90 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
Island in the Paris Museum, the basi-bregmatic height exceeded the greatest transverse 
diameter, but in a female skull from the same island the opposite relation occurred. In 
nine of the thirteen male crania from the inland district of the Fly River collected by 
D’Albertis the vertical index was above the cephalic, but in three only of the eight 
female crania did a similar relation prevail. 1 
So far then as one can base conclusions on these characters of the crania, two very dis- 
tinct types of skulls have been procured in New Guinea, which must without doubt be 
regarded as indicating the presence in and around that island of more than one race of men. 
The testimony of several travellers points also to a similar conclusion. The Rev. S. Macfar- 
lane, who for so many years has been engaged in missionary work amongst these people, 
states 2 that the bush tribes are greatly inferior both mentally and physically to the coast 
tribes, and that the latter have driven the aboriginal bush tribes into the interior. Signor 
d’ Albertis makes frequent reference 3 to differences which he observed both in the form 
of the head and in the customs of the people of the interior and those of the coast. He 
regards it as certain that many races or varieties have come in contact, and that they are 
more or less mixed in the district of the Fly River. To all appearance the aborigines 
of New Guinea, who are most numerous and most widely diffused throughout the island, 
are a dolichocephalic people, constituting the Melanesian or Papuan element, which 
probably preserves its purity in the interior of the island ; though from the great 
preponderance of dolichocephalic skulls obtained by Dr Meyer from Rubi and Mysore, 
it is also obvious that there are parts of the coast where skulls of this type abound. 
But from its geographical position New Guinea is on the high road between the 
Pacific and the Indian Oceans, and a stream of migration both from the west and from 
the east seems to have flowed around its shores. From the east it has received without 
doubt colonies of brachycephalic Polynesians, who have occupied the Louisiade Archi- 
pelago and the adjacent coasts of the main island. From the west it has been, and is 
indeed at the present day, visited by the brachycephalic Malays for purposes of trade, 
who have established themselves at Salwatti and the adjacent parts of the west coast. To 
the west it is also brought into relation with the brachycephalic, short-statured Negrito. 
In some localities on the seaboard, or the adjacent small islands, immigrant races may 
have entirely displaced the aborigines ; in others it is not unlikely that an intermixture 
of a foreign with the proper native Papuan race may have taken place, and according 
to the extent of that intermixture would the physical characters and the customs 
of the people of the locality undergo a modification. The presence of a Negrito 
element in New Guinea, more especially in the mountainous district in the north-west, 
has also been strongly insisted on by MM. de Quatrefages and Flamy, and the brachy- 
cephalic Karons (p. 84) are regarded by them as exhibiting characters which closely 
1 See Mantegazza and Regalia’s third table. 
3 New Guinea, vol. ii. 
2 Atlienceum, December 2, 1876. 
