REPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
5 
and sub-brachycephalic which M. Broca, 1 and Dr. Thurnam, 2 have employed, or a some- 
what similar series of terms suggested by Prof. Huxley; 3 for, however interesting such 
subdivisions may be in recording the indices of individual skulls, they are really of 
little practical value in expressing differences of race ; and by giving an appearance of 
minute accuracy under conditions which are variable within certain limits, they are apt 
to give an importance to groups, the numerical limits of which are quite arbitrary, greater 
than they actually possess. The numbers which I have employed to mark the limits of 
each of the three groups are similar to those used by Prof. Flower : — e.g. , Dolichocephalic, 
below 75 ; Mesaticephalic, 75 to 80 ; Brachycephalic, above 80. 
The vertical or altitudinal index has been calculated from the relations between the 
basi-bregmatic height and the glabello-occipital length. It is, therefore, an expression of 
the relation of length to height. Data for calculating the relation of breadth to height 
and of forming therefore a breadth-height index, are provided in the tables. The 
terms platycephalic or tapeinocephalic have been suggested by various craniologists, to 
indicate skulls with a low vertical index, and akrocephalio or hypsicephalic 4 to express 
those whose index is high. For skulls of intermediate or moderate altitude I have 
used the term metriocephalic. The following classification of skulls in accordance 
with the relations of length and height is adopted in this Report : — Tapeinocephalic, 
below 72; Metriocephalic, between 72 and 77 ; Akrocephalic, above 77. 5 
The minimum frontal, Stephanie, and asterionic diameters have been taken according 
to the methods prescribed by M. Broca. In many instances, though not in all, the 
Stephanie diameter gives the greatest diameter in the region of the frontal bone. 
The horizontal circumference has been obtained with a graduated tape line, by 
measuring from the most projecting part of the glabella around the occipital point back 
to the glabella. The total longitudinal arc is the distance in a curved line from the nasion 
over the vertex, to the opisthion, and the proportions contributed to this arc by the 
frontal, parietal, and occipital bones respectively, are also stated. The vertical transverse 
arc is measured from the supra-auricular point over the bregma to the corresponding 
1 Bulletins de la Society d’ Antliropiologie, t. i. p. 507, 1861 ; La, classification et la nomenclature craniologiques in 
Revue d’ Anthropologie, t. i. p. 385, 1872. 
2 Ancient British and Gaulish Skulls, Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London, vol. i. 1865. 
3 Prehistoric Remains of Caithness, p. 85, 1866. 
4 M. M. de Quatrefages and Hamy (Crania Ethnica, passim ) call a skull hypsistenocephalic when the vertical index 
is higher than the cephalic index. 
5 In a recent number of the Archiv fiir Anthropologie, Ed. xv., 1st and 2nd Vierteljahrsheft, 1884, published after 
the above Report was in type, Professors Kollmann, Ranke and Virchow in recommending certain terms and methods 
to be employed by craniologists suggest the following to express the altitudinal index ; Chamaecephalic (flat skulls) up 
to 70'; Orthocephaiic from 70'1 to 75’; Hypsicephalic (high skulls) 75 '1 and upwards. The term metriocephalic, which 
I have suggested in the text is, I would submit, to be. preferred to that of orthocephaiic, because it expresses like the well 
known terms mesaticephalic and mesocephalic, a form intermediate between two extremes {pirpios moderate), whilst the 
word op(iU has no special relation to this intermediate index. Besides the term orthocephaiic had previously been used 
by Prof. Welcker to express the breadth index of a group of skulls intermediate between the dolichocephalic and 
brachycephalic. 
