40S DR MATTHEW YOUNG. 



different races. Several points of interest, as we shall see later, have been brought to 

 light during the examination of the results. 



The only large series of skulls to which the method has been accurately applied, 

 and of which the measurements are available, is, so far as I am aware, that of 52 

 Tasmanian crania by Buchner (ll) ; of these, about 30 were those of males, and he 

 has selected and recorded 27 different measurements in each skull. It is between 

 the measurements of this group of Tasmanian skulls and those of the series examined 

 !>v myself that I have instituted a comparison to see how the application of the 

 method will bring out the characteristic features of each type, but I shall also refer 

 to the measurements recorded by Klaatsch of an Australian, a European, and various 

 other specimens as figured and contrasted by him, and certain measurements of the 

 Tasmanian and Australian given by Turner in his memoirs, as well as certain other 

 measurements, which I have obtained from Falkenburger (41 ), from Bolk (42), and 

 from Berry and Robertson's atlases (40 and 40a), of dioptrographic tracings of series 

 of Tasmanian and Australian crania. 



It will be observed that the types compared — West Scottish, Tasmanian, and 

 Australian — are all of the dolichocephalic type, and the special interest of the inquiry 

 in this and the next section came to be the answer to the question, What are the 

 morphological differences in the cranial vault of a dolichocephalic skull of high status 

 and one of low status in civilisation 1 



It will be seen that the general shape of the quadrilateral figure inscribed within 

 the more or less elliptical outline of the sagittal tracing of the skull will be influenced 

 by the altitudinal index ; when the minor axis or height of the polygon is diminished 

 in relation to the major axis or length, then the internal angles at its extremities are 

 correspondingly increased, while those near the extremities of the major axis are 

 diminished in magnitude. 



Examining first of all the angles of the figure devised within the outline tracing, 

 and beginning with the zentrum angle, or the angle open upwards and forwards and 

 with its apex at the point of intersection of the diagonals of the quadrilateral, we 

 find that in Buchner's series of 25 male Tasmanian crania it varies from 85° 

 to 93'5°, with a mean value of 89'3°. In 9 of these skulls the angle is exactly 90°, 

 13 of the skulls show a zentrum angle under 90° in value, and only 3 an angle- 

 over 90°. The coefficient of variation of the angle is 1*92. Klaatsch describes 

 the angle as being almost invariably 90° in the Australian skulls examined by him 

 by this method, and figures one with that value in his paper above mentioned, as 

 well as a European skull which shows an angle at the zentrum of the same value. 

 Wetzel (44) did not find the rule invariable in the Australian skulls examined by 

 him. In 2 very typical Australian skulls examined by me the angle was exactly 90 

 in each case. 



I have been enabled recently to estimate the size of the zentrum angle in the 

 larger series of 90 unsexed Australian crania figured in Berry and Robertson's atlas 



