EEPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
15 
of Great Namaqua Land. 1 It is probable that before, and in the early days of, the 
European colonisation, tribes of Bushmen lived as far south as the Cape itself, so that 
one may agree with the following statement made by Dr. Fritsch 2 that throughout 
South Africa, from the Cape up to the Zambesi, and probably still further north, the 
territory of the Bush people had extended. 
The skulls ascribed to the Bush race, including those described in this Report, which 
have now been examined by craniologists, are at least forty-six in number, and of these 
about two-thirds are apparently male skulls. A sufficient number has therefore been 
studied to enable one with some degree of certainty to state the characters of the 
Bush skull. 
From a comparison of the several descriptions it is evident that in these crania 
the forehead approaches the vertical ; the frontal and parietal eminences are as a rule 
prominent ; the skull is flattened on the vertex ; the glabella and supraciliary ridges 
are not strongly marked, although Fritsch regards them as more prominent than in the 
skull of the Hottentot ; the nasal region is flattened, and the nasal bones enter into the 
profile outline of the face only by their lower ends, so that the Bush profile markedly 
contrasts with that of such skulls as the Fuegian drawn on PI. I. ; the malar bones 
project forwards ; the nasal spine of the superior maxillae is feeble ; the skull generally 
is small. 
The length and breadth of thirty-six crania have been recorded by Van der Hoeven, 
Vrolik, Barnard Davis, Fritsch, Zuckerkandl, Flower, de Quatrefages with Hamy, Rolleston, 
and myself. If we exclude one described by Zuckerkandl (No. 67), the cephalic index 
of which was 66*6, and another by Barnard Davis with a cephalic index 67 (No. 388, 
Thesaurus Craniorum), both of which from their extreme narrowness were probably 
either deformed skulls or not crania of the Bush race, the mean length-breadth index 
of the remaining thirty-five crania was 7 5 '2, which places the skulls in the mesati- 
cephalic division. Of these specimens twenty-three had a cephalic index of 75 or 
upwards, and the highest of these, a specimen described by Rolleston, being one of the 
males collected by Mr. Frank Oates, had an index of 81. The remaining twelve fell 
below 75, and the lowest of these were specimens described by Fritsch and Vrolik 
which had the cephalic indices respectively of 69 - 4 and 69 '9. 
On comparing my series of crania with the published figures of other specimens, there 
is obviously a difference in the amount of backward projection in the occipital region. 
This is especially to be noted in the skull originally described by Blumenbach, a profile 
view of which has recently been given by MM. de Quatrefages with Hamy (p. 391, 
1 Stieler's Hand-Atlas, Nos. 71, 72, Gotha, 1882. 
2 Die Eingeborenen, &c, p. 386. Fritsch gives the mean height of six Bushmen as 144 - 4 cm., and of five women 
as 144 "8 cm., so that the women were 0 - 4 cm. taller than the men. This is similar to the experience of Dr. Louis Vincent 
who states {Revue d' Anthropologic, t. i. p. 453, 1872) that it is seldom that a Bush person exceeds 1;40 m. in height ; that 
the mean height is l - 30 m., and that the women are a little taller than the men. 
