REPORT ON THE BONES OF THE HUMAN SKELETON. 
37 
in tlie pelvis recorded in my Table VI. The mean of the five males was 99 "5, so that they 
have a well-marked dolichopellic character. Notwithstanding the high proportion of the 
conjugate to the transverse diameter, the shape of the brim, if I may judge of its form 
from my specimen, and from the two pelves figured by G. Fritsch, is not cuneiform, for 
the two pubic bones do not rapidly approximate to each other as in the Australian 
pelvis ; in my pelvis the term antero-posteriorly oval properly expresses the form of 
the brim.^ 
The pelvic index of a male Hottentot measured by Jeffiies "VVyman was 94 '4; but 
the fullest information that we possess on the pelvis of the Hottentots is contained in 
the valuable treatise on the aborigines of South Africa by Gustaf Fritsch. He puts the 
dimensions of the pelvic brim of a Hottentot woman at 96 mm. for the transverse 
diameter and 101 mm. for the conjugate, giving a brim index 105, which is remarkably 
high for the female pelvis. The transverse diameter of two male Korana Hottentots is 
respectively 105 and 91 mm., whilst the conjugate of the same is 96 and 108 mm., from 
which a brim index of 91 '4 for the one and 118 for the other can be computed, giving a 
mean for the two of 104*7. So far then as we can judge from these few specimens, the 
Hottentot pelvis is dolichopellic. Fritsch also gives the measurements of six male and 
one female KaSir pelvis, and from these measurements I have calculated their indices. 
The female, with a transverse diameter of 107 mm. and a conjugate of 96, had an index 
of 89"7, whilst the males varied in the brim index from 95 to 108, and had a mean of 
100*6. Weber had also previously figured the pelvis of a male Kaffir, in which the 
transverse diameter of the brim was 3 in. 9 lines, the conjugate 4 inches, the brim index 
therefore was 102*6. He placed it in his wedge-shaped group. There can be no doubt, 
therefore, that the pelvis in the male Kaffirs is dolichopellic (dolicholekanic). 
A considerable number of Negro pelves have noAv been measured. As a rule nothing 
definite has been stated, or, in all probability indeed, known of the exact districts or 
tribes from which most of these pelves were obtained, but Verneau in his essay especially 
mentions Nubia, Mozambique, and Guadeloupe as the localities from which certain of his 
specimens were derived. The measurements of the Negresses which have been described 
by Vrolik, Weber, J. Wood, Fritsch, Verneau, Martin, and myself amount to thirty-one, 
though it is possible that the same specimen may have been measured by more than 
one of these observers. The lowest brim index, 75*7, was that recorded by Fritsch, 
and the highest, 106, was the pelvis measured by John Wood ; the mean of the series 
was 88*3. The measurements of the Negros described by von Sommerring, Vrolik, John 
Wood, Huxley, Barnard Davis, Spengel, Verneau, and myself amounted to thirty -five, 
though with them it is also possible that the same pelvis may have had its 
1 Zuckerkaiull states in his account of the skulls of the Novara Expedition (Wien, 1875), that the pelvis of a 
Bushman about fourteen years old had a tranverse diameter 9 cm. and a conjugate 8 cm. The brim index of this 
youth was SB'S. 
