REPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
93 
very marked manner, as may be seen in the following examples : — C.I. 68 '9, Y.I. 7 7' 6 ; 
C.I. 68-1, Y.I. 80-2 ; C.I. 7(P5, Y.I. 79'3 ; C.I. 64'9, Y.I. 74*2 ; C.I. 7D3, Y.I. 81’3. In 
this series of skulls Dr. Rabl-Riickkard regards fourteen as men, six as women, whilst the 
sex of the remaining twenty -five could not be determined with accuracy. 
Skulls, preserved heads, and busts from the Solomon Islands are in several museums. 
Mr. Webster describes 1 the natives of San Christo val as almost black, with woolly hair and 
Papuan countenances. Captain Strauch states that the people who visited the “ Gazelle ” 
at Bougainville were well built, extremely dark, with compact hair sticking far out. 
But mingled with the people possessing Melanesian characters other travellers have seen 
natives with fairer skins and long smooth hair, resembling the Mahori or Polynesian 
race. 2 Four busts of natives of the island Isabel are in the Dumoutier collection in the 
Paris Museum. They exhibit, as MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy have shown, two 
distinct types ; the one brachycephalic, the other dolichocephalic. Prof. Virchow saw on 
board a ship in Hamburg a native of the island Morissi. 3 His skin was coloured a rich, 
shining blackish-brown, almost chocolate. The hair of the head was short, frizzly, black, 
without, however, being arranged in bunches. The length of the skull was 174 '5 mm., 
its greater breadth 145 ‘5, giving an index 80 ‘2. 
Skulls or preserved heads are in the Barnard Davis collection, the Gocleffroy Museum, 
the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, the Paris Museum, and that of the 
University of Edinburgh. 4 Of these thirteen specimens, four have the cephalic indices 
respectively 75, 76 ‘3, 76 '5, 79; whilst the remaining eight are below 75, and have a 
mean length-breadth index 71. In eight specimens the height of the skull has been 
measured and the vertical index computed. In the skull with the cephalic index 79, 
from Makira, in the Barnard Davis collection, the vertical index was also 79, and in one 
from Isabel measured by Prof. Flower the two indices were respectively 75 and 75 '6, 
but in the other specimens the vertical index decidedly exceeded the cephalic. The 
skulls, though in the main dolichocephalic, yet present individual specimens which 
approximate to the brachycephalic standard. In this respect the crania bear out the 
statements of travellers that whilst the people are mainly Papuan, another race is 
intermingled with them. 
New Caledonia lies to the southward of the Solomon Islands, and the people in their 
hair and skin have strong Papuan features. The Rev. G. Turner says 5 that the people 
1 The last cruise of the “Wanderer,” Sydney, 1863, cited in Thesaurus Cranioriun. 
2 Die Inseln des stillen Oceans, by Prof. Meinicke, p. 160, Leipzig, 1875. 
3 Yerhandl. der Berliner Gesellsch. fiir Anthrop. in Zeitschr. fur Ethn., Bd. ix. p. 241, 1877. 
4 Two preserved heads from Rubiana, a small island about seven miles to the northward of Rendova Bay in New 
Georgia, one of the Solomon Islands, were presented to me by Dr. J. C. Cox of Sydney, and are now in the Anatomical 
Museum of the University of Edinburgh. They were procured by Lieut. Farie, who wrote to me that the Rubiana 
men are fierce and warlike. Probably these heads are trophies, and may have belonged to natives of New Georgia, with 
whom the Rubianans are frequently at war. 
5 Samoa, a hundred years ago. p. 340, London, 1884. 
