REPOET ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
119 
the collection in the Freiburg Museum. Anoutschine puts its occurrence in the negro 
skull at 12*8 per cent. He also gives its proportion in the Papuan skulls, based on the 
observations of A. B. Meyer and Mantegazza on three hundred and thirty-six skulls, at 
6 A per cent., and on thirty- nine crania examined by himself at 5 A per cent. Flower 
found it in the Australian skulls examined by him in the proportion of 9 per cent., 1 
but Virchow, who has summarised 2 observations by various authors on one hundred and 
forty-two Australian crania, places it at 16 '9 per cent. On the other hand the squamoso- 
frontal articulation does not appear to have been seen in any Tasmanian skull. 
Anoutschine gives the proportion of its occurrence in one hundred and eighty Polynesian 
crania at 3 ‘3 per cent, and in one hundred and sixty-six Malay skulls at 4*8 per cent. 3 
The spheno-pterygoid foramen is also a variation of considerable interest in the 
human skull. It was seen with complete osseous boundaries in three of the skulls on 
which I have reported. A memoir on this foramen has recently been written by 
Dr. Eugen Roth, 4 who states that he has seen it with complete bony boundary ten 
times in two hundred and seven European crania, i.e., 4 - 8 per cent. He puts its percentage 
with partial and complete bony walls, amongst exotic crania very much higher, 32 
per cent, in Asiatics; 50 per cent, in Australians and Papuans; 30’6 per cent, in 
Africans ; and 20 per cent, in American Indians, but the number of skulls of these 
coloured races which he has examined is far too small on which to frame any sound 
generalisation. 5 
In addition to the measurements of the crania recorded in the several Tables printed 
in the early part of this Report, I selected at least one characteristic specimen of each 
group of skulls, and bisected it longitudinally and vertically immediately to one side of 
the septum nasi and mesial plane of the cranial cavity. A careful rubbing was then taken 
of the outline of the section of each skull, and on this several lines were drawn and angles 
measured. As to the importance of this method of studying the skull I am quite in 
accordance with Profs. Huxley 6 and Cleland. 7 Indeed I may say that I had looked at 
the comparative anatomy of the skull from this point of view many years ago, when I 
1 Native races of the Pacific Ocean. 
2 Zeitschr. f. Ethnol., Bd. xii. p. 20, 1880. 
3 Dr. Schiocker in his Inaugural Dissertation, Dorpat, 1879, “Die Anomalien des Pterion,” discusses how the 
squainoso-frontal articulation arises, and this question is also considered by J. B. Sutton in Journ. Anat. a^nd Phys., 
vol. xvii. p. 220, 1884. It would seem as if an epipteric bone is normal in the development of the human skull, 
and usually joins the parietal to form its antero-inferior angle. If it fuses instead with the squamosal or frontal 
then it connects those bones and cuts off the parietal from the ali-sphenoid. Sometimes it remains up to adult 
life as a distinct epipteric bone. 
4 Archiv f. Anthrop., Bd. xiv. p. 73, 1882. 
5 I may also refer to Dr. Krause’s measurements of the skulls in the Godeffroy Museum, for several examples of 
this and the other forms of cranial variation described in the text. 
6 Two widely contrasted forms of the Human Cranium, Journ. Anat. and Phys., p. 60, Nov. 1866. 
7 Variations of the Human Skull, Phil. Trans., 1869 ; and Description of a Sulu Skull in Journ. Anat. and Phys., 
p. 663, July 1877. 
