44 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
descriptions of numerous travellers comes to the conclusion 1 that originally two distinct 
ethnological elements were indigenous to Australia. The one dolichocephalic, tall in 
stature, with robust and well proportioned bodies, long, straight, and smooth hair, and 
with the skin chocolate coloured. The other yet more dolichocephalic, of smaller stature 
and less robust, the skin black, the hair crisp and frizzly, the jaw very prognathic, and 
of less intelligence than the preceding. He thinks that the pure type of the inferior 
race is now extinct, but that it is preserved amongst many of the women of the tribes, 
and that the present people are the result of the crossing of the inferior and superior races. 
On the other hand a very competent observer, Mr. R. Brough Smyth , 2 whilst making 
allowance for the local infusion of Papuan, Malay, or even Chinese blood, states that 
throughout Australia the natives exhibit a general conformity to one pattern as regards 
features, colour, and mental characters, so that “ a man from Southern Gipps Land w'ould 
be recognised as an Australian by the inhabitants of Port Essington, and a native of King 
George’s Sound would be surely known if taken to York Peninsula.” Prof. Giglioli also 
thinks 3 that the idea of a woolly haired race in Australia is due to the loose way in w T hich 
the terms woolly and crisp have been used by explorers who were not anthropologists. 
With these different views before us, it will not be without interest to examine the 
collection of crania just described, to see if they present such diversities in form as 
might fairly be regarded as racial, and at the same time to ascertain what has been said 
on this matter by preceding craniologists. 
Professor Huxley described and figured, about twenty years ago, 4 an Australian skull 
from Western Port which differed from the majority of Australian crania in being 
remarkably depressed at the vertex, and at the same time considerably elongated, 5 and 
he referred to other skulls from South Australia which possessed similar characters. He 
directed attention to certain features of resemblance between these crania and the 
Neanderthal skull. In a later work he has figured 6 one of these South Australian crania 
from near Adelaide (No. 5334 Cat. Roy. Col. Surgeons) and has again called attention to 
the Australoid character of certain ancient European crania. Prof. Flower in his new 
catalogue has given some of the dimensions of this Adelaide skull (No. 1072 New Cat.), 
which, with a length of 190 mm. possesses a cephalic index 70 ’5 and a vertical index of 
only 65*3. MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy, in an early fasciculus of the Crania Ethnica, 
on human fossil races, have discussed at some length (p. 39 e.s.) these conclusions of 
1 Etude sur les Races indigenes de 1 : Austral ie, Bull. Soc. Anth., Paris, t. xii. p. 211, 1872. Also a critical review 
on the Australian Races in Revue d’ Anthropologic, t. i. p. 298, 1872. Also in his Anthropologie, op. cit. 
2 The Aborigines of Victoria, London, 1878, vol. i. p. xvii. Mr. Smyth was for many years Secretary of the Board 
for the protection of the Aborigines. 
3 Viaggio intomo al Globo della corvetta “ Magenta,” Milan, 1876 ; quoted by MM. cfe Quatrefages and Hamy, p. 300. 
4 Man’s place in Nature, p. 155, 1863. 
5 Prof. Flower has given in his new catalogue, p. 187, the dimensions of this skull from Western Port, from which 
it can be seen that the height 131 mm. slightly exceeded the breadth 130 mm. The vertical index was 73'6, the cephalic 
73 - 0. The length was 178 mm. 
0 Prehistoric remains of Caithness, 1866, p. 131, figs. 62-65. 
