiii. p. 621, 1889 ; and the same, vol. xxiv. p. 210, 1890. 



