REPORT ON THE BONES OF THE HUMAN SKELETON. 
87 
of the chimpanzee or gorilla, 1 the Australians and Bushmen are more like the Europeans, 
and the Tasmanians again are still further removed than the Europeans from the pithecoid 
proportions. The Lapps and the Esquimaux are also considerably below the European 
standard, so that in their scapular index, as well as in the tibio-femoral index, as will be 
shown in a subsequent chapter (p. 108), these extreme northern races are amongst the 
least pithecoid in their proportions. 
Although I have given in the table the infraspinous index, yet I am doubtful if 
much value can be attached to it as a race character, for its range of variation in the 
same race is so extensive. Thus in the Australian scapulas, which I measured, this index 
ranged from 74 to 101, and in the Negros from 80 to 117, and a difference of from 
5 to 8 in the infraspinous index in opposite scapulae of the same skeleton was not 
uncommon. 
M. Livon in his thesis on the scapula, so frequently referred to, did not limit himself 
to such measurements as enabled him to compute the scapular and infraspinous 
indices, but determined the distance between several other points of the bone, and also 
calculated a supraspinous index. Although I have made the measurements for the 
determination of this index, I have not thought it necessary to incorporate them in this 
Report. 
As, in the Anthropoid Apes, the relatively greater supraspinous fossa is associated 
with an obliquity of the spine of the scapula, much more marked than in the human 
scapula, in which the axis of the spine approaches to a right angle with the vertebral 
border of the bone, I was desirous of ascertaining if modifications in the direction of the 
spine of the scapula existed in the different races of men to such a degree as to establish 
a race character. I accordingly devised a goniometer which would, I thought, enable me 
to determine the angle which the axis of the spine formed with the vertebral border. I 
found, however, that this border had not unfrequently projections and depressions in it, 
which gave a degree of uncertainty to the base line, and made it difficult at times to deter- 
mine, with precision, the angle which the axis of the spine formed with it. In twenty- 
five European scapulae this scapulo- spinal angle ranged from 73 to 91 , and the mean of 
the series was 82°‘5. In eleven Australian scapulae the range was from 67° to 86°, and 
the mean of the series was 7 8° -2. In four scapulae of chimpanzees the mean scapulo- 
spinal angle was 50° ‘5, and the mean of two orangs was 66 '5. On these measure- 
ments, therefore, the Australians were intermediate between the Europeans and Anthro- 
poid Apes in this relation. But in stating this result it is right that I should say, for 
the reason already given, that I was not always satisfied with the accuracy of the angle 
obtained, though the mean probably furnishes a fair approximation to the relation of the 
two lines with each other. 
1 Messrs. Flower and Garson give 69'9 as the mean scapular index in the chimpanzee, and 72'2 as. that of the 
gorilla ; M. Livon states the index to be 71 in the chimpanzee and 70 in the gorilla. 
