lOG 
A Stiffly of the Crania of the Moriori 
other points on defective portions of crania either glabella or inion may be used. 
About the standard horizontal plane three statements may be made in the case 
of type crania: 
(i) It passes very nearly through, but a little below the inion. 
(ii) It is approximately parallel to the basio-opisthion line, i.e. parallel to the 
plane of the foramen magnum. 
(iii) It is approximately parallel to the maximum length, i.e. the glabella- 
occipital line. 
None of these statements are of course true of the individual skull, but on an 
average or in type cranial contours they are nearly true as the reader will observe 
if he examines the Moriori type contours. 
If we put aside the glabella as an indefinite "point," and the inion as not 
available in our comparative contours, we are left with three available lines for 
superposition : (i) iV/3, the nasio-bregmatic line ; (ii) N\, the nasio-lambda line ; 
and (iii) Ny, the nasio-gamma or standard horizontal. We will examine the 
comparison by each of these lines as superposition lines. Let us first, however, 
recall to mind the essential features of the Moriori skull as revealed by measure- 
ment, simple inspection and photograph. These are the flattening of the frontal 
region and the sagittal ridge or crest behind the apex. We superpose first the 
English typical sagittal contour (Fig. XXVII). Nasion on nasion and the lines 
Ny in the same direction. We have at once brought out the Moriori characters, 
the flattening of the frontal and the sagittal crest starting at the bregma or before, 
caching behind the apex and extending towards the lambda. There is no question 
of these striking features. Rotate the tracing until iVA coincides in direction with 
NX, all trace of the crest disappears, there is increased frontal flattening, but it is 
the English skull which now might be thought crested ! Now make iV/3 coincide with 
N^. Here we get a really true measure of the flattening of the frontal bone, but 
practically the English and Moriori contours now coincide from bregma to lambda. 
In our opinion there is not the least doubt that comparison by the nasio-gamma 
line, not the nasio-lambda line, brings out the characteristic features of the Moriori 
cranium in a manner which fails entirely when we use the nasio-lambda line. 
Even in the question of the appreciation of frontal flattening, it is by no means 
certain that the flattening of the frontal bone is the sole source of the physiognomic 
impression ; the rotation of the frontal bone as a whole (which would not alter 
the ratio of subtense to nasio-bregmatic chord (see p. 110)) may have equal physio- 
gnomic value. In the present case this physiognomic factor gives an aspect of 
flatness to the English skull, although there is a high value of the nasio-bregmatic 
frontal index. Anyone looking at the photographs in Macdonell's memoirs on 
the English skull* would assert that there is physiognomically a flattened frontal. 
It is largely produced by rotation of the frontal bone and not by its flattening. 
* See Biometrika, Vol. v. p. 104, Plates XII, XVI, etc. 
