W. R. Macdonbll 
199 
Roads; that in 1829 captains and merchants met in front of the London Hospital 
to bargain for cargoes, and that from the " New Road," people still living can 
remember before 1840 walking across the fields to Stepney. In short, Whitechapel 
was a residential suburb of the commercial classes and not a place of poor natives 
and poorer aliens. There is little doubt that our crania even under the hypothesis 
that they belong to a clearance pit from Sheen's ground would be in bulk English 
and well-to-do. But is this hypothesis to be accepted ? Sheen's ground does not 
appear to have been long in existence — possibly 1820 to 1854. There is no 
evidence of its ever having crossed the alley referred to above, and there is no 
reason to doubt the statement that the bones were exhumed from under houses 
built in (or before ?) 1820. Lastly a most extensive system of almost immediate 
disinterment must have been carried on to allow of several hundred bodies being 
found placed as these were. It has been necessary, however, to refer to this 
matter because in the fiiture someone might have been struck by the proximity 
of Sheen's ground to the site where our crania were excavated, and considered 
that this possibility had been overlooked. The fact, however, that Kinloch's 
Stores coincide with the position of a small enclosure in the maps of 1688 to 
1720 seems to suggest that either this enclosure was itself a burial-ground or had 
been used as a pest-field. In either case we should date our skulls as a 17th 
century series. The existence of a negress' skull among them is nut incompatible 
with this view, and they would then be fairly typical of the London English of 
that period. They agree very well on the whole with our second series from 
Moorfields, but neither seems sufficiently modern to belong to the 19th century; 
they differ in some respects sensibly from the modern English head. 
(4) Measurements made, and Methods of Measurement. 
The measurements and nomenclature are those of the Frankfurter VersUindig- 
img, with certain exceptions whicli will be mentioned below. 
I used the craniophor*, scriber, goniometer and blocks with which C. D. 
Fawcett worked, and which are fully described and illustrated in her paper f. 
The front block, however, was altered by having a projecting edge of 10 mm. 
length attached to its front ; by this device the gerade Lamge was always 
measured from the glabella, as the block was kept clear of the superciliary 
ridges, and the only part of it in contact with the skull was the projecting 
edge. Of course 10 mm. were always deducted from the reading on the scale 
showing the distance between the bases of the blocks. 
In addition to these instruments I used callipers with curved arms, like 
those which Flower figures on page xvi. of his Catalogue, also large and small 
callipers with straight arms, and a steel tape. 
* It would be an improvement I think if the craniophor were made larger and heavier, so as to have 
greater stability, and if the pointed clamping rod, by means of a spring or otherwise, could be kept 
always in contact with the skull ; much time was lost in the simple operation of fixing the skull in the 
horizontal plane, owing to the rod losing its grip and falling down. 
t Biometrika, Vol. i. pp. 413—415. 
