40 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
descriptions of the two New Holland skulls which were presented to him by Sir Joseph 
Banks, and of the description and figures by W. Gibson 1 and Alex. Monro, ter tins, 2 of the 
skull of a New Hollander, the craniology of the aborigines of Australia has excited so 
much attention that a very extensive literature is now in existence. As the task of 
making an analysis of this literature, of naming the various writers, and of drawing up 
a comparative description of the skulls of the different tribes that have been examined, 
has already been so admirably performed by MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy, in the 
Crania Ethnica it is unnecessary for me to travel over their ground. Since the publication 
of their chapter on the Australian crania, however, two additional important contributions 
on the subject have been made by Prof. Plower, viz., the measurements of the skulls in 
the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons 3 and a lecture on the Native Races of the 
Pacific, 4 also some minor papers by other writers, which have given further material for 
comparison. 
It may now, therefore, be useful to compare the general results which I have arrived 
at from the examination of the Australian crania described in this Report with those of 
the above eminent craniologists. MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy give 71 ‘19 as the mean 
cephalic index deduced from eighty-two observations on both male and female skulls 
(p. 321), many of the measurements of which were not made by themselves, but collected 
from the writings of their predecessors. They give, however, detailed measurements of 
thirty-eight skulls, which they divide into two types. The first type, consisting of thirty- 
one skulls, which represents the ordinary form of Australian cranium, they divide into 
coast tribes and tribes from the interior. Belonging to the coast tribes were fourteen male 
skulls, with a cephalic index of 69 '89, and ten females with an index of 72'57. Belong- 
ing to the tribes of the interior were four males, C. I. 71 '2, and three females, C. I. 73'74. 
The second type they name dolicho-platycephalic, from the length and lowness of the 
cranium; four male skulls belonging to it had a cephalic index 6 9 ‘27, and three females, 
C. I. 72'37. The mean of the entire series of thirty-eight crania was 71'5. Prof. Flower 
does not propose any division into types of the fifty-four crania the characters of 
which he has analysed in his Native Races. Forty-nine of these were adults, — twenty-six 
males, nineteen females, and four doubtful. The male adults had a cephalic index 
71 '2, the females 7 2 '3, the mean of the series being 71 '75. These skulls, with 
three exceptions, range from 67 to 74, and of the exceptions one has an index 
of 75, one of 76, and one of 78. It should be remembered, however, that Prof. 
Flower excludes the glabella in his measurement of the antero-posterior maximum ; 
if this had been included it is probable that one, if not two, of the exceptional 
crania might have been included with the rest in the dolichocephalic category. He 
1 Dissertatio de forma ossium gentilitia, Edinburgh, 1809. 
2 Outlines of the Anatomy of the Human Body, vol. i. p. 379, pi. xx. fig. 2 ; voL iv., Edinburgh, 1813. 
3 Catalogue, Osteological series, 1879. 
4 Proc. Royal Inst, of Great Britain, May 31, 1878. 
