104 
A Study of the Crania of the Moriori 
previously reached, i.e. that the Moriori cranium approaches to a certain European 
type represented by modern EngUsh and by prehistoric Guanche* far more closely 
than it does to the Negro skull. 
As measured on the actual skull Scott obtains values of the interauricular 
length which give a male mean = 126-8, and we have obtained directly for the 
auricular height of our series of males 117-1 ; the reasons for these divergencies will 
be considered later. It would have been of the greatest value had we possessed 
type sections of the Aino and Fuegian crania for further comparison. 
Let us now consider the horizontal section. This as we have stated is taken 
through the glabella, while the cranium is arranged so that the plane of the drawing 
is parallel to the standard horizontal plane. Now the glabella is not a well-defined 
point, but rather a small area, and a little personal equation will make a con- 
siderable change in appearance of the horizontal section according as the plane 
of section recedes very little from the zygomatic and approaches slightly to the 
Stephanie region. But as the horizontal sections discussed in the present paper 
are all drawn by members of the same school we are fairly certain that the con- 
cavity in the contour behind the temporal line is far more marked in the Moriori 
than in other crania we have drawn. But it has seemed to us — in view of the 
importance of the temporal lines from the evolutionary standpoint — desirable in 
future to take additional coordinates for the points, Tr and where the section 
cuts the temporal line on the frontal bone. Otherwise these important points are 
lost in the general averaging out of the contours. Allowing, however, for some 
difference of treatment our contours as well as our plates (see especially Plates II, 
III, VII, IX, etc.) indicate how marked is the linea temporalis of the Moriori 
skull, and we think that this is an essential factor of our appreciation of its 
primitive character. If the reader will compare our Moriori horizontal contour 
with those of the Eskimo, Bantu and English crania, he will realise how relatively 
great is the depression of the fades temporalis in the Moriori frontal bone. 
A similar opinion will be formed by comparing the photographs of English 
crania on Plates II and V of Macdonell's memoir J with the corresponding photo- 
graphs of Moriori crania on Plates IX, XV, XVI and XXI, where the shadows 
indicate the massive character of the linea temporalis. This depression of the 
fades temporalis so noteworthy in the Moriori cranium is recognisable in the Cro- 
Magnon contour, but scarcely more than indicated in Egyptian, Congo and English 
crania. Now if the reader will superpose the English type horizontal section § 
on the Moriori so that the point F falls on F and 0 on 0, he will perceive that it 
* The resemblance of 17th century English to the Guanche type has already been insisted on: 
see Biometrika, Vol. viii. p. 135. 
■j- The general asymmetry of the Moriori cranium is well illustrated by the fact that Tji lies posteriorly 
to Ti in the type cranium : anteriorly the ordinates show that the left side, posteriorly the right side 
of the Moriori skull is larger. 
J Biometrika, Vol. m. p. 191 et seq. 
§ Tracing Fig. XXIX of Crewdson Benington's paper, to which the other figures when attached 
to tracings refer. 
