A STUDY OF THE VARIATION AND CORIIELATION OF 
THE HUMAN SKULL, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE 
TO ENGLISH CRANIA. 
By W. R. MAODONELL, LL.D. 
(1) Introductory. 
The following paper is a contribution to the investigation which has been 
going on for several years at University College, London, under the direction of 
Professor Karl Pearson, with the view of determining the size, variability, and 
correlation of various organs and characters in man. Professor G. D. Thane, 
head of the Anatomical Department in the college, is the fortunate possessor of 
a collection of human skulls which were discovered in 1893 in Whitechapel, and 
it is this great series which forms the subject of my inquiry. We have most 
heartily to thank Professor Thane for unreservedly placing his splendid material 
at the disposal of the biometric workers in the college. Some of the skulls had 
been examined by previous observers, and measurements made of a few of the 
chief characters, with important results to craniology, but a systematic exami- 
nation of the whole series had still to be accomplished. At Professor Pearson's 
suggestion I undertook this very attractive piece of work in 1901, and measured 
all the skulls in accordance, for the most part, with the system of the Frank- 
furter Verstdndigung, so far as the condition of the material allowed. In the 
arithmetical reduction of the measurements I have closely followed the scheme 
adopted by Cicely D. Fawcett in her great paper on Naqada Crania*. A few 
of my results will be found to differ a little from those previously published ; 
this is due mainly to the inclusion of several skulls which were not available 
until towards the very end of the inquiry, and to some final correction of 
measurements ; these discrepancies, however, are not very serious. 
(2) Pi^evious Results for English Skulls. 
These are disappointingly meagre, and a short account of the most important 
catalogues in which British skulls are described and measured will show the 
immense relative importance of the Whitechapel series. 
* Biometrika, Vol. i. pp. 408—467. 
