REPORT ON THE BONES OF THE HUMAN SKELETON. 
97 
SHAFT OF THE INFERIOR EXTREMITY. 
Both the femur and the tibia were examined in the several skeletons to see if any 
peculiarities existed in the shape of the bones. M. Broca directed attention some years 
ago to some femora in which the middle third of the shaft was prismatic and triangular, 
the lateral surfaces being concave, and the linea aspera projecting posteriorly as a strong 
raised ridge. Bones of this shape were termed femur a pilastre or femur a colonne. 
The femora from Cro-Magnon, near Les Eyzies, and those of the Guanches in the Museum 
of the Anthropological Society of Paris, were illustrative of this shape of femur, and 
M. Topinard has found the femora of the New Caledonians to possess a similar form. 
In my series of Australian skeletons this variety of femur was seen to great advan- 
tage in those from the Riverina, Eucla, Manly Cove, and Queensland. In the Riverina 
skeleton the transverse diameter of the middle of the shaft of the right femur was 
25 mm., and the antero-posterior diameter was 33 mm., which gives an index of 132 ; in 
the Eucla, Manly Cove, and Queensland skeletons this index was respectively 120, 120, and 
127. In almost all the Australian femora the ridge from the linea aspera to the great 
trochanter to which the gluteus maximus is attached, was strongly marked ; in some it 
was raised so as to form a low trochanter tertius, and the projection was accentuated 
by an elongated depression parallel to its outer side. In one adult Andaman Islander 
the prismatic form of the femoral shaft was very pronounced, and the same character 
was seen in the Oahuan, Esquimaux, and Lapp skeletons. I have also sometimes seen 
the shaft of the femur in Europeans in my dissecting room prismatic in shape. In five 
of seven New Zealand femora a peculiar flattening of the upper third of the anterior 
surface of the shaft immediately below the great trochanter was recognised. This was 
associated with, and apparently due to the projection outwards of an infra-trochanteric 
ridge, extending downwards from below the outer side of the great trochanter ; but in 
these bones the middle of the shaft was not prismatic. A similar flattening was also 
observed in an odd femur, which, though it was presented to the museum along with 
some New Zealand bones, was said to be Australian. In the femora from a skeleton, 
which I obtained a number of years ago in a cave at Oban, Argyllshire, an equally 
well-pronounced flattening of the upper third of the shaft was seen, and the infia- 
trochanteric ridge formed a definite bulging quite distinct from and in front of the lidge 
leading from the great trochanter to the linea aspera. 1 The linea aspera vas stiong, 
but not so projecting as in the Australians. In the Oahuan femoia, and in the Lapp 
and Esquimaux skeletons, the flattened anterior surface of the upper third of the shaft 
with the prominent external infra-trochanteric ridge was also present. In some of the 
1 This form of femur apparently corresponds with that found in a femur from a sepulchral cave at Perthi-Chwaren 
in Denbighshire, described by Mr. Busk in Journ. Ethnol. Soc. Lond., January 1871. I described this Oban ca\e to the 
Anthropological Department of the British Association in 1871 (see Reports of Edinburgh meeting, p. 160, 18,1). 
(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP. PART XLVII. 1886.) ^ aa ^ ^ 
