~ ae. GPoo 
52 Professor D. Wilson’s Illustrations of the Significance 
departments, and invite to very diverse researches by the 
illustrations they are calculated to afford. It chanced, how- 
ever, that my attention had been recently recalled to an old 
subject of speculation, relative to the possible modification 
of the forms of ancient British crania by some of the very 
causes which so materially alter those of many American 
tribes; and this accordingly influenced me in part, in the 
notes I made of the collections both at Washington and 
Philadelphia, and will now give direction to some remarks 
bearing on the same inquiry. 
Among the most prized crania in the collection of the 
Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia is the cele- 
brated Scioto Mound skull. But though on a former visit 
I made the ancient mound crania an object of special study, 
this most remarkable example of the series was not then 
included among them; and I now examined the original 
for the first time. The result of this examination was to 
satisfy me that the remarkable form and proportions of that 
skull are much more due to artificial influences than I had 
been led to suppose from the views published in the ‘‘ Smith- 
sonian Contributions to Knowledge.”’* The vertical view, 
especially, is very inaccurate. In the original it presents 
the peculiar characteristics of what I have before designated 
as the truncated form; passing abruptly from a broad flat- 
tened occiput to its extreme parietal breadth, and then 
tapering with slight lateral swell, until it reaches its least 
breadth immediately behind the external angular process 
of the frontal bone. The occiput has been subjected to the 
flattening process to a much greater extent than is apparent 
from the drawings; but at the same time it is accompanied 
by no corresponding affection of the frontal bone, such as 
inevitably results from the procedure of the Chinooks and 
other Flathead tribes; among whom the desired cranial de- 
formation is effected by bandages crossing the forehead, and 
consequently modifying the frontal as much as the parietal 
and occipital bones. On this account, great as is the amount 
of flattening in this remarkable skull, it is probably due 
solely to the undesigned pressure of the cradle-board acting 
* Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, pl xlvii. and xlviii. 
