468 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. IX. 



In spite of the meagre reports with regard to the physical 

 charateristics of the Tamils we cannot doubt that they, like- 

 wise, are very dark, more or less black, and have long black 

 hair. For the rest, observers lay much stress on their great 

 strength and activity, nothing more. Hence there remains 

 to me only the scant craniological material found in the 

 collection of Mr. B. Davis and in my own. This is all insuffi- 

 cient for a final authoritative answer to the question of the 

 ethnological relation of the Tamils to the two other 

 Ceylonese tribes, and hence my conclusion is only to be 

 accepted with great reservation. 



All these skulls are comparatively small, and certainly no 

 one would infer from them that they belonged to a powerful 

 race. As already stated, the average capacity of a Tamil 

 skull is 1,247 cub. cm., which is even less than the 

 average of the Veddas and of the Sinhalese. It is scarcely 

 possible to look upon this number as the typical one for the 

 race, in my opinion, and it is only interesting as showing 

 that smaU skulls may be found among all the tribes of the 

 Island. Still there is none among them which reaches the 

 minimum number of the Veddas. 



More important, however, is the difference in the form of 

 the head. The Tamil skull, to judge from these specimens, is 

 hypsimesocephalic, in fact wholly different from the Sin- 

 halese and the Vedda skull. Its index of breadth is 76*3, of 

 height 76*8. Corresponding to this its transverse vertical 

 length is greater than its sagittal circumference length. 

 With reference also to the share of the single bones in the 

 formation of the roof of the skull we find a considerable 

 difference ; the squama occiintalis is much smaller ; the 

 frontal bone, however, considerably larger than with the 

 Sinhalese, and still more emphatically with the Veddas. The 

 basilar view shows plainly the extraordinary shortness of the 

 occipital region. 



I must say after this, that the skull of the Tamils, so far as 

 recognisable from those we have under consideration, exhibits 



