M. L. TiLDESLEY 
235 
Other features. In addition to the above, all cases of flattening at the obelion, 
metopic ridge, and tympanic perforation have been recorded; and notes have been 
added on any other singularities that seemed worthy of comment. 
10. Comparative Material. 
When we turn to the consideration of the Burmese skull in its relation to other 
races, we are confronted with a problem that is among the most difficult and 
interesting of those many that await the study of the craniologist. 
As with the lower types of life, so with man, we are, in Indo-China or Further 
India, on the border-line of two great divisions, the Oriental and Euro-Asian. 
Much work remains to be done still on the Crania of the Burmese races, and much 
on those of Thibet and Siam, before a full light can be thrown on the exact rela- 
tions of these borderland peoples. Nor have we as yet any comprehensive study 
of the skulls of the great races that lie to the north, south, and west of our border- 
line, although a considerable amount of cranial material has been collected and is 
scattered throughout the museums of Europe. The measurements that have been 
taken vary very considerably, both as to number of characters chosen and as to 
the convention by which they are measured; and practically all were left in the 
records as mere measurements, not yet reduced to the constants of racial types. 
In so far as the material served, I have used it to compile tables on which the 
means of between twenty and thirty characters can be based for four neighbouring 
types: Malayan, Chinese, Hindu and Dravidian. 
In preparing these tables it was necessary to reject a considerable number even 
of the rather scanty measurements which were all that most craniologists supplied : 
either because the origin of the skull was stated too vaguely, or because the char- 
acter measured was not one usually measured bv other craniometricians; or because, 
if the same measurement were attempted it was taken by a non-comparable method. 
The necessity for ascertaining exactly what had been measured in the case of each 
worker made the compilation of my own series of means from theirs rather a 
laborious process: I have, however, taken all the care I possibly could to avoid 
errors arising from this source. 
The following is the comparative material obtained : 
Malayans. I was fortunate enough to find in Dr Emil Schmidt's Catalogue of 
of bis own collection* a series of over 80 Malayan skulls. Of these, one was a child, 
and one a badly deformed hydrocephalic male : of the remainder, six only were $s, 
the rest cjs. The $ skulls are of course too few alone to be of any use; the cJ skulls, 
however, not only form a long series, but have had a large number of measure- 
ments taken on them, and these mostly in accordance with the Frankfurt Con- 
cordat, so that we have means of no less than 32 characters based on 69 to 78 skulls, 
with which to make comparisons. 
$ Malayans had to be collected from various sources, and were brought up to 
a total of 56; of these 38 were recorded in Die Anthropologischen Sammlungen 
* Die Anthropologischen Prival-Sammlunrien Deutschlands, Abtheilung i. 
