32 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
instead of being almost perpendicular to the flaor of the nose, and with a sharp edge, were 
rounded off and smooth where they became continuous with the nasal floor. This form 
of the anterior nares was especially marked in the skull from Roebuck Bay, in which also 
the nasal spine of the superior maxillse was reduced to a faint tubercle. As the obliquity 
of the sockets of the incisor teeth was great in this skull, the length of the palate and the 
alveolar prognathism formed marked features in the facial aspect, and the rounded floor 
and sides of the anterior nares approximated in appearance to the nares of an anthropoid 
ape. In all the adult skulls, with four exceptions, the width of the posterior nares, 
measured immediately above the root of the hamular process of the internal pterygoid 
plate, was less than that of the anterior nares. The interzygomatic breadth invariably 
exceeded the Stephanie, asterionic, and intermalar diameters. Except in one female, the 
intermalar diameter was greater than the Stephanie. In thirteen out of eighteen adult 
male skulls the interzygomatic diameter exceeded the greatest parieto-squamous ; whilst 
in five out of seven female skulls the inter-parietal exceeded the interzygomatic. The 
mean interorbital breadth in the males was 24"5 mm., the maximum 28 mm., the 
minimum 21 mm., whilst in the females the mean was 22 mm., the maximum 25 mm., 
the minimum 19 mm. 
The orbits in the males were characterised both by the massiveness of the upper 
orbital border and by a peculiar breadth and curvature of the malar bone where it formed 
the outer boundary, which wanted the sharpness one sees in crania generally, so that in 
taking the transverse diameter of the orbit there was a difficulty in deciding on the exact 
point on which the callipers should be placed. In many male skulls the canine fossse were 
remarkably deep, although the teeth were not shed, and the hollow was not due to absorp- 
tion of the jaws from age. These hollows, conjoined with the boss-like supra-orbital and 
supra-nasal projections, and a sort of general undulatory outline of the orbital boundary, 
gave to the facial aspect a peculiar rugged and irregular appearance. In the female 
skulls the external orbital border showed little trace of the peculiarity above described, 
and the canine fossae had no special depth. 
The crowns of the teeth were large, and the incisors and canines approximated in 
size ; when the cusps were not worn away, the molars were coarsely tuberculated. As 
a rule the grinding surface of the crowns was flattened from wear, and the dentine more 
or less exposed. A few teeth were affected with caries, and occasionally a tooth had 
been shed from age, and the socket absorbed. In a male skull from Queensland, in the 
Mudgee skull, and in one from the Murray, New South Wales, the left central incisor 
had been extracted in early life, and its socket absorbed; in a West Australian from 
Perth, the right central incisor had been similarly treated. 1 This practice of extracting 
1 In some of the skulls subsequently referred to on p. 46 of text a similar peculiarity was observed, viz. in a skull 
from Rockhampton the right central incisor, in another from the same locality, the left central incisor, and in a skull 
marked " New Hollander" the right central incisor had been removed. 
