142 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



[June 



The cephalic index of the Canstadt race, taken from the Neanderthal 

 man is 72-, that of the La Truchere skull, which belongs to the latter 

 part of the Quaternary period, is 84*32, giving a difference of 12-32, 

 and at the present time the index of the Esquimaux is 69-30, which is 

 bel ow the index of the Neanderthal example ; the index of the southern 

 German is 86-20, which is only slightly greater than the index given by 

 the La Truchere skull. Now, the peculiarities of this Neanderthal 

 cranium, which are generally described as brutish and apish, and of 

 skulls similar to it, are of no great import, for it does not follow that 

 individuals who possess these peculiar skulls must necessarily be intel- 

 lectually inferior — a point of great weight, — since it is usually regarded 

 as an indisputable fact that such inferiority exists in connection with 

 this type of cranium. Voigt, Quatrefages tells us, quoted an example 

 at the Paris Assembly of Anthropologists of one of his friends, a Dr. 

 Eminayer, whose cranium exactly recalls that of the Neanderthal man, 

 and who was, notwithstanding, a highly distinguished lunacy doctor, and 

 Quatrefages himself, when passing through the Copenhagen Museum, 

 was much struck by the Neanderthal characteristics of a skull in that 

 collection ; it proved to be that of Kaye Lykke, a Danish gentleman, 

 who played a prominent part in the political agitation of the seventeenth 

 century. The head of the Bishop of Toul, which is of the fourth 

 century, even exaggerates some of the most striking features of the 

 Neanderthal example ; the forehead is still more receding, the vault 

 more depressed, and the head so long that the index is 69-41. Lastly, 

 the skull of the Scottish hero, Bruce, is another reproduction of the 

 Canstadt type. 



W hile some excavations were being undertaken so far back as the 

 year 1858, under the supervision of the elder Lartet and Christy, in the 

 valley of the Vezere, and near the village of Les Eyzies, the workmen 

 unearthed on one of the escarpments of Cro-Magnon the remains of 

 three men, a woman, and a child, and these remains have, like those of 

 the former race, been styled after the locality in which they were found. 

 The Cro-M agnon race is the second which played its part during the 

 Quaternary times. The only feature which the Neanderthal man and 

 the Cro-Magnon old man have in common is the cranial proportion. 

 The index here is 73'76, and recedes to 70-05 in a skull belonging to the 

 latter race from the locality of Solutre, while the famous Engis 

 cranium gives us 70-52. 



In every feature, else, do the skulls of these races differ, the Cro- 

 Magnon head lacking the low retreating forehead and superciliary 

 ridges, which convey the idea of a simian character, and the flatness of 

 the vault, which is found in all the Neanderthal examples. On the 

 contrary, however, it shows a large forehead, a dome of the finest 

 proportions, while the skull itself is remarkable for its capacity, which 



