CRANIAL TYPE-CONTOURS. 
By the late R. CREWDSON BENINGTON, M.D. 
Prepared for Press by KARL PEARSON, F.R.S. 
[This paper is accompanied by copies of the XXXII text-figures printed on 
tissue.] 
(1) Introductory. During the last two years of his life Dr Crewdson Benington 
was a most active worker in the Biometric Laboratory at University College, London. 
He was concerned with anthropometric, more especially craniometric, problems. 
Had he been spared another year to complete his investigations (he died in the 
autumn of 1909), there is little doubt that several valuable papers would have 
been issued under his name. He had three distinct pieces of work in hand, all 
unfortunately lacking the final measurements, reductions and verbal descriptions. 
These were : 
(i) The completion of a lengthy investigation of the long bones of the English 
skeleton by a full system of measurements on the humerus and the radius*. 
(ii) A study of crania from the Congo, and a comparison with measurements 
on other negro races f. 
(iii) A study of the three chief contour's of the human skull with special 
reference to the relation of man to the anthropoid apes. 
It is a side branch of this latter study with which the present paper is concerned. 
Dr Crewdson Benington, by aid of the Klaatsch contour tracer belonging to the 
Biometric Laboratory, drew the three contours of many hundreds of crania of men 
and apes, partly in the collections of University College, partly in the Royal 
College of Surgeons, and partly at the British Museum (Natural History). But 
when he came to discuss his material, it seemed to him that the chief advantage 
of the graphical method was lost, if the contours were used solely to obtain the 
mean values of a few characters and these characters only were compared for 
the different races. In such a treatment the graphical representations of the 
individual crania are used only as a link between purely numerical investigations. 
Almost every anatomist lays special weight on qualitative characters of the crania 
* Material kindly placed at Dr Benington's disposal by Professor Thane. 
t Dr Benington by the kindness of Professor A. Keith measured most of the collection of Congo 
crania at the Boyal College of Surgeons. The series was afterwards completed by Miss E. V. Thompson. 
He also measured two further series of crania from the same district in the British Museum. This 
study is now at press and will shortly be published. 
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