210 



PRINCIPAL SIR WILLIAM TURNER ON 



l>e called European, in which were absent, except as an occasional individual variation, 

 the platyrhine nose, the prognathic jaw, the cranium very narrow in relation to its 

 length, the vertex keeled, the forehead retreating, the capacity relatively small — 

 characters which prevail in the lower races of men. The prehistoric stone- and 

 bronze-age skulls, when compared with the modern Scottish, were essentially framed 

 on similar lines and gave no evidence of structural race inferiority. 



In attempting to deduce from the skull the relative position in mental develop- 

 ment and capacities of the races of men, either prehistoric or modern, prime importance 

 is to be given to the volume of the cranial cavity to provide space for the growth 

 and improvement of the brain in both its quantity and quality. Increase in space 

 permits the extension of the convoluted surface of the grey matter of the brain, with 

 consequent multiplication in the number of nerve cells, as well as of an amount of 

 white matter, with its constituent nerve fibres to connect and co-ordinate the groups 

 of nerve cells, which collectively constitute the centres of brain activity. Tn comparing 

 with each other different races and their individual members the degree of projection 

 of the supraorbital borders, the overhanging eyebrows, the flattened noses with wide 

 nostrils, the projecting upj)er jaw, the feeble retreating chin or the absence of a chin, 

 are secondary characters, which, if based on a solitary and perhaps imperfect specimen, 

 cannot displace or outweigh the significance of a cranial cavity of ample size for the 

 lodgment of a brain commensurate with the exercise of human intelligence. 



In Part I attention was called to the fact that in certain races, in whom the 

 dolichocephalic index was pronounced, the height as a rule exceeded the breadth and 

 the skulls were hypsistenocephalic, whilst in pronounced brachycephalic skulls the 

 breadth as a rule exceeded the height and the skulls were platychamsecephalic. In 

 pursuing my inquiries into this subject I have selected races which, as regards the 

 cephalic index, were with individual exceptions exclusively either of one type or the 

 other, and the results stated in Tables IX and X have been obtained from adult skulls 

 personally measured. 



Table IX. 



Dolichocephali. 



Race. 



Australians, .... 

 Esquimaux, .... 

 Dravidians, .... 

 Veddahs, .... 

 Kaffirs and Hottentots, . 



Number. 



Height above 



B. 



Heights B. 



M. 4 



M. 1 

 M. 3 



M. 1 F. 1 

 None 



Height less than B. 



M. 4 F. 7 

 M. 6 F. 3 

 M. 9 F. 2 



None 

 M. 6 F. 4 



36 

 22 

 36 

 12 

 24 



M. 16 F. 

 M. 10 F. 

 M. 18 F. 

 M. 9 F. 

 M. 12 F. 



5 

 2 



4 

 1 

 2 



130 



M. 65 F. 



14 



M. 9 F. 1 



M. 25 F. 16 



Of one hundred and thirty exotic skulls in Table IX the height was more 

 than the breadth in sixty-five males and fourteen females, i.e. 60*8 per cent. ; in 



