346 Was the Skull of the Moriori artificially deformed ? 
According to Professor Giiiffrida-Ruggeri, the leptorrhiny, the receding frontal 
and the massiveness and vertical ramus of the mandible of the Moriori are not 
characteristics marking them off as an extremely primitive race, but the product of 
climate, artificial deformation and diet. In short, are due to environmental conditions, 
which also in part have influenced Fuegians and Eskimos, and thus account for 
various common features of these " fringe " races. He does not explain whether 
this adaptation is due to long ages of selection by which the skull has retrogressed 
in many respects to a more primitive form, or is due to the inheritance of acquired 
characters, in which case the flat frontal ought to have become a permanent racial 
character and would not need to be artificially deformed. If we prefer the view 
after a close examination of the crania — which is an advantage Professor Giuffrida- 
Kuggeri has not had — and after a careful measuring and analysis of the measure- 
ments to look upon this race as forming one of the most primitive that have 
survived to recent times — and not as a product of environment*, does this justify 
Professor Giuffrida-Ruggeri in stating that : 
La Thomson, essendo della scuola del Pearson, natnralrnente non s' interessa del materiale 
uinano che nel senso biometrico (p. 9). 
We can assure the worthy professor that from its founder, Francis Galton, down- 
wards our school did not take up anthropology because its members were interested 
in biometric methods, but because, studying " human material," they found real 
progress was impossible unless new methods were invented and applied. And it 
is because of that desire to understand human development that they do not 
hesitate totally to condemn as nugatory and profitless the descriptive and appre- 
ciative processes in which Professor Giuffrida-Ruggeri puts his trust. 
* Or as, "un singolare prodotto della domesticazione" ! ! (p. 9). 
