REPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
129 
In upholding, however, a system of classification based upon these and other 
proportions of the skull, I do not wish it to be supposed that I undervalue the import- 
ance of other physical characters. The colour of the skin, the colour and character of 
the hair and eyes, the shape of the nose and lips, the stature, and the form of the 
pelvis, are all important factors in the determination of the distinctive physical features 
of races. To say that a series of skulls is dolichocephalic, or that another series is 
brachycephalic, is merely to express that they have in common a certain relation of 
length and breadth of the cranium, and by no means indicates that all the doliclio- 
cephali belong to one race only, and all the brachycephali to another. But I believe 
that by taking a combination of cranial characters we can lay down certain propositions 
as regards unmixed races of men, which, whilst allowing for the occurrence of occasional 
individual variations, will be as distinctive as those afforded by the study of any other 
series of physical characters. For variations occur in such characters, as in the cranium 
itself, and no more striking illustration could be given than the occasional appearance 
of an albino amongst the coloured races. 
In unmixed races, where the skull is markedly dolichocephalic, brachycephalic skulls, 
one may say, never occur ; and similarly in unmixed races, where the skull is markedly 
brachycephalic, dolichocephalic skulls are not met with. Hence even an unskilled observer 
would have no difficulty in distinguishing the skull of a Melanesian Loyalty Islander 
from that of an Andamanese, or that of an Australian from a brachycephalic Sandwich 
Islander. Similarly the dolichocephalic skull of an African negro, or of a Kaffir, may be 
readily differentiated from that of a mesaticephalic Bushman. Mixed races again are 
more difficult to deal with, especially if the mixture be that of a dolichocephalic with a 
brachycephalic race. For the people resulting from such a mixture will of necessity 
present many diversities in cranial form. Some will have heads which exhibit, with but 
little variation, the characters of one or other of the two parent types, but in others 
intermediate characters will arise, which may incline in some to those of one parent 
type, in others to those of the other. It is I think through the want of a due recognition 
of the effects which may be produced on the form of the head by this mixing of races 
that discredit has been thrown on the value of the skull in the determination of racial 
characters. 
The question may be fairly discussed whether all unmixed races are either dolichocep- 
halic or brachycephalic, and whether mesaticephalic people are invariably due to a mixture 
with each other of races possessing the two extreme types of head form. There can, I think, 
be no doubt that the dolichocephalic African negro, the hypsistenocephalic Melanesian, and 
the dolichocephalic Esquimaux, are all unmixed races. Their cranial and other physical 
characters are so decided that each of these people is distinctively differentiated from all 
other races. Similarly the brachycephalic Andamanese, Mongolians, and American Bed- 
skins are distinguished by definite characters from each other and from other races. I 
(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP. — PART XXIX. — 1884.) Ef 17 
