98 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
femora the anterior aspect of the lower third of the shaft was raised almost into a ridge 
leading upwards from the outer lip of the patellar articular surface, which caused the shaft 
internal to that ridge to slope downwards and inwards towards the internal tuberosity. In 
the Lapp skeletons, in addition to the infra-trochanteric ridge, a low trochanter tertius was 
present. In one Hindoo skeleton and in the Malay a third trochanter was moderately 
developed. In the Hindoos, Sikh, and Chinese, the lateral surfaces of the shaft of the femur 
were not concave, and the linea aspera was not strongly ridged. The index of the relation 
of the antero-posterior and transverse diameters at the middle of the shaft of the femur 
in the tall Hindoo was 103 for the right and 111 for the left bone ; in the Sikh 93 for the 
right and 103 for the left femur; in the Malay 104 for the left femur, the right having 
been broken ; in the Chinese 104 for the right and 100 for the left bone. In the Bush 
femora the linea aspera was moderate, and the same remark applies to the Negro skeletons. 
In the Anthropoid apes the linea aspera is very faintly marked, the shaft of the femur 
is not prismatic, but is antero-posteriorly compressed, and with the lateral aspects rounded. 
In an adult orang the transverse diameter of the middle of the shaft of each femur was 
24 mm. and the antero-posterior diameter 18 mm., the index being only 75 ; in an adult 
chimpanzee the corresponding diameters were 27 and 21 mm., and the index was 77. 
Of the femora, the indices of which have been given above, the Australians exhibit a 
much wider departure from, the proportions of the shaft in the Anthropoid apes than do the 
skeletons of the Asiatics. The strength and projection of the linea aspera are to be associated 
with the development of the muscles engaged in retaining the equilibrium of the trunk on 
the thighs and hip joints, and in extending the knee joint, that is to say, groups of muscles 
which play an important part in the assumption and preservation of the erect posture. 
The investigations both of Mr. Busk and of M. Broca demonstrated some years ago the 
tendency in primeval man, as shown in skeletons obtained in sepulchral caves in various 
parts of Western Europe, to have the shaft of the tibia laterally compressed. Conjoined 
with this lateral compression the posterior surface of the tibia was no longer flattened, 
but convex from side to side. To this form of tibia the term platyknemic has been 
applied. Similar observations have been made by Professor Jeffries Wyman on tibiae 
from ancient mounds in the United States. Virchow has also called attention to the 
platyknemic type of tibia (although with certain differences) in an Oahuan, a native of 
New Britain, and in some skeletons from the Philippine Islands, including Negritos. 
M. Hamy recognised a lateral flattening in the tibiae of his Aeta Negrito, although by no 
means so strongly as in European skeletons of the Stone Age. The occurrence of platy- 
knemia in various races of men has recently been discussed by M. Kuhft? In the tibiae 
1 See Busk in Trans. Internat. Congress of Prehistoric Arcbreology, 1868, p. 161, and Jovm. EtliTwl. Soc. Lond., 
January 1871; Broca in Memoires sur les ossemens cles Eyzies, Paris, 1868; J. Wyman in Fourth Annual Report of 
Peabody Museum, 1871 ; Virchow in Verhandl. d. Berlin. Ges. f. Anthrop. in Zeitsch. f. Ethn., 1872, Bd. Lv. s. 207, and 
1880, Bd. xii. s. 112; M. Hamy in NouveUes Archives du Museum, t. ii. p. 209, 1879, also Eeliquise Aquitanicse; and 
Kuhff in Revue d'Anthropologie, 1881. 
