280 Professor Daniel Wilson on the 
jaws having been performed if the temporal bones had existed 
during life in the same unconformable relation to the lower 
jaw, left no room to doubt that the distortion had been pro- 
duced subsequent to inhumation. Mr J. B. Davis has accord- 
ingly devoted special consideration to the general subject of 
‘‘ posthumous distortion,” when treating, in the “ Crania Bri- 
tannica,” of various sources of abnormal cranial conformation; 
and refers to it as “another and distinct mode which will in 
future be required to be taken into consideration in all inves- 
tigations haying reference to deformed crania.” At the same 
time Mr Davis accumulates additional evidence in confirma- 
tion of the opinion that the artificial distortion of the human 
head is by no means limited to the savage tribes of the New 
World ; and discusses not only its practice among the ancient 
Macrocephali, including the received theory of Hippocrates 
that such artificial forms may be at length perpetuated by 
natural generation, but also ‘‘ the extraordinary fact, that the 
practice of distorting the skull in infancy is not yet extinct 
even in Europe.” To this curious inquiry the attention of 
some of the distinguished physiologists and anatomists of 
France has been directed; and the result of the combined 
observations of MM. Foville and Gosse, along with those of 
M. Lunier, is to satisfy them that in different departments of 
France the practice of applying constricting coverings and 
bandages to the heads of infants still prevails ; and that cer- 
tain diversities of cranial configuration in some of the pro- 
vinces, and. especially in Normandy, Gascony, Limousin, and 
Brittany, are traceable to prevalent modes of infantile head- 
dress. It detracts considerably from the force of such con- 
clusions, that the most remarkable examples produced by Dr 
Foville are derived from inmates of lunatic asylums; whereas. 
the result of numerous independent observations on the Flat- 
head tribes of the Pacific tends to prove, that whatever may 
be the increase of mortality in infancy produced by the bar- 
barous practice of cranial deformation, the adults exhibit no 
mental inferiority to other Indians. On the contrary, they 
are objects of dread to the neighbouring tribes, among whom 
no such practice prevails, enslaving them, and retaining them 
in degrading servitude, while they rigorously exclude their 
