NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
731 
length-breadth or cephalic index exceeds 80. In these skulls the height as a rule is 
below the breadth, so that the vertical index is less than the cephalic. But in compar- 
atively few of the islands of the Pacific are the crania restricted to either a simple 
dolichocephalic or brachycephalic standard. Both forms do, without doubt, occur in a 
pure state. Thus all the skulls collected in Wild Island in the Admiralty group were 
dolichocephalic. But it is not uncommon to obtain skulls of mixed or mesaticephalic 
proportions, i.e., with the cephalic index ranging from 75 to 80, along with in some 
islands dolichocephalic, in others brachycephalic, crania. These variations can be 
sufficiently accounted for on the theory that the two great Pacific races are in 
some islands pure, in others mixed with each other, either in colonies living 
side by side in the same island, or by intermarriage. The crania collected by the 
Challenger in the Sandwich Islands furnished an excellent illustration of different types 
of skull occurring in one region, for eleven of these skulls were distinctly brachycephalic, 
fifteen were dolichocephalic, and eleven were mesaticephalic. Amongst the Maoris in 
New Zealand, also, a good deal of variation occurs in the proportion of the length and 
breadth of the skull, which points also to a mixture of races in that island. In the 
Society and the Marquesas groups, as well as in many of the smaller islands in the 
eastern Pacific, a mixture of dolichocephalic, brachycephalic, and mesaticephalic crania 
has also been shown to occur by various observers, more especially MM. de Quatrefages 
and Hamy, Dr. Barnard Davis, and Professor Flower. From the study of the crania in 
the Polynesian region there is good reason to believe that the Melanesian race had at one 
time been widely distributed throughout those islands, and that they had been inhabited 
by Papuans prior to the Mahori colonisation. But even in those more western islands of 
the Pacific, which are the special habitat of the Melanesian race, colonies of Polynesians 
have established themselves. The Louisiade Archipelago, the adjacent coast of the main 
island of New Guinea, some of the Fiji Islands, Tanna and Efate, or Sandwich Islands, 
in the New Hebrides, have all received Polynesian immigrants, and crania of brachy- 
cephalic and mesaticephalic proportions have been obtained in them. 
“ The Australian race, again, seems to be confined to that great island continent. 
The aborigines, although on some parts of the coast line they make rude canoes, are not 
a seafaring people, and have been unable therefore to spread for any great distance 
beyond the Australian shores. On the other hand, they do not appear to have been 
much modified by mixture with other existing races. For although small colonies of 
Polynesians may have settled on the northeast coast, and the Malays are in the habit 
of visiting the west and northwest coasts, they seem to have exercised no appreciable 
effect upon the people. The Papuans have, however, apparently somewhat modified the 
characters of the tribes on the north coast, as it has been stated by Mr. Paul Foelsche 
that the hair of the head of the men of those tribes is invariably thick and curly, whilst 
the general appearance of the hair of the Australians is straight and smooth. The 
