REPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
37 
diameter. I did not see in any of the crania an exostosis within the external meatus ; 
a third occipital condyle ; a paramastoid process, except in the most rudimentary form ; 
or a complete pterygo-sphenoid foramen, although in a Swan Hill skull such a foramen 
was almost formed. In several specimens a suture extended from the infra-orbital 
foramen through the lower border of the orbit into the infra-orbital canal. 
The lower jaw was not so strongly developed as might have been expected from the 
massiveness of the skull generally. In the Eiverina and some other males the rami 
were large, the angle almost rectangular, and the chin square ; but the mental region was 
often feeble and with scarcely any forward projection at its lower border. The inter- 
gonial width was sometimes greater, at others less than the gonio-symphysial length. 
The coronoid height was, with few exceptions, greater than the condyloid ; the sigmoid 
notch had not any great depth, though it was not so shallow as in the Bush crania. 
The mean cephalic index of the thirty-one adult crania was 70 ; that of the twenty 
males was 69 ; that of the eleven females was 72. Each skull was dolichocephalic, with 
the sole exception of the female from Victoria presented by Mr. J. Dawson, the length- 
breadth index of which was 78. Setting this skull on one side, the ten female crania 
ranged from 74 to 67, whilst the males ranged from 73 to 61*5. The mean cephalic index 
of the adult females was therefore greater than that of the adult males. The mean length- 
breadth index of the four youths' crania was 70. A most noticeable feature in these 
Australian skulls was the great length of so many of the male crania, four of which were 
each 200 mm. long, and eight others were between 190 and 200 mm. They are indeed 
the longest normal skulls that have been measured in the course of this enquiry. The 
adult male from Portland Bay with a length of 200 mm., had a breadth of only 123 mm. 
All the sutures of the cranial vault were ankylosed, and from the very complete obliteration 
of the sagittal and the ridge-like elevation of its region, together with the scaphocephalic 
form of the skull, it is not unlikely that this suture may have been prematurely closed, 
which would account for the little breadth of the cranium and its abnormally low cephalic 
index, 6T5. 1 In the male from the Wannon River, with the low index of 65, and in the 
Riverina skull with an index of 66, there was no premature synostosis, although the 
sagittal suture was partially obliterated through age. The female skull from Portland 
1 In the Anatomical Museum of the University is a very characteristic adult scaphocephalic skull, which I described 
and figured in the Natural History Review, vol. iv. p. 94, fig. 1, 1864. Its glabello-occipital length was 202 mm., its 
transverse diameter 130 mm., and its cephalic index 64. The well-known traveller Baron de Miklucho-Maclay describes 
in the Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales, vol. viii. p. 401, pi. xix., 1883, a very dolichocephalic skull collected in Queens- 
land, but now in the Australian Museum, Sydney. The cephalic index is 58 - 3 the vertical index 64 - 8. The glabello- 
occipital length is 204 mm ; breadth 119 mm. ; height 131 mm. He states that the skull shows no evidence of deformity, 
but in his description and figure he points out that the sagittal suture is completely obliterated. This character com- 
bined with the scaphocephalic shape of the skull leads me to think that its length and narrowness were due to premature 
synostosis of the sagittal suture. Dr. Barnard Davis has also described and figured (Natuurkund. Verhandel. Holland. 
Wetensch. Haarlem, 1865) a very interesting scaphocephalic skull from the Macleay River district, N.S.W., the length of 
which was 210 mm., the breadth 121 mm., and the height 134 mm. The cephalic index was only 57, and the vertical 
index was 63. I may also refer to the scaphocephalic skidl of an Egyptian mummy described by me in the Edin. Med. 
