38 REV. D. GATH WHITLEY, PRIMEVAL MAN IN BELGIUM. 
relics) was found in a cavern near Dusseldorf in 1857, is always 
taken as the principal type of the Canstadt race. What story 
has it to tell ? It is easy to quote the words of Professor 
Huxley, who declared that it was the most ape-like skull he 
had ever seen. But there are other scientists who have 
expressed opinions directly contrary to this statement. 
M. Pruner Bey thought that the Neanderthal skull belonged 
to an idiot. Rudolf Wagner stated that it might have been 
possessed by a modern Dutchman. Von Mayer maintained 
that it was probably the skull of a Cossack who was killed in 
the Napoleonic wars in 1813 or 1814!* * * § 
We have first to consider the size of the brain which this 
skull — the Neanderthal — contained. Unfortunately, only the 
upper part of the skull was found, so that the calculations were 
uncertain. It has, however, been estimated that the cranial 
capacity of the Neanderthal skull, when perfect, must have 
been at least 1,220 cubic centimetres. As this is as large as 
many Malay skulls, and even larger than many of the skulls 
possessed by the ancient Peruvians, it is clear that the men of 
the Canstadt race were possessed of brains quite as large as 
those owned by intelligent human beings of the present day. 
Doubtless the form and details of the skulls of Spy and 
Neanderthal, and of others which are typical of the Canstadt 
race, are rude and brutal. But de Quatrefages showsf that the 
skulls of the Scottish hero, Robert Bruce, of a bishop of Toul 
in the fourth century, and of a celebrated Danish politician of the 
seventeenth century, are all remarkably like the much-abused 
Neanderthal skull ! All these facts show that there is nothing 
essentially brutal in this celebrated skull. According to 
Professor Huxley, it is much like the skulls of the Australian 
natives in the province of Victoria.:}: The black Australoid 
race, according to the same eminent anthropologist, § is 
extended from Central India to Australia, and many scientists 
now hold that this race was identical with the Canstadt men of 
primeval days.|| We know that the intelligence of the native 
Australians has been very much underrated, and their skill and 
ability are now known to be considerable. They easily learn 
* La Race Humaine de Neanderthal , p. 95. 
t The Human Species, pp. 309, 310. 
f Natural History Review , 1864. 
§ Report of the International Congress of Prehistoric Archaeology , 1868, 
pp. 94, 96. 
|| Les Invasions Paleolithiques dans l’ Europe Occidentale, par M. P. 
Girod, pp. 17-35. 
