730 
THE VOYAGE OE H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
On two occasions the pinnace was engaged in dredging in Nares Harbour in 16 to 25 
fathoms, the deposit being usually coral mud and sand. Sponges, Alcyonarians, 
Hydroids, Annelids, Crustaceans, and Echinoderms were abundant, and several of them 
have proved to be undescribed species. 
The Crania of the Admiralty and other Pacific Islanders collected during the 
voyage have been reported on by Professor Turner, and he has supplied the following 
resume of the conclusions embodied in his Report: 3 — “ It is generally admitted that at 
least two well-defined aboriginal races of men occupy the South Sea Islands. The one, 
named Papuan or Melanesian, inhabits New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, and other 
groups to the east, south, north, and west. This race is distinguished by its sooty-brown 
or black skin, black frizzly hair, and well developed beard. The other, named 
Polynesian or Mahori, inhabits the islands in the more eastern part of the Pacific, from 
the Sandwich Islands in the north to New Zealand in the south. This race is 
distinguished by its light brown or yellowish skin, straight black hair, and scanty beard. 
The so-called Micronesian race, which occupies the Pelew and other islands in the north- 
west part of the Pacific, is not a pure race, but apparently a mixture of the Mahoris and 
Papuans with offshoots of the brachycephalic Negrito and Malay races, whose present 
home is especially in the islands of the Indian Archipelago. The Malay and Negrito races 
are also represented in the western parts of New Guinea, on the sea coast of which colonies 
of Malays have estabhshed themselves, whilst the mountains in the northwest are 
apparently occupied by a Negrito population. If the Australian continent be included 
in the Pacific area, then its aboriginal inhabitants constitute another ethnic element in 
this region of the globe. 
“ New Guinea is the headquarters of the Melanesian race. Their head form is 
distinctly dolichocephalic, i.e., the skull is long and relatively narrow, and the length- 
breadth or cephalic index is below 75. But the height of the skull in this race of men is 
more than the breadth, so that the vertical index is greater than the cephalic. The 
Admiralty Island crania collected by the Challenger exhibited this type of skull in a 
characteristic form. In the Loyalty Islands, the New Hebrides, and the mountainous 
parts of Fiji, the crania of the Melanesian people present in an exaggerated form the 
characters of length, narrowness, and relative height, so that the term hypsistenocephalic 
was applied by the late Dr. Barnard Davis to these skulls. These characters are fostered 
perhaps by tribal interbreeding and hereditary descent amongst people who have little or 
no intermixture with other races. 
“ The Samoa and Tonga Islands are apparently the central home of the Mahoris or 
Polynesians in the Pacific, from which they have diffused themselves in several direc- 
tions. Their head form is brachycephalic, i.e., the skull is broad and rounded, and the 
1 Report on the Human Skeletons — The Crania, by Professor W. Turner, E.R.S., Zool. Chall. Exp., part xxix., 1884. 
