92 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
and skin being characteristically Papuan. The GodefFroy Museum in Hamburg contains 
one hundred and fifty skulls from the New Britain Archipelago, twenty- six of which are 
from the principal island, New Britain, and one hundred and twenty from the small 
island Mioko in the Duke of York group. These skulls have been examined and their 
characters analysed by Dr. Bud. Krause. 1 The chief measurements are as follows : — the 
mean length 181 mm., maximum 195, minimum 165 ; the mean greatest breadth 130 '9, 
maximum 142, minimum 119 ; the mean height 137*6, maximum 150, minimum 128. 
The indices are as follows : — length -breadth 72'3, length-height 76, breadth-height 105*1. 
The eubic capacity varies from 1530 to 990, that of the males having a mean of 1267 
e.c, that of the females of only 1180 c.c. Prof. Virchow states 2 that he has been put 
in the position of obtaining through Dr. Finsch one hundred and fifty crania from New 
Britain. He refers to the great variation in their cubic capacity, and cites a male skull 
having a capacity of 2010 c.c. and a female of only 1140 c.c, but he gives no other 
measurements. 
New Hanover and New Ireland, situated to the north and west of New Britain, were 
visited in 1875 by the Prussian war-ship " Gazelle," and a description of the people and 
their customs has been written by Captain Strauch. 3 From the character both of the hair 
and skin they are evidently in the main Papuans, though it is possible that here, as else- 
where in the Melanesian Islands, there may have been some intermixture of Mahori blood. 
Numerous crania were collected, which are now in the Anatomical Museum of the 
University of Berlin. The majority have been measured by Dr. Rabl-Riickhard, and 
their characters are recorded by him. 4 I am indebted to that gentleman for an early 
proof of his important communication. The skulls from New Ireland were collected at a 
spot which had been used for cannibal feasts, and they were so defective that a proper 
series of measurements could not be taken. Forty-five specimens belonged in all prob- 
ability partly to New Britain and partly to New Hanover, but in the table of measurements 
they are all placed under the heading New Hanover. Dr. Rabl-Ruckhard has measured 
the greatest length from both the fronto-nasal suture and the glabella, and has given the 
cephalic index in relation to both these measurements. When the glabello-occipital 
diameter is used to compute the cephalic index, I find that by far the greater number 
of these skulls have a length-breadth index of less than 75, as many indeed as seventeen 
being below 70, whilst only six are above 75, and the highest of these is 77*6. These 
people therefore are undoubtedly dolichocephalic. It is also important that in only one 
instance was the vertical index below the cephalic, and in only one were they equal ; in 
all the other skulls the vertical index exceeded the cephalic, and in many specimens in a 
1 Die ethnographisch-anthropologische Abtheilung des Museum Godeffroy, Hamburg, 1881. 
2 Versamml. der deutschen Anthrop. Gesellsch., 1882, reported in Archil) fur Anthrop., Bd. xiv., 1883, p. 89. 
3 Zeitschrift fur Mhnologie, Bd. ix. pp. 9, 81, 1877. 
4 Archiv fur Anthropologic, Bd. xv., 1884, parts 1 and 2, supplement. 
