HUXLET — ITOTES UPON HUMAN REMAINS. 



203 



The base of this skull is remarkable in several respects. The occi- 

 pital foramen is placed far back, and its plane is directed more back- 

 wards than is usual in human skulls. "When the base of the skull is 

 turned upwards and the glabello-occipital line is horizontal (its length 

 being 6-7 inches), the anterior edge of the occipital foramen lies 1-5 

 inch above the line, and a perpendicular let fall from it would cut the 

 line 3*9 inches from its anterior end. A similar line let fall from the 

 posterior edge would cut the glabello-occipital line at 5"3 inches from 

 its anterior end, and that edge is only 0 9 of an inch above it. In a 

 length of l'4i, the plane of the occipital foramen, therefore, has a fall 

 of 0 6 towards the glabello-occipital line. 



In a well-formed European skull, whose glabello-occipital line 

 measures 7*0 inches, while its extreme length is 7'25, the distance of 

 the anterior edge of the occipital foramen from the glabella, mea- 

 sured in the same way along the glabello-occipital line, is 3*8 ; of its 

 posterior edge 5'3. The anterior edge is 1*1 vertically above the line, 

 and the posterior edge 1-0 above it. Thus, in a length of 1'5, the 

 occipital foramen has a slope of only 0"1 inch, so that, instead of being 

 greatly inclined backwards, it is nearly horizontal. 



The skull from the Valley of the Trent belongs to a cranial type 

 which seems at one time to have been widely distributed over the 

 British Islands. I have seen skulls from rude stone tombs in Scot- 

 land with similar characters, and others obtained from the Yalley of 

 the Thames. There are skulls in the Museum of the Eoyal College of 

 Surgeons exhibiting like proportions, from the remarkable tumulus at 

 Towyn-y-Capel, Anglesea, described by the Hon. W. O. Stanley, M.P., 

 in the ' Archaeological Journal ' (Institute) for 1846 ; and my friend 

 Mr. Busk has shown me others from Cornwall. But the skulls 

 which most clearly resemble the Trent cranium are some, also from 

 river-beds, which I saw in the Museum of the Eoyal Irish Academy 

 and in the collection at Trinity College, Dublin, and of which my 

 friend. Dr. E. P. Wright, the curator of that collection, has been 

 good enough to supply me with excellent casts. Two of these skulls 

 are from the bed of the Nore, in Queen's County, and two from 

 that of the Blackwater river, in Armagh, and one of the latter has 

 the most extraordinary resemblance to the Trent skull, as the follow, 

 ing table of measurements will show : — 



Trent. Blackwater. 



Maximum length T'O 7-2 



Length of glahello-occipital line 6*7 7'0 



