14 



nity as the like more anthropoid characters of the female, as com- 

 pared with the male, Gorilla or Chimpanzee. 



Much more important and significant were the following cha- 

 racters of the human skull : — the position and plane of the occipital 

 foramen ; the proportional size of the condyloid and petrous pro- 

 cesses ; the mastoid processes, which relate to balancing the head 

 upon the trunk in the erect attitude ; the small premaxillaries and 

 concomitant small size of the incisor teeth, as compared with the 

 molar teeth. The latter character relates to the superiority of the 

 psychical over the physical powers in man : it governs the feature in 

 which man recedes from the brute ; as does also the prominence of 

 the nasal bones in most, and in all the typical, races of man. The 

 somewhat angular form of the bony orbits, tending to a square, 

 with the corners rounded off, is a good human character of the 

 skull, which is difficult to comprehend as an adaptive one, and 

 therefore the better in the present inquiry. The same may be said 

 of the production of the floor of the tympanic or auditory tube into 

 the plate called "vaginal." 



Believing the foregoing to be sufficient to test the respective 

 degrees of affinity to man within the limited group of Quadrumana 

 to which it was proposed, in the present memoir, to apply them, the 

 author would not dilute his argument by citing minor characters. 

 The question at issue was the respective degrees of affinity as be- 

 tween the anthropoid apes and man. Cuvier deemed the Orang 

 (Pithecus) to be nearer akin to man than the Chimpanzee (Troglo- 

 dytes) is. That belief has long ceased to be entertained. Professor 

 Owen proceeded, therefore, to compare the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, and 

 Gibbon, in reference to their human affinities. 



Most naturalists entering upon this question would first look to 

 the premaxillary bones, or, owing to the early confluence of those 

 bones with the maxillaries in the Gorilla and Chimpanzee, to the 

 part of the upper jaw containing the incisive teeth, on the size and 

 direction of which depends the prognathic or brutish character of a 

 skull. Now the extent of the premaxillaries below the nostril is not 

 only relatively but absolutely less in the Gorilla, and consequently 

 the profile of the skull is less convex at this part, or less " progna- 

 thic " than in the Chimpanzee. Notwithstanding the degree in 

 which the skull of the Gorilla surpasses in size that of the Chimpan- 

 zee, especially when the two are compared on a front view, the 

 breadth of the premaxillaries and of the four incisive teeth is the 

 same in both. In the relative degree, therefore, in which these bones 

 are smaller than in the Chimpanzee, the Gorilla, in this most im- 

 portant character, comes nearer to Man. In the Gibbons the inci- 

 sors are relatively smaller than in the Gorilla, but the premaxillaries 

 bear the same proportional size in the adult male Siamang. 



Next, as regards the nasal bones. In the Chimpanzee, as in the 

 Orangs and Gibbons, they are as flat to the face as in any of the 

 lower Simice. In the Gorilla, the median coalesced margins of the 

 upper half of the nasal bones are produced forward, in a slight 

 degree it is true, but affording a most significant evidence of nearer 



